Lessons from the Mountain Read online

  While we were there, the gracious Nick and Nina Clooney hosted an Easter dinner for all of us who were away from home. Nick and Nina were so kind to me. When Nick was a news anchor in Los Angeles, I got to know them better and they have helped guide me over the years. They even gave me tips for this book. I adore them and call them every Easter to sing “happy anniversary.” Their son, George, was hanging around with us to work on the film as well. When we all went back to Los Angeles, we encouraged George to come to California to try this acting thing. “Who knows, it might work out for you,” we told him. Who knew?

  I was in Kentucky for my twenty-first birthday. George’s birthday is two days after mine and we are the same age. As we celebrated at the hotel, he dared me to jump into the fountain in the courtyard. Well, a dare is a dare, and in my book, the one who brought the dare should take the dare on as well. So I got up and ran to the fountain and in I went. So George had to follow me in. For years, I called him on his birthday, remembering a simpler time before he came to Hollywood to be an Academy Award winner. Whenever I see him, he is warm, and it’s just like we’re twenty years old again.

  Once I was doing a Tiger Beat fashion layout and asked if George and his cousin could be in the photo shoot with me. I still laugh when I see those pictures; they are so posed and goofy. Aside from that photo shoot, George and I have never actually worked in the same scene, but we have done three shows together. We did a play called The Biz. He was in the first act; I was in the second.

  When I did a guest appearance on his show Bodies of Evidence, he wasn’t in my scene, but he did one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for a guest actor on a show. For a day player, it can be a little intimidating going to a foreign set and not knowing anyone.

  When I arrived in the morning, the makeup artist said, “Oh, you’re Mary. I’m supposed to be really nice to you.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, George saw that you were working today and he won’t be here until later, so he told me to be nice to you.”

  Then when I went to get my hair done, the hairdresser said, “I hear you were one of the people who told George to come out here to L.A.? Thanks.”

  The same thing happened when I went to wardrobe. She said, “George asked me to take care of you.” Without even being there, he welcomed me and made my day easier. He’s one of the good guys. When I did ER, my scene was with Noah Wiley.

  All the Clooneys, including Nick’s sister and George’s aunt, Rosemary Clooney, would become friends, with their own lessons to teach me.

  I once had a friend who betrayed me, and Rosemary sat me down and said, “She’s not your friend.” She taught me to see who my real friends were and to let go of people and experiences that didn’t matter. It would take me years to understand how to do that, but her advice helped me learn to start standing up for myself and cut out the negative.

  BACK HOME

  To make myself more attractive to my agent, casting directors, and anyone who might give me a chance, I did more theater, and enrolled in Peggy Feury’s prestigious acting class. I studied there four days a week. It was like college for acting. I learned so much and pushed myself.

  When I was twenty-one, I landed a role in a low-budget horror film called Mortuary. I was glad to have the work. I lost nineteen pounds in three weeks for that movie. A young Bill Paxton was cast as the crazy bad guy. Bill was great to work with, and I killed him at the end by putting an ax in his back. Years later, Jay Leno pulled up a kooky clip from the movie to surprise him with when he was a guest. A kind of “what the heck was that?” moment for Jay. Bill identified me in the clip, which was so nice of him. My friends called me. “You were on Leno!” It’s a claim to fame for me, the only time I’ve been on The Tonight Show.

  After I finished Mortuary, NBC picked us up for three Walton MOWs. I was so happy to be back with everyone. In one, A Wedding on Walton’s Mountain, Erin got married. We were looking for a wedding dress for the show, but the wardrobe department didn’t have one that was right. My mom suggested I wear her dress. So I walked down the Walton aisle in the dress my mom married my dad in. It was an emotional moment for me as I realized my own dad wouldn’t be there if this ever happened to me for real.

  I’ll never forget Ralph standing with me in the back of the church, looking at me with those familiar baby blues. I felt so much emotion at home again with my family. I looked at him and said, “You know, you’re the only dad I have left.” I knew it would never be the same again.

  In one of the specials, I was helping Ellen say one of her lines. We were at the stove away from the others, and every time we went to shoot, she turned to me and I said her line to her over and over until it stuck in her head. She repeated it until she heard her cue, and then said the line aloud.

  When they came in for her close-up, she didn’t turn to me. I touched her arm and said, “Grandma.” I repeated the line, but she ignored me. I said it again, like I had done before. Ellen was visibly upset. She picked up her cane and hit me with it. The AD and director, who had no idea I had been helping her during every take, jumped in and chastised me for upsetting her.

  I was deeply hurt by this. I felt publicly humiliated and shut down. The rapport I thought I had with her, expressed through my desire to try to help, was severed with that cane.

  It took me a long time to realize her pride in her work was the root of her actions. She didn’t want to appear weak or unsure about a line. She was fiercely proud.

  Years later, when I was producing a reunion segment for Entertainment Tonight, I was pregnant with my daughter, Sydnee. I brought along an ultrasound picture to “introduce” her great-grandma to her great-granddaughter, and all was mended. Then when Sydnee was born a few days from Ellen’s birthday, we bonded even more. Every June we all had lunch with “grandma” to celebrate both their birthdays, until Ellen got too ill to go out.

  We had all left Walton’s Mountain, but this brief reprise was a gift. A way to reunite and say the good-byes we didn’t get to share when we were canceled. I had to grow up and away from the show, but I still wondered how I would manage on my own.

  NEW SPIRIT

  During the 1980s, I continued to question this God I was taught about in parochial school. I thought back to the rules and rigidity that was contradicting to me. To be Catholic was absolute for me. You either chose to be in all the way, or not at all. I was trying to find the gray, a balance in these two worlds I was living in. To me, there was hypocrisy to it all. I couldn’t escape the PR element on either side and I started to see the conflicting messages. Here’s an example:

  I had done an interview for the Catholic newspaper The Tidings. They asked me how my parochial-school experience helped me on the set. It was another Dinah! moment. I had no idea how it had helped me, but I knew I had to say something. My dad was staring at me as I thought hard. I told them the only thing I could think of that was true. “I guess memorizing all those Baltimore Catechism questions helped me, because I can memorize my lines.”

  When the article came out, it said something like: “Mary attributes all her success on the show to her nuns and her Catholic school and upbringing.”

  I was so disappointed—no, I was mad when the article came out. How could they twist my words around like that? Oh, to be young and trusting. This shook my foundation and taught me not to trust the press. Not even the Catholic one.

  I wanted less betrayal, trust, and a peaceful spirit—not something else that confused my sensibilities or required me to be perfect, something I could never live up to.

  I started to study different religions and spiritual practices. I read every book I could afford from the Bodhi Tree, a New Age bookstore in L.A. I loved Shirley MacLaine’s books, they resonated to me. I experienced past-life regressions, consulted with psychics and trance channelers. I studied the kabballah and the Druids of my Irish ancestors. I sat zazen at a temple and chanted with gurus. I received shaktipat and was brushed with peacock feathers. It was a wonderf
ul journey. I meditated and, of course, listened to audiotapes of my dear “friend” Wayne Dyer.

  As I studied different religions, I noticed a similar theme. When it came down to it, they were saying similar things, had parallel stories and the same basic “commandments,” if you will. A belief in something more expansive in the world and a Higher Source. This Source was less judgmental and punishing than the God I knew. I started to realize there might be forgiveness, acceptance, even a Love I never felt I could receive from the God I was taught about.

  While my mother was disappointed at my searching, I did feel she understood in a way. She had always had what she called her “hobby.” She loved to hear alien and UFO stories and read books about angels. She, too, had researched many religions before she chose Catholicism. I looked at her Ruth Montgomery books and questioned who I was and how I was connected to it all. Mom and I shared our paths, and the discussions brought us closer together.

  I credit my brother Michael with helping me find my love of nature, which connected me to my Source in those early years. He took me outdoors to escape the grind. Today, my brother has been sober for many years. I am so proud of the work he has done in his life to help change me and the world. He is still a grounding reminder of the God-ness in all things.

  My brother John moved to New Zealand for many years to play basketball, and eventually settled there for several years. I was lucky enough to visit New Zealand, and loved the country. Queenstown is where I bungee jumped off the 250-foot bridge.

  While John was away, we sent audiotapes to each other. He would talk to me from atop a glacier or while choosing apples from a roadside farm stand. While I was on Sunset Boulevard, waiting in traffic, I would hold the tape recorder out the window and “interview” the person in the next car. We had so many interesting people on those tapes we sent back and forth. They brought us together while we were ten thousand miles apart.

  I treasure my brothers and feel blessed to have them in my life. They have stood by me, and helped take up the slack when my father left us. I am the luckiest little sister in the world.

  When I struggled with the business, I looked to nature and found stillness in the peace so far away from the churches I grew up in. I prayed, but it was a different prayer now:

  Journal 1984

  Here I sit in the beauty of it all. The meadow below me is above the stream. Always I can hear the rushing flow of the water. Flowers spire to the sun. They face the light. They seem to lean the sun’s way. The tall grass leans too.

  We should all be little meadows reaching toward the light, God’s Light. For darkness comes soon enough. A time to contemplate the day and life by God’s softer light, the Moon. And when daylight shines again, it leaves yesterday with the moon.

  The stream flows down the hill. I can hear the constant flow of water. It reminds me of the constant flow of life. My life; streaming past boulders, small smooth rocks, trees and flowers, occasionally damming up behind large boulders blocking my way before the gentle release through the boulders, to freedom. Now I stream freely with the rest of my life. The water is in constant motion. May I never be dammed up for long or to where I cannot release to life’s flow. May I always remember…slow down and remember to learn from how I feel welled up behind boulders in my way.

  “IMAGINE NO POSSESSIONS”

  In my twenties, I was obsessed with staying in town to try to get work. I worked as much as I could, mostly commercials, and continued to study, but time, and any savings I had after paying off my huge tax debt, was running out. My mother had not done my income taxes correctly after my dad died and didn’t save receipts. I was audited and they went back and back. I used the money that had been put aside for me, to comply with the Coogan Act, to pay off the debt. I was twenty-five, had no career, and finally had to sell my house. I gave away, or threw away, anything that didn’t fit into a ten-by-ten storage unit. I bought a backpack, got a passport, and headed for Europe. Alone.

  When I left, I called it my hegira, an escape from persecution, from the torture I felt from the industry in which I longed to be successful. On this journey, I would learn from many people. One was a wise woman atop a nunnery in Zurich. This stranger and I watched the sunset, and she shared that I was not escaping persecution, that this trip was not a hegira. Since I had stripped myself of worldly goods, and was traveling to find myself—and my path would be revealed—that was a pilgrimage. I decided I was no longer a victim but had chosen this path. It certainly helped me look at the mountain in a new light.

  Traveling through Ireland, I spent time with my cousins. I immediately fell in love with the country my father felt so loyal to, yet he’d never seen. My McDonough family welcomed me, took great care of me, and I didn’t want to leave. It was the first time in my life I didn’t have to correct someone mispronouncing my last name. From Ireland, I flew to England, and then to Continental Europe, where I traveled all over with my backpack. As I sat at an outdoor café in Bruges, a strolling minstrel sang “Imagine” and strummed his guitar. I listened to his broken English, felt a universal connection to him, to the lyrics, and wept.

  BELLA ERIN

  I slept in youth hostels, on floors, and on friends of friends’ couches. I shared my exploration with fellow travelers: Who am I? Why am I so insecure? But only sometimes. Other times—I feel connected, almost at peace with myself and others.

  I challenged myself to explore a new city every day with only a map, usually in a language I didn’t speak. Day by day, country by country, my strength and confidence grew.

  I was glad most of my fellow travelers were just out of high school or college, and had never seen The Waltons. I wasn’t recognized until I got to Italy.

  A woman working in the open-air market in Florence was speaking Italian to me about some bric-a-brac I was admiring and suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. “You’re Erin Walton!” she screamed in a perfect New Jersey accent. “Have you seen yourself in Italian? You’re hilarious. Here’s you, ‘Mama, Mama, Mama.’ Then you run up the stairs, slam a door, and cry. You have to see yourself.”

  I never did see Erin speak Italian.

  SURRENDER

  The John Lennon lyrics “Imagine all the people, sharing all the world” became a background track to my journey. I thought I knew what giving was all about until Paris taught me a lesson in receiving.

  I believed I owed so much to people to deserve what I had been given. I tended to keep giving to feel worthy.

  My catharsis didn’t happen until I was leaving Paris. I had a Euro Pass for the train, so I knew I wouldn’t need any more francs. I was making my way down through the train station for my departure when I saw a homeless woman asking for money. I thought, I’m leaving France. I don’t need this money. I reached into my wallet and my pockets and gave her all of the francs I still had. It felt good I could be so free and maybe even help this woman a little.

  After I found the train, a conductor told me I would need to buy a supplement ticket. A supplement ticket, but I just gave away all my francs!

  I trudged back up to the ticket window and found a huge line stretched out from the cashier. It gave me time to panic. The train was due to leave soon. I had no money! Then I remembered I did carry a credit card, so I was okay. The line inched slowly. I watched the clock and tried to think of the correct French so I could ask for the ticket when it was finally my turn. I needed to catch this train; I couldn’t afford to stay longer in Paris.

  Finally I was next. I opened my mouth, my rehearsed high-school French phrases ready to spill off my tongue. I stepped up and…the ticket seller closed her station. Everyone behind me started running to the other open windows. I picked up my backpack and ran, too, but since I had been at the front, I was farthest away and was now last in line.

  Unable to speak the language, I was lost as to what had happened. I sweated the time ticking away on the large dial over the lobby, until finally I made it to the ticket seller…again. I managed to explain what I needed, a
nd then handed over my credit card.

  I didn’t understand all the words he used, but I did figure out the supplement was not enough to put on a card. I had to pay in cash. I dug in my pockets and found a small coin I hadn’t given the woman, but when I offered it to him, he shook his head. Not enough. I started to cry and tried to explain, flipping back and forth from English to French, how I gave all my money to a homeless woman downstairs, and my train was leaving in a few minutes—and I’m not sure what else I said. He just looked at me and shook his head again. I was helpless, alone, broke, and my train was about to leave the station. How could it be that I was trying to be so generous, and now this? I decided giving to others was a bunch of crap.

  That’s when the miracle happened. An American woman standing in line called up to us, “How much do you need?”

  I looked at the cashier; he held up fingers. “Well, I have a little, but not all of it.” She passed the coin forward. I was so grateful; I cried with amazement and called out my thanks to her. I gave her coin to the cashier, but he shook his head again. I felt hopeless. I was a stupid American.

  Then I heard, “Hey, here’s a coin,” and several other people in line started to pass coins forward. One man told another about the homeless woman I’d helped, and he dug some change from his pocket and passed it forward. I didn’t even know these people had heard me or even understood what I’d been blubbering.

  I sobbed as I handed the cashier all the coins these strangers had passed up to me. He finally put up his hand when he had enough and printed my ticket. I cried my thank-you to everyone, and someone said, “Run, you’ll miss your train, and that ticket will be no good.” I hoisted my pack on my back and sprinted to the platform, and leaped across the gap onto the train as the door closed.