MARG HELGENBERGER HONORED WITH A STAR ON THE HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME – TRANSCRIPT OF MARG’S SPEECH
January 23, 2012
Hollywood Blvd, in front of the legendary Musso and Franks
Transcribed by Sharon Barry
“Oh my gosh, I’m already crying. Jorja, Dana, you two are beyond anything. Thank you so much. I am so touched by what you both said.”
“Happy New Year, everybody! It’s the first day of Chinese New Year, year of the dragon. It’s supposed to be a very lucky year. And the rain was good for the New York Giants last night, so it’s good for all of us today.”
“Thank you, thank you all for being here today. I know some of you have traveled a very long distance. (crowd cheers) I’m referring to you West Siders. Seriously, I’m so touched you’ve taken the time out of your lives to share this occasion with me. Gosh, how do I top what Dana and Jorja said? I mean, honestly.”
“So, a career is not a straight path. It twists and turns, bringing both joy and disappointment, and if you’re very fortunate, celebrations like this one here today. The career journey is made up of a little luck and a lot of hard work and you don’t get — arrive at your destination without many people helping you along the way. When I was eleven, I got my social security card and I started working that summer. I began my career in the bean and corn fields of Nebraska and from there moved up to the packing house. Yep, all the while sure I’d grow up to become a nurse like my mother, Kay. I loved science, was no stranger to hard work, and obviously I didn’t mind blood. Then in high school, my English teacher Mariann vonRein recruited me for the speech and drama team and we traveled across the state of Nebraska competing for the glory for North Bend Central High. (crowd cheers) Yeah, that’s right. Go Tigers!”
In my senior year, inspired by the film One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, I chose to interpret a passage from the novel, from the novel of the same name — the same film, you know what I’m trying to say. I played several of the characters, including Nurse Ratchet, Billy Bibbit, and of course McMurphy. Not in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that thirty-five years later I would have the opportunity to tell Jack Nicholson in his own home how brilliant I thought he was as McMurphy. I mean, why would I imagine that? I was going to be a nurse in Nebraska! Hollywood was a fantasy completely out of my reach. Yet somehow the thrill of bringing written characters to life got under my skin, and I shelved a potential nursing career for the stable career in the entertainment biz.”
“Not knowing how to go about becoming a professional actor, I took baby steps by attending a state college back home where my first part was that of a hot box dancer in the musical Guys and Dolls. Two years and several musicals and plays later, I transferred to Northwestern University, AKA the “Harvard of the Midwest”. The theater department was, and is, legendary. Going to school with talented students from all over the country in a department so rich in history was something special. I knew it was there while playing Kate, I’m repeating what Leron said, but anyway…I played Kate in The Taming of the Shrew, was seen by a talent agent, led to a professional job on ABC soap opera Ryan’s Hope. It was also the first time I played a character who worked in law enforcement.”
“The three years I spent on the soap were both fun and heartbreaking because it was during that time that I lost my father Hugh to multiple sclerosis. Both my dad and mom believed in me, as they did in my brother Curt and my sister Ann. They believed that we could do, be anything. And I am grateful that my dad got to share in my early success and see it with his own eyes on a visit to New York.”
“Cut to 1987 and I am now living in L.A. and I’m cast as K.C. Koloski in the Vietnam era television drama China Beach. I’m so grateful, truly grateful to have had that experience. It was an intensely creative group of people, starting with the creator John Sacret Young. And a dream cast headed by Dana Delany. Dana, whose character was also called McMurphy, and I were the quintessential bad girl/good girl duo. We went through so much together on that show, shared every kind of scene you could imagine, and she punched me out during the ‘Tet Offensive while I was ‘jonesing’ on heroin. She hired me to “service” a wounded soldier, we were captured by the Viet Cong and held in tunnels. McMurphy even helped me give birth in the alleys of Saigon. In reality, I gave birth a month later in the very sterile Cedars Sinai to my son Hugh, the love of my life (crowd cheers). He is the love and light of my life.”
“Well, I always had hoped I would be fortunate to have another series as wonderful as China Beach and a decade of playing gamma roles of movies and miniseries, from a cancer stricken woman fighting a public utility in Erin Brockovich to Patsy Ramsey, the world’s most notorious stage mom, lightning did strike twice. In the spring of 2000, my agent Brian Mann and manager Nancy Sanders sent me a pilot script called CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. It was an invigorating and clever read and I wanted in. I knew that Anthony Zuiker had created something that television audiences had never seen before, a crime scene told from the point of view of the criminalists where science was the star. Billy Petersen, an actor I’d admired for years, was set to play the role of Gil Grissom, and Jerry Bruckheimer, an extraordinarily successful movie producer and stylish visionary, was set to produce CSI, as his first TV show. I will always be grateful to Jerry and to Les Moonves and Nina Tassler at CBS for giving me the opportunity to play the role of Catherine Willows.”
“CSI has been such a gift. Twelve seasons with writers, producers, directors, actors, craftsmen, and crew who are beyond the best. A huge thank you to everyone involved in the show and particularly to Carol Mendelsohn. Your tireless leadership and great leadership leaves me in awe. And how lucky I have been to have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours on and off the set with a cast who never ceases to inspire me and to make me laugh. A special thank you to you, Jorja, wherever you are, my sista’ in crime for your beautiful words today.
“Oh boy! Leaving CSI was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. And I don’t know what comes next for me, but I do know if the past is any indication, wherever my career is going, I’m not going to get there alone. I’ve always said that my worst day on any set was a thousand times better than my best day at a meat packing plant. (crowd laughs) I am incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunities I’ve had, the love and support of my colleagues and my friends, and especially my family. And the enthusiasm of my fans! All you people who came in from England and Scotland. Oh my God, I am so touched by that. Seriously!”
“Gosh! Thank you to the President of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, Leron Gubler, to Ana Martinez of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. To everyone at CBS, Nina, David Stapf, to Jerry and Jonathan at Jerry Bruckheimer Television. A special thank you to my tenacious team of many years who worked so hard for me, Nancy, Brian, Lori, and Carter. To Sharon Chapman for your wisdom about acting. To Jill Davis, who for ten seasons got me to and from gnarly locations at crazy ass hours. To Alan Finkelstein for sharing with me your passion for art and nature. Oooh, an enormous heartfelt thank you to Alan and Hugh Rosenberg for just about everything. As well as to my mother and my brother Curt and everyone my family in Nebraska.”
“Standing here among all the famous stars on this sidewalk I am completely humbled. I am so very very grateful for this honor. Thank you!” (Marg blows kiss to crowd)