"THE INTERVIEW" WITH BARBARA LEIGH (PART 2)

Playboy Magazine

The exciting new Audio Book by Barbara Leigh

with Marshall Terrill

(A "Must Read"!)

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In this portion of our visit, I asked Barbara for her reflections on the film and modeling industry of yesterday and today. She shares with us the world she lived in during the 1970's with its meteoric heights, to the life she has rediscovered and created for herself today. Her amazing journey came about through a courageous self examination of what really lends meaning to life. Because there is a significant number of young women and parents who read my BLOG, and who for years have remained loyal friends on my Blogroll, I felt that Barbara's decision to share her life story was very poignant. Today and tomorrow, Barbara will share some tender lessons she has learned, as we gradually catch up with her exciting life today and what she is doing to help make the world kinder and gentler. Let's continue...

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Manning: You're really blessed with good genes and and high cheekbones--two qualities that are not unimportant in terms of helping secure your modeling career. Tell us about your heritage a little bit. You have a very unique background?

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Leigh: Well, I do and you know I'm not one-hundred percent sure...but I think I have some Cherokee Indian blood, English...which is the Childers when they came over from England. And that is a famous name in England, The Flying Childers of the Great Thoroughbred. So, that was my mother's father name. I have some German in me. I'm a mixture of an all-American mutt I guess! (mutual laughter).

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Manning: An all-American Mutt! (laughter)

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Leigh: Because I really can't be specific to one grand thing like an Italian or anything like that. I guess, I'm just a true-blooded American which is just a little bit of everything.

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Manning: Well, you're a beautiful lady. I should mention to anybody who will be reading our visit today and picking up your new Audio Book that your approach to life is, as I found...with an uncommon candor which is quite refreshing! And you state that your career began to wind down in the late 1970's. As you look back, and of course every body's story is unique. But I wanted to get your view as to why your career had begun to wind-down. What events were taking place?

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Leigh: Okay, I'll tell you. A lot had to do with where I was as a person. I had my last great love at that time before I got out of the business and moved to New York and married my husband with Joe Lewis who was the heavyweight karate champion of the world. And he was my husband briefly, but we were lovers and close friends for a long time. And I was going through that and then the whole thing with Vampirella when that folded, it was like I had suffered so many disappointments. I was running away from Joe because that was an intense love affair, probably the love affair of my life and one day I might write about that. Because it was extremely intense. We were just two young, attractive people who were passionately in love and it wasn't really good for my head because he wasn't really stable either. But after Vampirella, what happened and why I got out of the business is because when I'd go out on an interview for commercials, people were associating me with the Vampirella character. I didn't have that commercial image anymore. I felt that wasn't fair. I wasn't getting paid for my image and that wasn't my choice. So, a friend of mine introduced me to an attorney in New York who helped me win my case against Harris Comics. Long story short, I met Peter and we fell in love. I had moved to New York and my life changed. I married Peter and we travelled the world and we had a home in London, and one in Long Island, Manhattan and I completely lived the fantasy that I had always wanted. And traveling the world will change one just about more than anything. Because you really see what the world's all about. And you can see other people and what ideas they have. You have a chance to reflect back and be so much clearer on life.

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Manning: My God, that sounds like a whirlwind...

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Leigh: It was a whirlwind! Part of the greatest time of my life was with Peter and the Schmidt Family.

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Manning: Well, Barbara it's impossible for me not to ask you about the entertainment scene today. You've had a very unique opportunity living in Los Angeles to observe how today's actors and models have become familiar to millions of people worldwide. And it's a totally different world...

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Leigh: It is a different world! First of all, let me say they get enormous salaries today that they didn't back then. But I don't know if it's more glamorous, there are a lot more actors, there is a lot more competition. And a lot of these actors that come into the business are major college graduates from Theatre. I mean, they didn't just come out to be an actor. They worked at the craft. They're just really intelligent thinkers. The business is really different today. But I can only observe it from the Playboy Mansion and what I see on T.V.

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Manning: Okay, so at least some of that change as I'm hearing from you back when your schedule was filled with television commercials and movies forward to the present day has to involve witnessing the hype and the salaries and the egos and the excesses that are on such a grand scale in Hollywood.

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Leigh: A few of the really big actors...well, Steve McQueen for example, had his own production company (Solar Productions). There were so many back in his day because he really was such a major movie star. But today, it seems even more so. They have their own studios, practically!

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Manning: This came up in a conversation with Marshall (Terrill) and myself over breakfast recently. And he said something to me like, 'Name a major actor and then name five really good movies they made that were memorable'. Of course, Marshall had thought about this well ahead of me! But I accepted the challenge and I started with Steve. And that was easy among the 30 films he made in his short life. But then as we went on, both of us would name an actor and get stuck at two or three good films...and we wound up looking at each other and laughing! And I said, 'You know, I have to keep this in mind as I listen to Barbara's Audio Book so I can ask her for her reflections on the business today'.

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Leigh: We have Brad Pitt, we have George Clooney and we have Tom Cruise, and we have Christian Bale--he's getting up there. Don't ya think? (laughter).

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Manning: Well, we went way back to Yul Brynner and James Coburn and Charles Bronson and Steve and...

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Leigh: Well they...yeah. They were so macho, weren't they! They were so different! (laughter).

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Manning: I caught the new Clint Eastwood movie recently (Gran Torino).

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Leigh: Did you like it?

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Manning: I did. I mean, it is very different. It has some unexpected twists and turns. I won't spoil it for you if you haven't caught it.

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Leigh: I love Clint Eastwood and I'm sorry that I never got to work with him. I almost did. I was up for "The Eiger Sanction" in 1975. I didn't get it, but it would have been nice to work with him.

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Manning: Barbara, you mention in your Audio Book the subject of regrets in your life. It was, for me, the single most thought-provoking and courageous section of the book. It really made me sit up and pay attention. You said you wish that you had made better decisions and had a better sense of self esteem and an internal awareness of who you are. For the benefit of young women who are going to be reading this interview on my BLOG, what did it take for you to recognize that you needed a healthier life and how did you eventually achieve this for yourself?

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Leigh: Well, I think when I got away from the business, the glamour and the temptation that was constant and the men...and I settled down into a family environment with Peter and his step-daughters, my whole life changed. We travelled and everything was more about family. That was my life became and was until we later divorced. So, I think family and having a sense of stability and belonging is just the best thing because so many of us go through life not feeling that we belong. I don't think that I ever felt really like I ever belonged anywhere. And I think that that had a lot to do with when I started changing and having a sense of who I was. But when I really had a sense of who I was, was when Peter got into his financial problems and I lost all of that...and basically had to start over. I realized that the greatest thing I had was myself! And that nobody could take that away from me. They could have all of the material things happen, but they couldn't have me and that really changed me. And I appreciated myself, really, truly for the first time when I realized that I was good and that I had myself.

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Manning: (taken aback) Well...I...that. That...to me, sounds Courageous. It's amazing to me, actually...and I don't mind telling you. It's so much! Particularly in the single world and I have seen and continue to see first-hand how so many just are not in a place where they can wind down for five minutes and make the kinds of changes from the insight you've just described. And it's fear! Because I'm still single and I see it! I tell my married friends, 'Oh! If you could only experience what is going on out here and what people are not doing to get where they ought to be'. Uh...it's...well. Okay, let me put it this way. Many people never get to be where you just described with your own journey! And it's so refreshing to hear that I'm quite taken back, but in a good way. I think this is a powerful lesson of Hope for everyone who is so caught up in being blocked from seeing opportunities around them. It's tragic!

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Leigh: I think you're right!

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Manning: It's a shame...

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Leigh: ...I think you're right. I know people who still live in a fantasy and just can't see it. It's almost like you have to have a shock or something. And I had the shock with Peter. But I think in the long run it was good and that now I'm in a better place than I've ever been. I don't have the money or the glamour anymore. But I have myself and my good judgement.

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Still Ahead:

Barbara's life today and more...