She didn’t shrink from the truth
Lorraine Bracco may be one of the few celebrities who don’t enjoy talking about themselves.
That didn’t stop “The Sopranos” co-star from putting out a memoir, “On the Couch” (Putnam, $25.95).
But the first chapter reveals enough about her problems with ex-partner Harvey Keitel and her struggles with depression to understand her reluctance.
“I hated the whole process” of working on the memoir, says Bracco, 51.
“I know a lot of people who said they liked it, but it’s hard. It’s hard to go back to a dark place where I’ve been fighting and struggling and working very hard to get out from under. That’s no fun.”
Bracco, raised in New York, turned to modeling as a teenager and spent a decade in France. There she posed for Salvador Dali, dated a prince and met her first husband, with whom she had a daughter.
That didn’t last, but she soon fell in love with the brooding Keitel and moved back to the U.S., where he gave her entree into the acting world.
Her career-making role came in 1988, when Martin Scorsese cast her as a mob wife in “Goodfellas,” for which she earned an Academy Award nomination. But soon afterward, things started to fall apart with Keitel.
By this time, they had a daughter together, Stella. Keitel, a binge drug user, started disappearing more often, she says, and when he wasn’t indifferent and self-absorbed, he was controlling and suspicious.
As family life became intolerable, Bracco flew to Idaho to shoot a film with Edward James Olmos – and fell in love with him. They had an on-set affair, and her marriage unraveled after Bracco finally owned up to it.
Keitel sued her for custody of Stella, and a long, nasty battle ensued. The lawyers’ fees sent her to bankruptcy court, and she fell into depression but refused to see a psychiatrist.
Into all this came Dr. Jennifer Melfi.
“Sopranos” creator David Chase originally wanted Bracco to read for the part of Carmela Soprano, the mob wife. But she had her eye on coolly intelligent psychotherapist Melfi.
Bracco struggled through the first season in “that pea-soup gloom” of depression. One day, while flipping through a magazine, she saw an ad that read: “You have only one chance to be a mother. Why do it depressed?”
She made an appointment with a psychiatrist and got on Zoloft. The fog began to lift.
Bracco says she maintains an “OK” relationship with Keitel, but writes movingly in her book about her daughters’ struggles to forge connections with their fathers.
Though she only plays a psychotherapist on TV, she doesn’t hesitate to offer readers some advice: Be straight with yourself. Own your life, but don’t be a control freak. Prince Charming isn’t coming.
The counsel is geared toward women and parents, but she ends the interview with a bit of advice for the guys: “Get help. Not every man is (like) the ones I picked out, not really. Be nice.”
The birthday bunch
Actress Gena Rowlands is 70. Actress Phylicia Rashad is 58. Singer Ann Wilson (Heart) is 56. Actress Kathleen Turner is 52. Country singer Doug Stone is 50. “American Idol” judge Paula Abdul is 44. Actor Andy Lauer (“Caroline in the City”) is 41. Actress Robin Tunney is 34.