|
|
From Lifetime TV. Narrated by Mary Kay Place
NARRATOR: She stole our hearts in Swing Shift and took Chicago Hope by storm. One of America's finest actresses, Christine Lahti has won award after award.
TED DANSON: I don't like watching award shows anymore, because Christine always wins.
NARRATOR: Long married to director Thomas Schlamme and mother of three, what's this gifted woman's secret for having it all?
GOLDIE HAWN: Christine has a tremendous heart and an amazing capacity to care.
NARRATOR: She's fought all her life to be taken seriously, as an actress, and as a woman.
CHRISTINE: I had a mentor who told me "You have no light to shed upon the human existence! You shouldn't be an actress!" and I went, "No! I do, and I will!" and I think I have something to say.
NARRATOR: Christine Lahti was born in Royal Oak, Michigan on April 4, 1950, the third of six children, and she immediately began to try to stand out from the crowd.
CHRISTINE: I came in the middle, I have two brothers and three sistes, and I was the third. I just pushed everyone aside on either side, I got to work out both sides equally, pushing away. I think a large part of why I became an actor, it was "Pay attention! Pay attention!" I remember being called Sarah Bernhart sometimes with my parents because I would have these big emotional responses to things, in terms of joy and sorrow, anger and glee--everything was just big.
JIM LAHTI (BROTHER): And you could tell, from the home videos, where she would step in front of us, to make sure she was in front of the camera.
NARRATOR: Christine's father, Paul Lahti, was of Finnish immigrant stock.
CHRISTINE: He was born in the upper peninsula of Michigan, in Iron River, surrounded by Finns. They all went to Michigan because it was similar, in terms of the lakes and the land and everything, to Finland.
JIM: It was a sturdy stock, as we were always told--the hard winters, the independence, the taking care of yourself, being successful at what you do. That's where some of that independence and that ambitiousness comes from.
CHRISTINE: My grandfather, his mother and dad were from Finland. Isa and Iti, we called them, which is Finnish for grandfather and grandmother. She started her own radio station in Finland, Finnish-speaking radion station. I never got to know her well but apparently she was a real feminist.
NARRATOR: Though her grandmother may have been ahead of her time, Christine's father was a 50's dad--a doctor, and the unquestioned head of the family.
JIM: He went to be a surgeon and got educated with a straw suitcase and a hundred dollars. He was a very successful surgeon, worked hard all his life to raise six kids.
CHRISTINE: He was the boss in our family, it was a real patriarchal family. He was in a way, God, because I think at work he was treated that way as a doctor. And at home, he strived for perfection. Imperfection in any of us was not really welcome. And I think the greatest gift that he gave me was really knowing that if I worked really hard, I could achieve anything I wanted in life.
JIM: I think part of Christine's success comes from that, she has the drive and the ambition and the desire to succeed from my father, yet the compassion, the love, the emotion for everybody, from my mother.
CHRISTINE: She was a nurse--that's where they met, in med school, at the University of Michigan. So she gave up her career and raised six children. She was more sort of unconditionally loving, just whatever imperfections, everything, all the good and the bad, and the ugly, was really really worth loving.
JIM: There's a great balance between both of them, and that's why I think my mom and my dad had 50 plus years of a successful marriage.
NARRATOR: This picture-perfect family lived out the 50's dream of a safe, idyllic life.
JIM: With six of us, we could play together, and we did. Family was very important.
NARRATOR: Home to the Lahti's was Birmingham, Michigan, an upper-middle class suburb of Detroit.
JIM: Detroit is an automotive town, it was a great bedroom community--safe streets, nice trees, a lot of kids.
NARRATOR: The early 60's had an air of conformity, and for Christine, the need to fit in was equally balanced by her desire to stand out.
CHRISTINE: I think I ran for some vice president in junior high school, I was a cheerleader; it was important for me to get approval from people, and to be the best at everything I tried.
JIM: She was quite the--whatever the norm was, socially acceptable, she wanted to be a part of it.
CHRISTINE: I was in the "in" crowd, but I was on the outskirts, because I was never as beautiful, as, I don't know, what? Desireable, smart, maybe...
JIM: She has a saying--she's insecure, confident, and wacky. I think she was there and she didn't know it.
