No HBO execs have contacted Lu Ann Cooper for help in massaging the script for "Big Love." Tom Hanks hasn't called, either. So I phoned Lu Ann earlier this week, thinking that her experience as a woman born into the notorious Kingston clan might offer some insights into life in a polygamous sect. Cooper had only a ninth-grade education when she married her cousin, Jeremy Ortell Kingston, at age 15. She gave birth to two daughters by age 18 and finally mustered the courage to leave.
"How will they portray it? Dramatic? Funny? Sometimes it was both," Lu Ann said, speaking from her Salt Lake City home. "But even if they show three or four consenting adults living happily together, you aren't in your right mind. Show how the women are being controlled. Show how they are forced to grow up before they are ready to."
These days, 24-year-old Lu Ann lives in a legal marriage. Jeremy Kingston is serving a year in jail for having sex with Lu Ann as a minor. Lu Ann has custody of their two daughters, now 5 and 6. She has one son with her legal husband and expects a baby in November. Lu Ann has little contact with any Kingstons anymore because, as she describes it, "once you make the break, they stop trusting you."
I have not been privy to "Big Love" creators Will Scheffer and Mark Olsen hashing out their screenplays. Semi-hunk Bill Paxton, the tornado chaser in "Twister," will play the patriarch and - isn't this sooo true of fundamentalist sister wives - the women will be portrayed by sexy, just-bounced-out-of-bed-with-their-makeup-on starlets: Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny and Ginnifer Goodwin.
This is the same network that brought us "The Sopranos" and "Six Feet Under" - two brilliant dramas I freely confess I am drawn to each week like a magpie to roadkill. What to expect? Let's see. A madcap romp through the bedroom (or bedrooms)? With this much estrogen running and jealous minds maneuvering, no polygamy drama could be complete without an ample number of catfights erupting among wives. (Fight fair now, girls! No hair pulling, biting, scratching or kicking with stiletto heels!)
Lu Ann Cooper is pretty sure the show will miss the nuances behind the pain and struggle of a woman escaping polygamy. When, after two years of "complete unhappiness," she finally chose to break out, Lu Ann gave herself two days between the decision and the actual exodus. Like other Kingston wives, she had lived isolated from neighbors, had no job skills or credit history and barely enough money - scraped together with the help of a cousin - for her first month's rent.
She recalls showing up at her family home. An uncle stood on the porch and barred her from gathering her belongings inside. "I told him, 'Fine. I don't need my furniture to escape from The Order.'
There is reality, and there is fantasy. Guess which makes for good HBO? Anyway, if the network wants to call, Lu Ann is waiting.
hmullen@sltrib.com
