Have I Told You This Already?: Stories I Don't Want to Forget to Remember

by Lauren Graham

and no, I won’t tell you if I’m team Jess or team Logan and no, Amy hasn’t told me any of this, but if I had to guess I think Logan is the father even though it could also be fun if it’s the Wookiee, but no matter who the father is I think the baby is a girl whose name is another permutation of Lorelai, I’m going to go with Lola).

I’ve learned a great deal over the years, but who has power in this business and why remains mysterious to me. So much of it is so subtle and unspoken, and those in power aren’t always transparent about how they got there.

That year, I got a Cascade dishwashing detergent commercial and for one day I played an assistant who was helping Susan Lucci’s Erica Kane stage a fashion show on the daytime drama All My Children.

The meal plan was very strict, no exceptions given, and Oprah was told she couldn’t have another egg. Oprah insisted she be given an additional egg, and while they eventually caved in and gave her the egg, as a punishment they took an egg away from everyone else. I have no idea if this is true or just Hollywood lore, like the rumor circulating back then that one of the ways Jennifer Aniston stayed so thin was by smoking a rare medicinal strain of marijuana that didn’t give you the munchies.

My grandmother used to say the only way she knew she wasn’t 18 anymore was when she looked in the mirror, and that makes more sense to me now.

There was a commercial you may remember from the ’80s, pre–cell phone, for a tracking/beeper-type supposedly lifesaving device that depicted a fallen senior screeching, “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!” This was a commonly repeated and mocked line at the time, partially because the commercial seemed a low-budget production and the line was dramatically delivered by the actress, but perhaps also because no one thought such a thing would ever apply to them anyway since we were all in high school just bouncing around on our pain-free joints with nary a click in our knees.