By Tim Engle, The Kansas City Star, Mo.
Sep. 13–What’s Marilu Henner got against cows? Which two of her “Taxi” co-stars did she hook up with? And when you’re known as a health nut, what can you have for lunch?
Henner — also a veteran of the Burt Reynolds sitcom “Evening Shade” and Broadway’s “Chicago” — chatted with us this week from her home in L.A. The 55-year-old actress and author of Total Health Makeover will talk more Sunday afternoon when she’s in town for a Muriel I. Kauffman Women’s Heart Center event at Starlight Theatre.
Q. I’ve had the “Taxi” theme in my head all morning.
A. It’s a good thing to have. Much better than “Schlemiel! Schlemazl!” (from “Laverne & Shirley”). Not that there was anything wrong with that one.
I still think of you from “Taxi” and “Chicago,” but you’ve become almost better known as a health guru.
Well, I’m still doing both. I have a big Lifetime movie coming out in the fall (“Deadly Suspicion”) — I got to play a villain for the first time in my career. Everybody goes, “Oh, she’s so wholesome, she’s so healthy, so positive and upbeat” — well, wait till they see me in this!
But how’d you get to be Super Health Woman?
My parents both died in their 50s. My father died at 52 of a heart attack during a Christmas party at our home. I was 17. It was terrible — it was during an argument with my brother. You can imagine the effect it had on my family.
I found myself eating my feelings. I put on a lot of weight after that, got up to 174 pounds — I’m 120 now. Kept that weight on for a while, started college, etc., then went on crazy diets, would yo-yo my way up and down, became an actress. Then my mother died when she was 58 of rheumatoid arthritis.
After that I said to myself it’s not about my weight anymore, it’s really about my health. So I became a real student of health. I read everything I could get my hands on, hundreds and hundreds of books, I went to medical libraries and nutritionists, I took a human anatomy class. I just changed so much of my lifestyle.
Your first book, Total Health Makeover, came out in 1998. What was the basic concept?
It was about the 10 things I did to change my life, addressing chemicals, caffeine and smoking, sugar, meat, dairy, fat, food combining, exercise and stress, sleep and gusto. And then I wrote a chapter on reading your face and also a chapter on “What’s the Poop.” Now it’s popular to talk about it, but I was the first person to talk about it.
Didn’t Oprah do a show on poop?
Yes, I know. Oprah’s always jumping on my bandwagon (laughs). You know a lot about somebody if you check out their garbage can.
So you’re anti-dairy and vegetarian.
Well, I do have some fish once in a while, but I’m basically vegan. But no dairy, no sugar, no meat, no caffeine.
Tell me why you avoid cow’s milk.
I’ll give you my short speech about dairy. When you think about it rationally, all dairy is supposed to do is turn a 50-pound calf into a 300-pound cow in six months. That’s it. So I always say to people, if those are your aspirations, knock yourself out.
You would never make cheese (from) or drink the breast milk of your next-door neighbor, somebody you know, but you’re basically sucking the udder of a cow that you don’t know, that you have nothing to do with. You’re closer to an orangutan and yet you would never nurse from an orangutan. But we’re nursing from cows. It doesn’t make sense.
So do you drink soy milk instead?
In my family we usually do oat milk or rice milk. Or almond milk.
What did you have for breakfast this morning?
I had some oranges and some raw almonds. And for lunch I’ll probably have a brown rice sushi roll with avocado and cucumber and spicy sauce. Or cold soba noodles with a sesame sauce. Or an arugula salad or a piece of grilled fish. I’m an eater — I eat all day long. But I work out, too. I break a sweat every day doing something.
What was the hardest thing to change about your lifestyle?
I was totally addicted to dairy products. I would buy a pound of Jarlsberg cheese and chip away at it and only eat that for the day and call it my 1,600-calories-a-day diet. And then I wondered why I didn’t go to the bathroom for 17 days! Or I’d walk to unemployment in New York and stop at Zabar and buy a little baggie of cheese ends. And I’d be thinking, “Why am I fat, constipated and have pimples?” I loved cheese. I was a real dairy freak.
One of your books is I Refuse to Raise a Brat. What’s the single biggest mistake parents make?
Well-intentioned parents do so much for their kids, but they don’t know how to say no. They don’t know how to set boundaries. They don’t know that “No” is a complete sentence and the kids should have to figure it out. They shouldn’t bargain. They shouldn’t negotiate. … Kids have no school of hard knocks anymore. They have no frustration tolerance and no coping skills as a result.
I read that you can remember what you were doing on any date in the past.
I have a freaky date memory. It’s sort of photographic. It’s called eidetic memory. In fact, (a cable channel) is doing a special on me, so I can’t really talk about it too much. Name any date and I’ll tell you what day of the week it was and what I was doing that day.
OK, how about …
No, no, no! I can’t do that! I’m under a gag order right now.
In your autobiography you talk about your romances, including with Judd Hirsch and Tony Danza from “Taxi.” But I was hoping there might have been an Andy Kaufman or Christopher Lloyd hookup.
Oh, no. No, no, no. Not that they weren’t adorable. Two guys in five years is pretty good, but if I’d taken on the rest of the team, I think that would be moving into the (tramp) category.
More about Marilu Henner at her Web site, marilu.com. Her eighth book, Wear Your Life Well, is due next April.
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NO BARBECUE FOR HER Marilu Henner says that when she takes a road trip with her two boys, 11 and 13, she checks in with happycow.com. The Web site has a searchable database of health food stores and restaurants with vegetarian options. “We found soy-cheese pizza at the Grand Canyon,” Henner says.
Her sons have never had a glass of cow’s milk. But unlike her, they do eat chicken and turkey.
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‘HEART’ TALK WITH HENNER Who: Marilu Henner
What: Featured speaker at “A Heart in Bloom,” sponsored by the Muriel I. Kauffman Women’s Heart Center. The “Heart Healthy Woman of the Year” will be announced.
When: 1:30 p.m. Sunday
Where: Starlight Theatre in Swope Park
Cost: The ticket price of $75 includes a copy of Henner’s book Healthy Holidays. Hors d’oeuvres and cocktails will be served.
Info: Call 816-932-5624 or go to hearthealth4women.org.
To reach Tim Engle, features writer, call 816-234-4779 or e-mail [email protected].
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