THE GOODBYE GIRL

If the answer's "nothing," that's OK.

[Laughs] I just don't know the answer yet. It's a question you'll have to ask me a year from now. I hope that I'll have such an active future that I'll just have wonderful memories. I leave this job with no regrets.

None?

If I think long enough, maybe I'll come up with one. [Laughs] I'm going into a whole other world and a whole other chapter, and I feel 20 years younger. I feel as if I have unlimited possibilities. I feel like everything is going to be... new.

Before I go, do me a favor and tell me your favorite Howard Hawks story.

He saw me in those Alberto Culver shampoo commercials and decided I was going to be the girl in "Rio Lobo," starring John Wayne. But he hated my voice, so he taught me to talk [in a Lauren Bacall growl] like this. On set, not only was I terrified, but I didn't like being someone other than myself. Afterward, I was going through a divorce, I was in therapy and I'd just seen "Valley of the Dolls," and I thought, Oh my God, I'll end up just like that! So I went to see Howard Hawks and told him I was going to quit acting and take a job reading scripts for $5 an hour. He threw me out of his house and never talked to me again. Years later I called him and said, "Well, it didn't turn out so bad, did it?" He said, "You would have been a better actress," and slammed down the phone.

© 2005