Playboy's 20Q: Kirstie Alley

She knows how to live. There's the island retreat in Maine, the ranch in Oregon, the private jets and the entourage that cares for her and her two young children. It takes money, lots of it, but that's no problem when you have your own top-ten-rated sitcom, "Veronica's Closet," as well as having worked six years as part of the "Cheers" ensemble and in movies that include the "Look Who's Talking" series and Woody Allen's "Deconstructing Harry." But if Kirstie Alley simply made a living wage, the girl would still have fun, whether taking bubble baths or adding to a collection of multicolored wigs that put a certain topspin on amour with her boyfriend, actor James Wilder.

She and Wilder currently share adjoining four-story haciendas in the Hollywood Hills. Both have glass-and-copper elevators, are connected by a third-floor bridge that Wilder built and are stuffed with antiques. According to Contributing Editor David Rensin, "Kirstie has inexhaustible energy and an uninhibited mouth, and she's always on the lookout for a good time. It's just as well that Kirstie thinks we all go around more than once. She can't possibly make enough mischief in a single lifetime."

1

[Q] Playboy: Is underwear the key to a man's heart?

[A] Alley: I think you've got to go about 18 inches below his heart [laughs]. Actually, undergarments can really help. They work on the same principle as unwrapping a Christmas present. If you just put a microwave oven under the tree, without festive paper and a bow, it wouldn't be very exciting. I think women are much sexier when they're wearing something that makes a man use his imagination.

Guys, however, shouldn't wear underwear. There's no style that works. Any man who thinks he looks good in those Speedo-type bikinis needs to think twice. Yuck. If you want to turn me off, just prance by in a Speedo. I believe most women would rather see a man in 501 jeans--no fashion jeans, please--with three buttons undone. Also a custom-made white shirt, unbuttoned. That would be the same package for women that lingerie is for men. We are talking about a package, right? That's always been sexiest to me. Or jeans and no shirt. Definitely barefoot. No toe hair. And no back hair.

2

[Q] Playboy: Waxing: good idea or a sign of a screwed-up society?

[A] Alley: I love waxing. I think that you should wax it all. If I were a guy, I would want a woman's body in its native state. Each time I wax I lie there thinking, Do you know how much I love this man? That's part of the game. You're enduring all this pain for him. Women are going to hate me for these answers [laughs].

3

[Q] Playboy: An April 1998 piece in The New Republic earnestly analyzed female TV archetypes. It cited your character Veronica and Dharma and Ally McBeal as the new feminist role models. Can we really look to TV to define role models? Can life lessons be found on television?

[A] Alley: Sure. Life lessons can also be found at Home Depot. It depends on what you're looking for. I view what I do as strictly entertainment. I'm just there to divert somebody for 30 minutes. If I can make someone laugh or teach some sort of lesson, fine. If Veronica is perceived as a successful woman who's fluent in business and illiterate in relationships, it may communicate something to all those working women who don't or can't pay enough attention to their husbands and kids. I understand why it happens. It's easy to get overwhelmed by work and lose touch. I'm not saying what's right or wrong. But if something makes you notice life, whatever it is, that's good. Otherwise, this all gets overanalyzed. Are there really women out there like Veronica Chase or Ally McBeal? Who cares? My favorite show was I Love Lucy. Am I judging her as a housewife? Am I judging Ricky? To me a role model is somebody I dig for whatever reason--and it changes. I never sat down in front of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and worried, Is Mary going to really make it? What's her relationship with Rhoda? Are they lesbians? Is this some sort of subliminal message? She's 35--shouldn't she have a man now? I never thought of any of that bullshit. That's why I've told everyone we're never going to have "a very special" Veronica's Closet, ever.

4

[Q] Playboy: What's in Kirstie's closet?

[A] Alley: Wigs. Blue, red, yellow, orange, black, green. It's important to be theatrical and dramatic in life, and my wigs make me feel like different women. Wigs are also my solution to the conundrum of monogamy, in which I believe strongly. You wouldn't want to eat a plain hamburger every day for the rest of your life. Ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise and pickles now and then make it tastier. My wigs let me change the package occasionally. The blue one is sort of ice princessy. The yellow one makes me look like an airhead. The orange one means aloof. The black one is serious stuff. James' favorite is the red, but you'll have to ask him why. My natural color is brown, but I realized I was a little too conservative and I wasn't having enough fun. So I did a small part blonde. Thank God it didn't affect my IQ. Spiritually, I think of myself as an Italian with black hair, wearing Capezio slippers that were hand-beaded by a little slave boy. I have this vision of myself with black Cleopatra hair and blue eyes, (continued on page 190)Kirstie Alley(continued from page 175) wearing chinoiserie: silk Oriental clothes that are designed for me and are sort of open in the front. I'm standing on a huge stairway, where I greet my gentlemen callers looking like I do nothing.

5

[Q] Playboy: Is your life always so dramatic?

[A] Alley: Always. To me, an hour without drama is unimaginable. The worst thing in the world is boredom. There is nothing that will upset me more or do me in faster. I realized last night, while I was sitting in the bathtub feeling sorry for myself about something, that I don't think I've ever spent 24 hours alone. I'm very social. I don't know what people do when they're alone. Curling up with a good book seems unreal to me. Maybe it would make sense if I were curled up with somebody else while reading a good book. But to read a book by myself? Unreal. I can't stand it if there's no drama. [Pauses] Now, by drama I don't necessarily mean conflict--just the drama of life. If all the world is a stage, I'm there. I'm committed. I'm sort of nuts in that way. Everything is like a movie to me, so nothing feels common, and that's a good thing. If I started feeling common, ugh, you might just as well slit my throat.

6

[Q] Playboy: Say you're naked and looking in the mirror. What do you see?

[A] Alley: I see a big mistake. I've never looked in a mirror and gone, "Wow. Wow." I've always gone, "What's up with that? What's up with this?" I see all the bad things. I don't think that will ever change. I have always wondered why any guy is with me, especially if he's really cool. When I'm with James I can't believe that it's happening. The girls who have been with the men I've been with all have spectacular bodies. They're the kind of girls who walk into a room and you go, "Oh my God!" That makes me even more introverted. I think, Maybe you can't see under my dress. Then, after he's seen under there I think, Are you high? What the hell are you doing? He says, "You're so beautiful." I say, "You are high!" You'd think that would make me believe I'm beautiful. But it doesn't. It makes me think he's lost his mind. Or maybe he's tired of the big-breasted-whore period and is ready to get down--or he's slumming. I've never been with a man who hasn't been with beautiful women, so I can't help but compare myself. Why I've been so lucky and gotten beautiful men, I don't know. I must be putting out some vibes. And here's the weird thing: I'm not insecure. I never worry about a beautiful guy leaving me. I understand why he's with me, but I'm never not confident that he is, if that makes sense.

7

[Q] Playboy: What is the most romantic thing James has done for you?

[A] Alley: One Easter he didn't give me anything. I moped all day. I thought, He doesn't love me anymore; I can't believe this is happening. I know this sounds overdramatic, but it's the truth. I was in the bath and he was off working on a house. He kept calling, saying, "What are you doing now?" I could tell he was being sweet with me, but all I felt was, Fuck you. Don't I at least get an Easter egg? Then he'd call again and say, "Now what are you doing?" I'd say, "I'm taking a bath." I couldn't figure out why he was too busy for me. I contemplated packing my bags and taking off for Italy at midnight, leaving a note that said, "You don't care about me! (By the way, I'm in Italy.)" He came home around nine o'clock and said, "I'll flip you for going over and getting a bottle of wine." We live in two houses, connected by a bridge across the third floor. I lost and he said, "OK, you get the wine and I'll get the glasses." I walked across the bridge into my bedroom and there was this beautiful chinoiserie desk that I'd seen four months earlier in an antique store. It was the most fabulous desk I'd seen in my life, but at the time he said, "Ah, you don't need that. It's too expensive." So I totally forgot about it. But there it was in my bedroom, with candles all over it, and roses thrown all over the room. He also left an amazing note saying that's what he'd been doing all day. He had to get it to the house, hide it in a truck down the street and move it upstairs, all while I was next door moping.

8

[Q] Playboy: Your TV character Veronica Chase wrote The Guide to a Fairy-Tale Marriage. Based on your experience, which part of marriage is the fairy tale?

[A] Alley: The fairy tale is that most people, probably including myself, hope love is just something that happens to you, that you're just zapped with the love bug and you're not responsible. When you meet somebody you are zapped, in a way that puts you on your best behavior. But sustained love--and marriage--has to be created. Even though it takes directed energy it can still be the most romantic thing in the world as long as you don't lie to each other. The fairy tale is that people don't believe they have a responsibility to create that. If married men would continue to court their wives like they did when they met--heavily--they'd never have a problem with their women. It doesn't have to be, "I'm coming over. Turn the lights off, take your clothes off. Get into bed." Flowers, gifts and surprises, on an almost daily basis. The result would be that the women would act like they did when they were being courted. Women would act like women, which is what women want to do [smiles]. Here is what women also want: attention. They want romance. They want the knight in shining armor. Think of men and women as non-gender-specific spirits who are on Earth to play a game. They meet. What do you do? If you dribbled a basketball down the field in a football game, you'd be in the wrong game. Lots of people refuse to play the game. They think there's something wrong with it. I think you play the gender you've selected. If you get the woman's body, be a woman. If you get the man's body, be a man. Both have to play.

9

[Q] Playboy: Who makes the first move?

[A] Alley: The man. And I'm not talking only about the bedroom. Feminists are going to hate me for saying this, but I believe women have to yield to a higher strength. It's not always easy for me. I was raised in the feminist era and heard, "Burn your bra." But then I thought, Why am I burning my bra when I look really good in my bra? It's not like somebody told me I have to wear a bra. There's a benefit to all these things. It doesn't mean that I'm not as smart, or as able, or as powerful, or that I shouldn't have equal opportunity and equal pay. But many of the old traditions our society is trying to do away with are basically true for me. I'm not going to pick up a gun and go to war. Am I opposed to snooting somebody if he's the enemy? No. If somebody breaks into my house, I'll blow his head off. But if somebody breaks in and I'm lying next to James, I'll say, "Hey, James, somebody's breaking into the house. Get the gun." My job is to (continued on page 238) Kirstie Alley(continued from page 190) call the cops. The right to vote, the right to have equal pay--those things should have nothing to do with sexuality or gender. That's the world of business affairs. But in the game of men and women, the better you are at playing a woman, the better a man can be a man. That's why people love romantic movies. In a romantic movie, a woman lets a man be a man.

10

[Q] Playboy: What should America pay attention to?

[A] Alley: How about the fact that our kids are on psych drugs and that they're in school systems that don't teach them anything? How many kids are on Ritalin? It's bullshit. The same kind of kid who stuck pencils in his nose 30 years ago is now called sick? While we're so worried about street drugs, how much of the population is on psych drugs? And yet we're sitting around wanting to know who's fucking whom?

11

[Q] Playboy: What would you like to seal in a time capsule to be opened in a hundred years?

[A] Alley: Eyeliner. I know it's been around for thousands of years, but who knows what's going to happen in another century? Women are nothing without black eyeliner. It's perfect for any occasion. If I were stranded on an island, I would want eyeliner. It speaks the word woman to me, Cleopatra, Bardot, Verna Lisi, Sophia Loren. It's mysterious, a bit on the edge, stained. No eye shadow. I also like eyeliner on men. Kohl, on the top and bottom. Women, top only. When I was young I wasn't allowed to wear makeup. So I took my eyeliner to school, put it on and then washed it off in the bathroom right before classes ended. My dad had this theory that women are most beautiful when they're natural. But I have the theory that only beautiful women are beautiful when they're natural. God should make all women naturally beautiful so that they can then whore themselves up a little bit. Every man likes a bit of whore, and to me, black eyeliner does it.

12

[Q] Playboy: Describe your last shower.

[A] Alley: I never shower. Showers are for sex. It's the place to do anything and everything that you wouldn't do if you weren't in the shower. Showers are for men.

13

[Q] Playboy: What's so great about baths?

[A] Alley: Bubble bath. I like the natural kind, like marigold, that comes in beautiful bottles. I put a ton in my bath and then pour in some Estée Lauder Youth Dew--which I also go crazy for. I'm such a queer when it comes to baths. I make the room totally black and I light one candle. I put it on one side of my big bathtub. Then I turn on the Jacuzzi and make the bubbles so high that when you scrunch down you can't see out. I dig a huge tunnel in the suds that I can fit inside. At the other end of the tunnel I see the light. My kids, on the other hand, do not like bubble baths. Can't stand them. They think they're weird. I can't imagine why.

14

[Q] Playboy: What Cheers memorabilia did you take when the show ended?

[A] Alley: The only thing I wanted I didn't get because everything was supposedly so valuable that it ended up in a museum. I always walked around with a cigar box. If you remember the show, it was my only prop. We could never figure out what Rebecca Howe should do. Ted ate, Woody cleaned the counters. Norm drank. But what did Rebecca do? She was supposedly the manager, so we decided she would have receipts. We put them in a cigar box. But that's not all. My lines were also inside. I was always going off my lines, so that helped me keep my place. Before me, Coach had line problems and he wrote them all over: on trays, the bar, everywhere. When I watch the show now, I always laugh when I open the cigar box because I know I'm trying not to mess up.

15

[Q] Playboy: When you and Kelsey Grammer are having dinner, what do you talk about?

[A] Alley: Once, during dinner while we were doing Cheers, Kelsey told me the grossest thing I've ever heard. We were talking about something most people wouldn't know about, sexually. With me there are a lot of such things, so it wasn't hard. I can't even repeat what he said. [Pauses] OK, he told me about felching. Do you know what that is? You don't want to know. It is the grossest thing you will ever hear. I can't tell you. It's too embarrassing. You'll have to ask Kelsey. When he told me I said, "Did you really do that?" It was so disgusting I couldn't even eat. [Laughs] I went crazy. Every time I look at him now I think, Oh my God! Oh my God! When he'd go out on a date I'd think, Is he doing that? When he got married I thought, Are they doing that? I should add that he never actually told me it was something he liked to do; he just felt it was his duty to tell me about it in case the occasion arose. Woody and Kelsey and Ted took great pleasure in coming up with things I hadn't heard of.

16

[Q] Playboy: What's left out of everyone's story on Scientology? For instance, what don't the Germans get about it?

[A] Alley: That it's fun. Say you have a problem in your life: a compulsion to strangle mice. [Pauses] That just came up. No reason. Anyway, say you wake up every day and you just can't wait to find a mouse, and it's taking up a lot of your time. You'd have a couple sessions in Scientology and soon you wake up and decide you'd rather go to Home Depot. You'd see a mouse on the way and not have any desire to strangle it. You're just, "Hey, there's a mouse." Scientology takes barriers out of your life and lets you have more fun. What I'm saying is that it's fun to have control, to solve problems, to eliminate compulsions. I define compulsion as anything you feel like you have to do that you don't necessarily want to do. It all boils down to whether what you're doing gives you more survival or less survival. If it gives you more survival, then it's a good thing.

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[Q] Playboy: Sounds like you have all the answers. Where do we go when we die?

[A] Alley: We just pick another body. We go to the nearest hospital where women are giving birth, find some good-looking parents and jump in. I don't think there's a rest period, though there might be a confusion period if you were killed in an accident and knocked out of your body. It would all depend on the shape you're in as a spiritual being, which is our natural state. The better the shape you're in, the less confusion. At least that would be my hope. This is just a prison planet--and here's what it takes to get out: a Get Out of Jail Free card or a Get Off of Planet Earth Free card. You should have one in your wallet or purse at all times, just in case. You know how we're all looking for the big secret in life? That's it.

18

[Q] Playboy: As a Scientologist, you must own an e-meter. What happens when your non-Scientologist friends come over and want to play with it?

[A] Alley: I own three. I do the pinch test with them. When somebody's not a Scientologist, they want to know what an e-meter is. All an e-meter does is help a person locate moments of pain or unconsciousness and disagreement. It doesn't tell right or wrong, it locates moments. For the pinch test I have them hold the e-meter cans. Then I show them the meter face, the dial. Then I pinch them. When I do, the dial reacts. The needle jumps. Then I say, "OK, good. Recall that pinch." They think of the pinch and the needle jumps again--without the actual pinch. You think again and again about the pinch, and each time the needle jumps less until the memory of it isn't painful anymore. Finally I'll say, "Recall that pinch," and the needle will "float," just move back and forth, and my friend remembers no pain. A new pinch starts it all over again, but that would be a new pinch.

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[Q] Playboy: When you were a kid, what did your friends say about you that you hated but which has now become an asset in your life?

[A] Alley: I've always been told I'm crazy. Always. When I wanted to come to Hollywood to be an actress, I was crazy. When I was at a party and wanted to do something, I was crazy. I've always believed I was sane but extroverted. And when I look back on the things I've done, I can honestly say that very few of them were harmful or destructive. They were crazy but fun. I guess being called crazy is a good thing.

20

[Q] Playboy: If you never gained weight, what would you eat?

[A] Alley: I'd drink five glasses of wine and eat caviar and tons of sour cream, and then eat a box of chocolates, then have a big bowl of pasta as a snack. I like everything in abundance. I've always aspired to be a lush. I guess I'm like Henry VIII, except I don't have syphilis.

But then I thought, Why am I burning my bra when I look really good in my bra?

If I were stranded on an island, I would want eyeliner. It speaks the word woman to me.