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Quote from Lorraine Bracco: "All you have in the end is yourself and your integrity. Growing older strips off some of the veneer. It's harder to hide." "Look, shit happens," says Lorraine Bracco, 51, summing up the devastating events that fueled her two-and-a-half-year depression in the mid-1990s. Her raspy Brooklynese is even rougher than the gravelly voice of her Sopranos alter ego, psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Melfi, but it suits Bracco's frankness. In her new memoir, On the Couch, she holds nothing back, painting a portrait of herself as a woman "who made a big mess of her life in her 40s": her tumultuous relationship with Harvey Keitel and their ugly six-year custody battle (which cost Bracco two million dollars); her affair with, marriage to, and divorce from Edward James Olmos; and a career low of box-office bombs followed by no work at all. On the Couch is no pity party though. Bracco fills the book with Hollywood dish about Martin Scorcese, Melanie Griffith, and more, in hopes of reaching other depressed people -- "in a fun way." "People think they're going to will depression away or work it away or drink it away, but it's so much more complicated than that," Bracco says. Offscreen, she has been in therapy and taken the antidepressant Zoloft, but she credits her onscreen life, doling out Melfi-isms to Tony Soprano ("Hope comes in many forms" is a favorite) with giving her real strength. "Dr. Melfi rescued me," she says. "She's not Pretty Miss Perfect, and I love that. She has her own set of issues. Playing her, I became more confident in myself. She's smart, and you take that home." In midlife, Bracco has discovered a level of boldness that was missing in her youth. "I'm more apt to tell you the truth, whether you like it or not," she says. "You like me, you like me; you don't, you don't. I don't really care." Consequently, On the Couch was written by a woman unafraid to strip to her emotional Skivvies. And why not? For the first time in a long time, she says, "Life is good." She's got a producing deal at Lifetime, her own wine company, and a Teamster boyfriend. Says Bracco: "My biggest angst these days is 'What are we going to barbecue tonight?'"
HBO's Bracco pulls no punches 'Sopranos' star purges her painful past in memoir By Chuck Barney -- CONTRA COSTA TIMES -- June 19, 2006 Audio: Bracco on relationship between Dr. Melfi & Tony Soprano (MP3 3:09 Minutes) Audio: Bracco's thoughts on women 'having it all' (MP3 :49 Minutes) THE WOMAN who has gained fame for her portrayal of leggy psychiatrist Dr. Melfi on "The Sopranos" admits that there have been times in her life when she really could have used the therapeutic assistance of her fictional alter ego. "I'm kind of sorry I didn't have her to lean on," says Lorraine Bracco. "I think she would have been forthright in making me see some of the mistakes I was making -- the way she tries to do with Tony Soprano." Indeed, Melfi might have helped Bracco cope with the emotional fallout of her failed marriages, or her long battle with clinical depression or the self-esteem issues that plagued the model-turned-actress in her early years. Pulling no punches, Bracco addresses all of this and more in her new memoir, "On the Couch" (Putnam, $25.95). The 51-year-old Brooklyn native, looking radiant after a brisk session with her makeup artist, appropriately enough settles into a couch in her suite at San Francisco's Four Seasons hotel. In town to promote the book, she dons white slacks, a lavender jacket and a typically feisty attitude. "A lot of my friends say I'm brutally honest and I think that's what people are seeing," she says of the remarkable candor that flows through the book. "And then there's the fact that I've finally hit 50, which I call the new f-word. So I'm at the point where I really don't have to answer to anyone except for myself." The memoir, which leads off each chapter with words of wisdom from Dr. Melfi, chronicles how Bracco survived childhood insecurity (classmates voted her the "ugliest girl in the sixth grade") to become a Wilhelmina model in Paris, and traces her rise from fledgling actress to star. Along the way, she gave birth to two daughters and endured a tumultuous breakup and child custody battle with actor Harvey Keitel. A subsequent divorce from actor Edward James Olmos also left her reeling. Few details are spared in the account, which has Bracco accusing Keitel of days-long cocaine binges and a "flammable" rage. "He was like a walking time bomb of stress," she writes. She also relates how she had an affair with Olmos while still with Keitel. Later, her relationship with Olmos was jolted when one of Bracco's girlfriends alleged that Olmos sexually molested her teenage daughter -- a claim Bracco angrily refutes, but admits the accusation put incredible pressure on the couple. For years, Bracco says she resisted penning the memoir, despite the overt efforts of a friend who repeatedly presented her with blank journals on her birthday, along with the command to "get writing." When Bracco finally acquiesced, she found it to be an arduous process. "There were times when I'd be pacing the room," she says. "I'd be thinking, 'I don't want to talk about this stuff again. I already spent enough time talking about it to my psychiatrist, to my family and my kids.' At times, it was very annoying and painful." In "On the Couch," Bracco recalls that by the time "Sopranos" creator-producer David Chase approached her about doing the show, she was heavily in debt and seeing a therapist for depression. Still, Bracco was nervy enough to spurn Chase's efforts to cast her as Tony's wife, Carmela, even though her agent was convinced it would revitalize her career and help erase nearly $2 million in legal fees from her custody battle. (The role wound up going to Edie Falco.) "I knew I could play Carmela, but I didn't want to. ... I'd already played the mob wife in a big way," writes Bracco, who earned an Oscar nomination for her role in director Martin Scorsese's Mafia saga "Goodfellas." Instead, she pushed to play Melfi ("I identified with this woman. I could feel her. I knew her"), who not only provides the voice of conscience and hope in "The Sopranos," but seems to shadow Bracco wherever she goes. "At parties, people want to corner me to talk about their therapy and the difficult things they've been through recently," she says. "I've also had a lot of psychiatrists critique the way I'm treating Tony Soprano. Some will point out that my skirts are too short, or that I'm a little too involved with my patient. And I'm like, 'Hey, it's a TV show. We're acting!'" But Bracco's time as Dr. Melfi is waning. Production begins next month on the final eight episodes of HBO's acclaimed mob series. They'll follow a recently concluded 12-episode set that many fans and critics regarded as a letdown. "I guess you can't please everybody," she says. "I think people thought there was going to be some kind of big ending or cliffhanger. But I don't think that's what David envisioned. He has been pretty consistent about following a path people don't expect him to take." Bracco claims she has no clue as to what path "The Sopranos" will take from here on out. All she knows is that she's dreading the show's end. "It's going to be very hard and sad and bittersweet," she insists. "Were a big, fat family on the show, and it's been a good, loving place for me. ... I wish it could go on for 50 years." THE BRACCO FILE -- LORRAINE BRACCO ON ... WHO: Lorraine Bracco BORN: Oct. 2, 1954, in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn KEY ROLES: "The Sopranos" (1999 to present, HBO TV series); "The Graduate" (2002-03, Broadway); "The Basketball Diaries" (1995 feature film); "Radio Flyer" (1992 feature film); "Medicine Man" (1992 feature film); "Goodfellas" (1990 feature film); "Sea of Love" (1989 feature film) THE BRACCO FILE -- LORRAINE BRACCO ON ... Harvey Keitel: "The first time Harvey disappeared for four days without notice (on a drug binge), I was so caught off guard that I was willing to believe his promises that it would never happen again. But it did, two or three times a year, always without warning. ... He was disappearing into his hole, wherever it was, and descending into his private hell." Edward James Olmos: "I had never known a man like Eddie before. He was so strong and secure in himself, yet bursting with a genuine concern for others. His friends would call him selfless." Sean Connery (her co-star in "Medicine Man"): "He endeared himself to me forever with his tremendous generosity in the middle of the shoot (by arranging to have her flown from the jungles of Mexico to the Academy Awards ceremony). ... I always say that Sean Connery gave me a chance to be Cinderella for an evening, and I'll never forget it." James Gandolfini: "It's a rush to work with someone that good. It's like when you have a tennis partner who is better than you, and it improves your play. Some scenes are so smooth, I feel like we're Serena and Venus, lobbing the words over the net." (Excerpts from "On the Couch")
SNOOP PATROL Sofa so good with Tony Soprano's doctor Published June 18, 2006 -- The Chicago Tribune "I love a good couch," said Lorraine Bracco, TV's favorite shrink, when we caught up with her recently. The couch of favored status in her three-bedroom, three-bathroom Palisades, N.Y., home is covered in a velvety brown-and-beige printed material. "It's in the living room right in front of the fireplace, the TV and the windows where I can look out and see my view of the Hudson River." The actress, who plays Dr. Melfi on "The Sopranos," knows a thing or two about couches -- real and metaphorical. She was in town earlier this weekend promoting "On the Couch," a new memoir about her tumultuous relationships with actors Harvey Keitel and Edward James Olmos, as well as her own struggles with depression, which she confronted after landing the role of Tony Soprano's psychiatrist on the HBO series. Things are looking brighter these days. With her two daughters, Margaux and Stella, grown and living on their own, Bracco currently shares her home with boyfriend Jason Cipolla (a driver for "The Sopranos" cast) and a wire-haired terrier named Chandler. "My style is very eclectic," she said. "People say it's very warm and inviting. I'm not into the sparse, contemporary Italian look." As our chat ended, she joked, "Now everybody's going to know I'm a psychopath because of this interview!" Assurances to the contrary prompted a big laugh and a deadpan reply: "You're cute." 1. One thing on your nightstand: An old ashtray from the Hotel Raphael [in Paris] where I put my earrings and rings, things like that. [In her 20s, Bracco lived and worked in Paris as a model.] 2. One thing on a wall in your living room: All kinds of different paintings that deal with water. I've bought them at the Planned Parenthood [fundraising] auction in Westchester [N.Y.] every year. 3. One thing you have in your house from your childhood: My mind. 4. Three condiments we would find in your refrigerator: Fig marmalade, Dijon mustard and, unfortunately, ketchup. I say unfortunately because, eech, it's just a cover-up. 5. Three things we would find in your medicine cabinet: Listerine toothpaste, Creme de la Mer [face cream] and brown eyeliner. 6. Do your dirty dishes go in the sink or dishwasher? Oh, the fight of the century! I put them in the dishwasher, but the kids constantly are leaving them in the sink. 7. Maker of your everyday dinnerware: Martha Stewart. It's white with little acorns on it. 8. Maker of your fine china: Millions of different plates -- from Tiffany's to Rosenthal -- that I've bought at auctions. They all have some green in them; I'm a green girl. I mix-and-match when I use them. I told you, I'm eclectic. 9. What is the biggest collection in your home? Hair. You know, those fuzz ball things. I'm teasing! Different plates and glasses. And shoes -- I love shoes. Doesn't every girl? 10. If we looked under your bed, what would we find? Boxes of beads. I like to bead -- bracelets or necklaces. I did that a lot with the kids.
Lorraine Bracco's memoir, ON THE
COUCH, In her engaging
memoir, Lorraine opens up about her career, her marriages, her
determination to be a good mother, and her refusal to be marginalized as
an actress and a woman in a society obsessed with youth and beauty. She is
also startlingly honest about her victory over depression, her willingness
to seek treatment, and how she found her way again. And when she was cast
on The Sopranos, yet another incredible new chapter began. Bracco comes off 'The Couch' to share fight with depression
By Diane Weddington, CONTRIBUTOR -- Inside Bay Area Online Article -- June 13, 2006 ON THE MEND: "Sopranos" star Lorraine Bracco has written "On The Couch" about her career, her relationships and her battle with depression. IT TAKES a strong woman to be Tony Soprano's therapist, but Lorraine Bracco is up to the task. In fact, she chose the role instead of choosing to play the role of his wife. "I didn't want to play a mobster's wife again. I'd done that already in 'Goodfellas.' I read her role (Dr. Melfi) and I loved her relationship with Tony Soprano. She was educated, smart, just the kind of background and character I wanted," Bracco said in a telephone interview. Bracco is on tour to promote her new book, appropriately titled "On the Couch" (Putnam, $25.95). This honest and captivating autobiography is just right for summer reading, and fans of "The Sopranos" will not want to miss her page-turner. This is an unflinching look at the realities of fame and fortune from a woman who went to the heights, fell and is now back on top. "People have all these ideas about what it's like when you're famous. You don't have millions just because you're an actor, and even if you have money, you don't always have happiness," she said. Bracco's high-powered life began early. At 18, she was already a successful model in Paris. At 23, she married hairdresser Daniel Guerard and gave birth to their daughter, Margaux. Her marriage ended and she fell under the spell of Harvey Keitel, as well-known for his debauchery and emotional and physical outbursts as for his stunning acting ability. She bore their daughter, Stella, in 1985. Although forthright about the pain of those years, Bracco is not bitter and does not use her book to defame Keitel. "I wanted to fix him. I thought I could. But we can only be the boss of ourselves," she says. "Once you become aware, you're not allowed to go back." She is less kind to the child custody system, reflecting on a long and bitter fight with Keitel to gain custody of Stella. She also talks openly about his attempts to intimidate her and make her give up her fight and Stella. Bracco settled in to raise her daughters, choosing family over career. Money was scarce. Keitel continued to harass her, although she writes that she believes he did not understand or even see the pain and fear his actions were causing. In 1990 Bracco got her major break with "Goodfellas," a performance that put her squarely in the public eye. She also began an affair with Edward James Olmos, whom she married, then divorced. While living this public and turbulent life, Bracco carried a secret. She is now willing to tell the world, and hopes she can help many women by doing so. Bracco was depressed for years, refusing to seek treatment or talk about her problem. "I realize I bought into the stigma of depression, of taking medication," she says. "I was not willing to accept needed help. I'd say, 'I'm having a bad day,' or 'I'll take a couple yoga classes and I'll be fine.' I was not accepting the fact that I was joyless." How did depression feel to her? "It's like a low-grade fever that won't go away. Or being stagnant. Not moving." It's important to talk to someone, she says. "Women suffer in silence," she says. "Why suffer alone? It's such a lonely feeling. Here's the thing: If you have a toothache, you go to the dentist. If you break a leg, you go to a doctor. So why suffer in silence with depression?" Many women fear that medication will take away all their feelings, she says. "The doctor will decide if there's something you need to be on," she says. "And you don't have to be on medication the rest of your life. I didn't understand that at all. There's a whole new generation of fine-tuned drugs." For women who are still afraid to see a doctor or talk to someone, she recommends checking a Web site that lists symptoms of depression. "There are 34 million people suffering from depression and so many are afraid to seek treatment," she says. "No one is alone." It is also important for women to take time for themselves, she said. "They raise their children, do the laundry, do the meals. But at the end of the day they don't look and say, 'Did I fulfill myself today?' It's not a matter of being selfish. Women need the space and freedom to read two chapters of a book, or see that movie they haven't seen in 20 years." She admits she's had a hard journey, but she grows more optimistic each day. "This book is a celebration of being the boss of me, of the woman I want to be," she says. "Every day changes, and whatever problems we're going through, life does have incredible surprises." She sums up: "If you feed the soul of a woman, everyone benefits."
Bracco puts herself 'On the Couch' in memoir Tuesday, June 13, 2006 -- BY VICKI HYMAN -- Star-Ledger Staff Lorraine Bracco may be one of the few stars who don't enjoy talking about themselves. That didn't stop the "Sopranos" star from putting out a memoir, "On The Couch" (Putnam, $25.95), but the first chapter reveals enough about her struggles with depression, money problems and a nasty custody dispute with ex-partner Harvey Keitel to understand why. "I hated the whole process" of working on the memoir, says Bracco, 51, in a recent interview. "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." The statuesque Bracco, raised in Queens and Long Island, turned to modeling as a teenager and spent a decade in France. There she posed for Dali, dated a prince, and met her first husband, Daniel Guerard, with whom she had a daughter, Margaux. It didn't last with Guerard, but she soon met and fell in love with brooding Scorsese favorite Keitel, and moved back to the States. With his encouragement and contacts, Keitel gave her entree into the acting world, but Bracco amusingly recalls the rather steep learning curve she faced as a rookie actress on the set of Ridley Scott's "Someone to Watch Over Me." One morning before shooting, she tidied up her character's messy kitchen, unknowingly triggering a massive meltdown among the prop and continuity folks. On the first day of shooting, she broke down in tears when she realized she would have to reshoot each scene from different angles. "You can have me try to remember the lines and try to stay in character, or you can have this continuity stuff," she told Scott with her trademark candor. "But I don't think I can handle all three at once. Pick two great or three terrible. Your choice." When she got fired from an episode of "Miami Vice," she recalls Keitel told her, "Good. You're not TV material." Her career-making role came in 1988, when Scorsese cast her as mob wife Karen Hill in "Goodfellas," for which she earned an Academy Award nomination. But soon after filming wrapped, things started to fall apart with Keitel. By this time, she and Keitel had a daughter together, Stella, and Bracco yearned to leave TriBeCa, at that time not yet yuppified, for a more family-friendly neighborhood. They bought a house in the Hudson River enclave of Sneden's Landing, in Rockland County, but Keitel, who she knew was a binge drug user, started disappearing more often, she claims. And when Keitel wasn't indifferent and self-absorbed, he was controlling and suspicious, she says. As family life became intolerable, Bracco flew to Idaho to shoot a film with Edward James Olmos -- and fell in love with her co-star. They had an on-set affair, and as soon as she returned to New York, Keitel picked up on it. Their marriage unraveled after Bracco finally owned up to it. Keitel sued her for custody of Stella, and a long, nasty battle ensued, with Keitel trying to poison his daughter against her mother, Bracco alleges. ("Mommy, are you having sex with Eddie Murphy?" she says 6-year-old Stella asked her one day. "Daddy says you're having sex with Eddie."). The lawyer's fees sent her to bankruptcy court, the IRS had a lien on her house, and she fell into depression, but refused to see a psychiatrist. Ironically, into all this came Dr. Jennifer Melfi. "The 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, whom she viewed as the show's voice of conscience and hope. Though the vivacious star is nothing like the buttoned-down shrink -- "I would have to clam myself down. It was a big acting challenge for me, basically." -- she did identify with Melfi on an emotional and intellectual level. "I related to her, the way I was, where I've been and where I hoped I'd be going," she says. She got the role, but she struggled through the shooting the first season in "that pea-soup gloom" of depression. One day, while flipping through a magazine, she saw an ad that read: " She made an appointment with a psychiatrist, got on Zoloft, and You have only one chance to be a mother. Why do it depressed?" the fog began to lift. (She even later became a spokeswoman for pharmaceutical company Pfizer, the maker of Zoloft.) She says she maintains a very good relationship with Guerard and Olmos, and an "okay" relationship with Keitel, but she writes movingly in her book about her daughters' struggles to forge connections with their fathers. Watching this, she says, "I want to use the word 'despicable.' I feel that they've missed out. They've missed out on the beauty of these two young girls. Bracco, who is now dating a younger man, a driver for "The Sopranos," has a deal with Lifetime to produce and act, and is also marketing a line of wines under her family name. She has her family home in Sneden's Landing on the market: "I love it, but the kids don't come and visit me there, and I find myself lonely there now without them." Though she only plays a psychotherapist on TV, she doesn't hesitate to offer readers some advice based on her own life: 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."
Doctor, heal thyself
Lorraine Bracco, who plays a shrink on 'The Sopranos,' covers her battle with depression in her new memoir. By Martin Miller, Times Staff Writer -- Calendarlive.com LA Times Dr. Jennifer Melfi would probably understand the letdown feeling, but Lorraine Bracco is having a little trouble with it all. "Sopranos" fans left as cold as Jim "Johnny Cakes" by the show's cliffhanger-free season finale should buck up, says the 51-year-old actress. David Chase, creator of the highly acclaimed HBO series, "has been pretty consistent about following a different path of what we would expect. That's part of his brilliance," said the Brooklyn-born former fashion model by phone from New York City; she's in town this week to promote her newly released memoir, "On the Couch." Still, as her book makes clear, Bracco aspires to be more like the linchpin character she plays on what is widely regarded as one of the finest shows in television history. In a nod to the grumbling over the sixth season ender, which aired this month, Bracco says it was originally meant to be a middle episode in the show's final season. Instead, the one-time cohesive package was split into two seasons, and "Sopranos" fans will now have to wait until January for the final eight installments. "The memoir, in which each chapter opens with a sage Melfi quote, exposes an initial divide between character and performer that is surprisingly stark, especially to those who don't follow celebrity tabloids. When filming began on the pilot for "The Sopranos" in 1997, Bracco was a long way from the smart, sexy and confident psychiatrist she was to portray. An intensely bitter breakup and child custody dispute with actor Harvey Keitel and a subsequent divorce from actor Edward James Olmos left her bankrupt, financially and emotionally. Few details are spared in this wrenching personal account, which includes alleged drug binges by Keitel and what she suggests are spurious accusations of Olmos molesting the daughter of a family friend. So by the time she landed the role of Melfi, whose treatment of mob boss Tony Soprano forms the show's psychological and moral backbone, Bracco was grappling with deep depression. Shortly after that, she sought professional counseling and was prescribed antidepressants. Actually, it took portraying Melfi after turning down offers to play Tony's wife, Carmela for Bracco to fully realize her darkened mood. "After decades of such hardships and working hard and praying to catch a break and then the break comes, I had to ask myself, 'Why am I not jumping for joy?' " said Bracco, who received an Oscar nomination for her role as a mobster's wife in 1990's "Goodfellas." "I realized I was going on, living life, but without any joy." Her bout with depression made Bracco determined to help others. Her message "If I can do it, you can do it too" motivated what turned out to be a painful writing process. "People would come up to me at a Yankee game or the subway and say, "Dr. Melfi, I wish I had a psychiatrist like you.' People are suffering, and it breaks my heart. They whisper to me, 'I'm on medication,' and I would say, 'Why are you whispering?' " she said. "I think a lot of people are depressed, and they don't know it. It's like a low-grade fever. We've been told to buck up and just do it, and sometimes that's not possible." Bracco continues to be amazed at the cultural influence of the HBO series and her character in particular. When she was invited to address the American Psychoanalytic Assn. in 2001, she joked that its members must be crazy. Therapists told her that twice as many men sought therapy after "The Sopranos" began airing. "Isn't Tony the epitome of a man?" asked Bracco, partly in jest. "He does what he wants, eats what he wants .... and if he can get past the stigma of therapy, surely other men can too." With "The Sopranos" nearing its end, Bracco won't say or doesn't know how the show will end. Fans and critics predicting a blood bath, given the relatively bloodless ending to Season 6, may be wrong, at least when it comes to Tony. Yes, he's a psycho killer, Bracco said, but there's still hope his panic attacks seem under control, the shock of his near-death experience hasn't left him yet, and he turned down a chance to sleep with a beautiful real estate agent played by Julianna Margulies. "I thought when Melfi turned around and said, 'You don't have to eat every plate of rigatoni and you don't have to [make love] to every girl,' that was just great," said Bracco. "It gives him something to think about." So where is the series finale headed? "Every time I try to figure out where David could go with the story, I'm always wrong. I really have no idea," said Bracco. Bracco is scheduled to sign copies of her new book at Barnes & Nobles at the Grove in Los Angeles at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and at Book Soup in West Hollywood at 7 p.m. Thursday.
She's no shrinking violet
In a new book, Lorraine Bracco tells her tale of bouncing back By SHERRYL CONNELLY -- New York Daily News -- June 8, 2006 'Sopranos' star Lorraine Bracco writes of her depression and recovery. Lorraine Bracco once told a gathering of the American Psychoanalytic Association, "I am so not Dr. Melfi." And ain't that the case. In her new book, "On the Couch," the actress details her failed relationships, bankruptcy, betrayals, and a custody battle so vicious as to make Baldwin vs. Basinger seem modeled on restraint. She came away from it all depressed. Clinically so. "I kept saying, 'I'm not depressed. I'm going to be fine. I'm just tired.' But I lost a year telling myself that." Bracco, 51, arrives at an interview with her talking points front and center. Therapy and an extended course of an anti-depressant - Bracco was eventually paid by Pfizer to endorse Zoloft - not only lifted her psyche but led her to what has been a life-changing conclusion. "I am the boss of me. You can't change anyone else. Women think they can. But you know what, you can't." Bracco, whose feisty Brooklyn attitude and accent became career trademarks, writes that though she won the six-year-long custody fight with actor Harvey Keitel for their daughter, Stella, she lost herself in the process. The two met when she was a model in Paris supporting her young daughter, Margaux, from a previous relationship. They lived together, never marrying, and Stella was born in 1985. While Keitel opened doors for Bracco as an actress, his drug issues and angry, controlling behavior left her feeling constantly pressed up against a wall. She writes that her success - Bracco was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as a mob wife in "Goodfellas" - further aggravated Keitel. The couple separated when she admitted to having had an affair with Edward James Olmos, whom she later married. In the midst of prolonged hostilities studded by ugly accusations, Keitel brought to the court's attention that Olmos had paid $150,000 to a family friend who claimed he had molested her teenaged daughter. Bracco says the woman made the charge after she'd refused to invest in a business with her, and Olmos only settled at the urging of his lawyers. She emerged from it all divorced, owing $2 million, with virtually no career. And depressed, of course. "David Chase says depression is anger not dealt with. I think I was very angry with Harvey over the custody battle. I just didn't know where to go with it." Yet, even at her lowest, she had it in her to test the creator of "The Sopranos" when he approached her to play the role of Carmela, Tony's wife. She felt she would be merely reprising her role as Karen Hill from "Goodfellas." She doesn't regret that choice even though she feels Dr. Jennifer Melfi didn't always get her due. "There was a point a couple of seasons ago that Chase kind of lost Melfi. He didn't want Tony to come to Melfi and cry about his mother anymore. "I said, 'David, how long have you been in therapy? It has been like 20 years and you're worried about 20 episodes?' Melfi just wasn't on his radar for a while. But the checks still cashed." This season is "more a Melfi kind of season" and those checks have alleviated her enormous debt. She already has a production deal lined up with the Lifetime channel that will carry her forward professionally. Personally, it's all good, too. She's involved with 32-year-old Jason Cipolla, a driver for the show. Who, she takes pains to point out, is older than her daughters. A rule to love by. And what's past is past. "If you could take all the bad things that happen to you, put them in a box and throw them away, you would. But you can't. "I decided not to let all that happened define me. I said I wanted to become the woman I want to be." Lorraine Bracco, CEO, the
boss of her. People Magazine -- June 12, 2006 Issue
Questions for Lorraine Bracco -- The Doctor Is In
By DEBORAH SOLOMON -- Published: June 4, 2006 -- NY Times Sunday Magazine Q: As the actress who plays Dr. Jennifer Melfi on "The Sopranos," might you be willing to spill a few details about the plot of the season finale? Lorraine Bracco. Don't you know better? "The Sopranos" people don't reveal any of the story plots. Just checking to see if you can keep a secret, which is certainly a professional requirement for any psychiatrist. I'm an actor. Hello! Hello! I missed out on those 10 years of Yale University. But viewers do project a certain wisdom onto you, and you have even been honored by the American Psychoanalytic Association. When they called me, my first words were, "What, are they crazy?" They gave me a nice little plaque for portraying a therapist in a fair way. As opposed to playing a tight-lipped guy in a shadowy room? Most of the time when you see a film with a psychiatrist, the psychiatrist turns into the psycho killer, the sex fiend. I don't know how many movies you can think of where the psychiatrist turns crazy. I can't think of one. What's the movie with Michael Caine? "Dressed to Kill." That is what people remember about therapists. You've just published a memoir, "On the Couch." Why would you write with such bitterness about Harvey Keitel, the father of one of your two daughters, when most any psychiatrist could tell you that children should be spared such details? I was very truthful. And the truth of the matter is that Harvey let Stella in on all of that information as a very young girl. I did not. But that's different from branding Keitel before all the world as an enraged and self-pitying drug user. I thought you were tough on him. I find it stunning that you say I am hard on Harvey. You don't think Harvey robbed the children and myself of a life? Have you shown the book to your daughters? Of course. And what did they say? That's my mother! And did you show the book to Keitel? No, I did not. At this point in my life, I am the boss of me. Why, on "The Sopranos," did you choose to play a psychiatrist of the Jungian school in particular? It's what I wanted to be. I like that psychiatry better. I identify with it better. What's wrong with Freud? You know, I don't really know enough about it to discuss it on a bigger level, but I went the Jungian way in the show. When you play a role, aren't you supposed to do a little research to enrich your understanding of a character? I think I have done pretty good so far. Indeed. More American men have begun seeking therapy as a direct result of your sensitive portrayal of Dr. Melfi, or so it has been reported. I pray that is true. I pray. How do you feel about playing a role that requires you to sit down most of the time? I need a lot of glue. I'm very different from Dr. Melfi. I'm fairly animated, and I always have to calm myself down. Velcro would have been a good thing to put on my costumes and chair. After Dr. Melfi, you are probably best known for playing a mobster's wife in "Goodfellas." What sort of roles would you like to play in the future? I would like to be able to be funny. I am funny. No one else thinks I am funny. But I am funny. Have you ever been cast in a comic role? No. I am always that serious, troubled, hard-edged wife-lawyer-Indian-chief. Did you actually write your book yourself? No. I had help. Why didn't you give the writer credit? She's in my acknowledgments. Catherine Whitney is her name. She wrote it. I don't want to say that I wrote it. I am not a writer. I'm a talker. In that case, perhaps it was narcissistic of you to leave her name off the title page? O.K., Dr. Melfi. I don't
think I am narcissistic. I think I have low self-esteem. Bracco recalls depression in memoir United Press International Release -- June 2, 2006 "The Sopranos" star Lorraine Bracco writes in her memoir of the crippling depression she was battling when she accepted the role on the HBO mob drama. Bracco said in her new book, "The Couch," a number of factors including a divorce and her daughter's illness had her engulfed in "pea-soup gloom" when she started playing Dr. Jennifer Melfi, the New York Post reported Friday. In a book excerpt published in People magazine, Bracco, 51, said she was drawn to her ex-husband, Harvey Keitel, because he "was as fierce in life as he was in his films." She said his behavior became erratic after eight years together and she entered into an affair with actor Edward James Olmos. After Keitel found out and left her, they engaged in a bitter custody battle over their daughter, Stella. Bracco and Olmos married in 1994 and a year later Stella got "desperately ill" with systemic juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, she said. "It was one thing after another, terrible stress bringing me down," Bracco wrote. She attributes a combination of medication and therapy for her current mental state. "I (decided) I didn't want my happiness to be conditional -- on a man, on a job, on my looks. I felt that I was truly in charge of my life again," she wrote. "When I finally got up from the couch, I felt stronger, empowered and hopeful about the future."
SOPRANO SHRINK SHOCK
DEPRESSION ERA: While playing Sopranos shrink Dr. Jennifer Melfi, Lorraine Bracco really felt Tonys pain, she says. June 2, 2006 -- Actress Lorraine Bracco reveals in her new memoir she was suffering from crippling depression when she first took on the role as Tony Soprano's shrink as a result of the devastating dissolution of her marriage to actor Harvey Keitel. "As we shot the first season of "The Sopranos" - the best job I'd ever had - I struggled through pea-soup gloom," she wrote in her autobiography "The Couch," excerpted in this week's People magazine. She said she was reluctant to use antidepressants - like those her "Dr. Melfi" character prescribed for James Gandolfini's "Tony Soprano" mob-boss character. She changed her mind after spotting an ad that said, "You have only one chance to be a mother. Why do it depressed?" It hit her "like a ton of bricks," she wrote. In the book, the Bay Ridge-born Bracco, 51, described hitting it off immediately with Keitel when they met at a party in 1983. "I was drawn to his intensity," she wrote. "He was as fierce in life as he was in his films." The meeting launched an intense, eight-year relationship with Keitel, 16 years her senior, in which they had a daughter, Stella, in 1985 and raised her daughter Margaux from an earlier marriage. Things soured when the four of them moved to Rockland County and Keitel's behavior became erratic, she wrote. In 1990, Bracco admits running into the arms of her "Talent for the Game" co-star Edward James Olmos. After discovering her infidelity, Keitel moved out and the pair became embroiled in a nasty custody suit. In 1994, Bracco married Olmos and the following year daughter Stella became "desperately ill" with systemic juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. "It was one thing after another, terrible stress bringing me down," Bracco wrote. Then she landed the gig as Dr. Jennifer Melfi on the hit HBO show, began taking medication and went into therapy. "I [decided] I didn't want my happiness to be conditional - on a man, on a job, on my looks. I felt that I was truly in charge of my life again," she wrote. "When I finally got up from the couch, I felt stronger, empowered and hopeful about the future."
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