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Jane's Filmography
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Secrets to Staying Fit
Charities
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St. Catherine's Court
Meet James Keach
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This One & That One
Two at a Time

MISCELLANEOUS
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PHOTO ALBUM
Just Jane

GUIDE TO ROMANTIC LIVING

Chapter Seven | Chapter Nine

Chapter Eight: Juggling Romance and the Busy Life

Most women have many roles to play: worker, mother, wife, hostess. And now, as if you're not exhausted enough by all these, here I come adding to the list and asking you to be romantic too. But without this romantic quality all the other roles are just a list. It is this quality that makes sense of them all. In the search for success we shouldn't lose happiness, a flair for living, a delight in our surroundings, in each other. What is the point of trying to become a superwoman if in the process we lose our souls?

If you try to do too much-to juggle too many things at once-there is always the danger that you will drop the lot. But I prefer to live dangerously. It keeps me excited about life, and there is nothing less romantic than someone who is bored.

Even the disasters are funny, in retrospect. I used to take my first child, Katie, on location with me. It was hectic. The first film I did was when Katie was three months old. I decided I was going to be Supermom. I had had to stop breast-feeding because of the film, and our pediatrician told me Katie must have a particular brand of soy formula milk. The special tins were, so I thought, brilliantly organized in strong trunks for the plane flight.

At the Los Angeles airport the baggage collapsed-the trunks just fell open, spilling tons of diapers and formula tins all over everywhere. I had to ditch them all, grab the baby and the new nanny, whom I'd known for only two days, and catch the flight for Hungary, where I was filming. In Hungary they had none of the necessities I'd left behind. They had wonderful goulash, but you can't feed a three-month-old baby goulash.

You can't aim for the skies-try to do everything-and not occasionally fail. Failure doesn't matter. It's trying that matters. A true romantic can overcome any disaster because a true romantic knows that there is always the next time.

For me romance is part of my work, part of my life. And it's something I want to pass on to my children. I don't want to be just a juggler, any more than you do. I want to have a certain beauty in my life, to have a sense of the past as well as to have hopes for the future.

My priorities have always been: my husband, my children, and then my work. I saw friends of mine who were happily married and then had children but were so obsesses with the children that they completely forgot their husbands and ended up divorced and wondering what single parenting was all about. For the sake of the children, apart from any other considerations, I believe a husband should come first. What greater gift can you give to a child than a happy and stable family background? It might seem to be best for them if you spend all your time and attention on them rather than on your husband, but in the long run it's unkind if it jeopardizes your marriage.

I want my children to have what I had, a marvelous childhood and two parents who love each other. Mine stood solidly together. There was no point in us telling tales about one parent to the other. We knew that Mummy and Daddy were one. We had to stand by their decisions. It worked very well. We are still a close family, very warm, very caring for each other. Their close, romantic relationship gave all three of us-Joyce, Sally and Anne-a great sense of security. That security has given all three of us a sense of freedom and romance.

Lists are a great help for the workaholic. If you have to go to business lunches and you are frustrated by the wasted half hours spent getting there and back, waiting at traffic lights, being stuck in traffic, instead of fretting, be constructive. Before leaving for lunch take some notes or proposals with you or just make lists. Working can help release anxieties, because you're busy and helping to get one more thing done. It's a good idea to use lost time-time spent in cars, in planes, time that would otherwise be spent worrying and waiting. Use it to write letters, for instance, to express your worries and frustrations or to express your love for someone. The time you gain by doing tasks and saving yourself worry can give you time to do something pleasurable-sit in a park, watch children playing, buy some flowers.

You have to respect each other, to think about each other, to make concessions. When I was younger I wasn't ready for that-I was too full of the selfishness of youth. Now I'm ready. It is necessary to plan your life with your partner and children well. It's no good assuming everything will be fine. Use your intelligence, your imagination, your inventiveness to make it fine. Be sure to listen, and make time or each other. But also make sure you spend time and listen to your children. Keep the right balance, for you and for them.

I remember when I was pregnant with Sean that I would lie in bed with the baby moving inside me, and I would think: Who is this? This is great. This is exciting. I don't know how it's all going to work out. It's more exciting than anything.

People say, "I'd love to be an actress. How glamorous!" But nothing ever comes close to having children: nothing. Even though I can't give up everything else to have children, and I need my work, children are much more important.

Sometimes, of course, I feel I've failed, and I end up in a corner in tears, devastated because I'm not with my children enough, but what holds me together is what my mother taught me. I feel I can only do my best.

My children have been enormously tolerant of my work. Children accept the concept of the father going out to work and coming home. They develop wonderful relationships with their fathers. There is no reason why they shouldn't do the same with their mothers. You don't have to be a full-time mother. If you have other interests, there is nothing wrong with pursuing them. Indeed, the child is far better off with a busy, fulfilled mother and a good nanny than a miserable, frustrated mother who does not enjoy staying at home. Besides, as they grow up they will be proud of your achievements, proud of your identity. Even now Katie loves to see me dress up for fashion spreads, although she is puzzled by my love scenes in films.

Everyone has an opinion on what you should and shouldn't do with your children. Some say to me that I shouldn't let my children be photographed, because they might get kidnapped. But I can't see myself going through airports throwing a coat over Katie's face every time we go past a paparazzo. What would the child think?

When Katie was three months old, Vogue wanted to photograph us together, to run eleven pages on us...I couldn't resist it. How could I tell my daughter when she was twenty-one and beautiful that I had turned down the chance of photographs in Vogue?

She's turned out to be amazingly resilient to my career. It's no big deal to her. She thinks that it's normal to have a mother on television and on magazine covers. She accepts my going off the premieres with diamonds all over me, looking like a Hollywood movie star one moment and the next dealing with car pools. She thinks nothing of it. I remember my father, a surgeon, coming home for lunch spattered with blood, and that was perfectly normal to me. I never queried what he did. I used to laugh at the jokes about gynecologists, but I had no idea what the word meant.

I knew I was proud of my father, though. My parents remind me that at school I used to tell the girls, "You're not supposed to do this. I'm a doctor's daughter and I know." When I returned home I would say, " They wouldn't listen to me. And I told them I was a doctor's daughter." They gave me an honorary degree, Joyce Frankenberg, D.D. (Doctor's Daughter).

Of course, I do get tired, especially with a baby to look after too. I change diapers and get up at night for Sean. I think, Oh, I don't want to get up and do this; maybe he'll be quiet....But those moments you spend, those moments of communication at 3:00 A.M. when everything is quiet, and there is just you and the baby looking up at you with sweet eyes: they are beautiful. You forget who you are and where you are...there's just you and the baby. I need these moments in a very complicated life.

When you work hard you need some peace. But perhaps even more than that you need a sense of humor. That is perhaps the greatest help when things go wrong, as they do in busy lives. It was something I learned from Roger Moore. He said: "If you laugh at yourself and send yourself up first, then other people can't do it to you. If you can find the humor in something you do not find humorous in yourself at all, then you'll survive."

In my profession, you need to.

Every now and then I pinch myself when I suddenly realize that very famous people do come up to me and say, "Hi, Jane. I really enjoyed your last film." I'm always totally mortified and embarrassed that they know who I am and have seen what I've done. It's exciting when it's somebody you really respect someone like Jane Fonda, Shirley MacLaine, women who are much more than just actresses, who have led rounded lives. It wouldn't be difficult to let it all go to one's head. It is vital to maintain a sense of humor and constantly to be aware of one's faults and limitations as well as one's achievements.

The other essential is to communicate as much as you can while you're apart, so that although you're separated in distance you're together in spirit.

A successful partnership must be built on self-knowledge. It's no good planning a business trip that takes a month if you crack up after a week. It sounds obvious but it is surprising how many people ignore the facts about themselves. It's one thing to be mysterious to other people, quite another to be mysterious to yourself.

I often turn down work because geographically it is impossible, or else I ask the producers if it's possible to film it near to home. A recent film, Obsessed with a Married Woman, seems to take place in New York, but I only did the film on condition it was shot in Los Angeles. Only two days were shot in New York, and the scenes in Connecticut were really shot in Malibu.

But however hard I try, there are times when I have to be away from my family. My children have had to deal with a certain amount of separation right from the start. Mine have adapted well to it: you can adapt a child to change. I don't create a routing for them which, if broken, would be devastating for them.

One day I went to a parent-teacher meeting and heard a parent say: "My son isn't yet capable of being away from me for an extra hour a day." I was grateful that my children have been able to accept my absence. I believe it is because they feel secure. The bond of breast-feeding is very important: it helps you and the baby grow to love one another. The quality of the time you spend together matters too. It mustn't be time when you shove them in front of the television and carry on with the ironing or whatever else you have to do. It's when you stop everything and spend time with the child talking about things the child wants to talk about, rather than things you want to talk about. Or you watch a movie again and again with them, even if you are bored to tears. I am currently watching The Secret of Nimh every night. I've somehow or other given Katie the knowledge that Mummy's always there if she needs me. Perhaps it comes from taking her around the world with me while I was working. Even if I were working a fourteen-hour day, at least I would see her in the morning and at night.

Now that she's at school, she cant' travel with me, which is sad, and sometimes I am lonely.

People ask me how I have the energy to do all that I do. The energy comes from romantic thinking and good juggling and an ability to be like a child. When you think romantically you are curious and open to change, yet you concentrate hard on each thing as it comes up. It's the way to achieve a full and vigorous life. It's the way to change your life-to be happy.

When I'm away I often buy Katie presents to make me feel close to her. Sometimes I see her looking really uncomfortable in some dress or sweater.

"I hate it," she tells the nanny, "but I'm wearing it because Mummy bought it."

She loves going on shopping trips with me, especially to buy shoes. Recently I went out to lunch with one of my best friends, whose child was born twenty minutes after mine in the same hospital. We took our four-year-olds to a very chic Beverly Hills restaurant and let our girls dress up for their first ladies luncheon.

At the end of the meal Katie said, very formally, "I've enjoyed that-now can we take you somewhere next time?"

"Yes," we said, "that would be lovely. Where?"

"Chuck-e-Cheese"-a pizza place somewhat like a cross between an amusement arcade and Disneyland. My idea of hell-but we had fun there too.