Jane Lynch - Happy Accidents

Vicki Lawrence wrote me back!

I knew that Vicki had gotten on The Carol Burnett Show because of a fan letter she’d written to Carol. So, of course, I had the fantasy that my letter to Vicki would produce the same result. The fact that it didn’t was of no consequence to me—I’d received a personal note from Vicki Lawrence. And she’d even spelled my name right.

These snippets of encouragement were huge to me—my bubble was now un-burstable. I pasted Vicki’s letter and photo into my scrapbook, along with the Universal letter and my Ron Howard photos, and continued forward.

SPEAKING OF MY SCRAPBOOK, I DUG IT OUT RECENTLY and was delighted to find it was a proud monument to absolute mediocrity.

Included are my report cards (mostly Bs and Cs), in addition to other cherished mementos of averageness:

An “Award for Achievement” from Vandenberg Elementary School—the award they gave to kids who didn’t win an award.

A handwritten schedule for my basketball team, the Dirksen Junior High “B” team, showing a final record of three wins and eleven losses.

Ribbons for third-place finishes in a 1975 swim meet.

I appear to be greatly amused by my own mediocrity, writing silly notes in the margins throughout the scrapbook:

Beside my basketball numerals, which were awarded to benchwarmers (starting players received letters), I wrote in all caps: “AGAIN! HA HA!”

Next to a note from my seventh-grade teacher, Mr. Gerson, that read “Mr. & Mrs. Lynch, Jane has put forth much more effort recently. She is doing better work and behaving better. I hope this continues,” I scribbled: “It didn’t! HA!”

Beside the letter from Universal, in which my name had been misspelled, I wrote: “Jamie, Ha ha! I think I’ll keep it.” On the next page, I pasted the envelope the letter had come in, highlighting its return address of the “New Talent” department. I wrote, “New Talent! That’s me!”

There is no Volume #2.

I did not like his singing. I did not write a letter asking when he would sing again.

Of course, not everything in the scrapbook was a monument to mediocrity. There was also a photo postcard from Anson Williams, who kept writing me for some reason, with a handwritten note on the back.

As I recall, when Anson sang he sounded like a Lawrence Welk baritone. Not my cup of tea, so I never did his bidding. (Besides, he was only “pretty good foxy.”)

DURING FRESHMAN YEAR IN HIGH SCHOOL, I WAS CAST as The King in a one-act production of The Ugly Duckling (the beginning, incidentally, of a lifelong pattern of being cast in roles originally intended for men). I was thrilled out of my mind—this was what I wanted to do with my life! This was my dream, and now I was officially taking the first step toward fulfilling it.

My name appeared in the school newspaper, The Bagpipe, along with those of the rest of the cast, and by all appearances, I was on my way. But when we started rehearsals, I found myself paralyzed with fear—the fear of blowing it. So … I quit the play and joined the tennis team instead.

I don’t think anyone understood why I had quit. I’m sure I didn’t. I know now it was out of pure terror. I was face-to-face with my destiny and I walked away from it rather than risk failure.

In my scrapbook, I pasted the article about The Ugly Duckling, then right next to it, I pasted another article about the tennis team. Underneath, I wrote this: “Had to drop out of play because of tennis, but mostly because I couldn’t get my character. Darn!” Obviously I had either read something or heard someone talk about the importance of “getting your character,” and I used that to feel better about what I had done. My poor little fourteen-year-old self had no idea how to process this.

But deep down inside, I knew I had killed the thing I most wanted in the world. I couldn’t stand to stay away, though, so I signed up to work on the stage crew. Stage crew—when I could have been in the thing! In the official program for the evening of one-acts, I made little check marks next to all my friends who were in the cast and crew—and I put a little star by my own name. I was putting on a brave face, but inside I was crushed.

My poor little conflicted self!

Making things even worse, I was now officially branded a quitter. In the spring of my freshman year, I tried out for another play, but I didn’t get chosen. One girl who got a part told my sister, Julie, it was because I’d quit The Ugly Duckling. When the same thing happened with Man of La Mancha—I was even passed over for the chorus!—I realized with dread that at age fourteen, my acting career was already over.

One night, as my parents sipped their “first today, badly needed” cocktails, I poured my heart out to them at the kitchen table. I cried as I explained why everything was ruined, and my mom tried to soothe me. “You made one mistake, Janie,” she said. “It doesn’t mean your life is over.”

But I was inconsolable. I started having dreams in which every one I knew had gotten a part in a play, and I was the only one who was left out. All these years later, I still have those dreams. And when I wake up, I hug my Emmy.

MEANWHILE, MY SISTER, JULIE, MADE THE POM-POM Squad. Julie was a big eye-roller, especially with me. She was always bugged by my corny jokes and goofy faces at home, but when I was about to be a freshman in the high school where she was a junior, she was wracked with fear that I would embarrass her. She was skinny and cute and looked like she just walked out of the Sears catalogue. I was clumsy and silly and had a belly. At the breakfast table, she’d say, “Okay! Get all the goofiness out now, before we go to school. Now! Get it out! Get it out! Get it out!”

My sister and I couldn’t have been more different. She went through a neatness phase where, every morning, she’d make the bed—but because I slept later than she did, I was usually still in it.

“Just slide out!” she’d say. “Don’t mess it up!”

I was a slob, so she didn’t want me touching her stuff or wearing her clothes. And she was right—I don’t know if it was the oil in my hands or what, but I had a way of ruining anything I touched. Everyone would get the same paperback math books at the beginning of the year, and somehow, by the end, mine would be completely destroyed—smudged black, dog-eared, bent cover. Everyone else’s was pristine, while mine looked like I’d taken a bath with it.

So my sister, sensibly enough, wouldn’t let me wear her clothes. “Don’t even touch them!” she said. “You’ll ruin them, or stretch them out, or both.” She even went to the trouble of locking her favorite pair of jeans to the hanging rod of our closet, through the belt loop. Which meant I had no choice but to cut them off. When she saw me strutting down the hall wearing them, she shrieked aloud. As I passed her, she mouthed, “I’m going to kill you.” I’m pretty sure I didn’t care one way or another about those jeans. I simply enjoyed tormenting her.

I tormented her in other ways, too. She wanted nothing more than to be able to sing, but the family musicality eluded her. So when I caught her in the downstairs bathroom pouring her heart into a pitchy rendition of “Edelweiss” into a tape recorder, I had to play it for all her friends.