Think about Melrose Place, the TV hit that gives new meaning to "won't you be my neighbor," and words like pure and wholesome don't immediately come to mind. But actress Courtney Thorne-Smith, who plays perpetually troubled Alison Parker on the nighttime series, lives surprisingly close to nature. In an industry that thrives on looks, wealth, and other superficialities, Courtney keeps herself grounded with daily meditation and her involvement in animal--friendly organizations. She maintains her healthy body through whole foods and a dedication to yoga. A much-needed realistic role model for today�s women, Courtney follows a cheerfully holistic way of life that everyone can learn from.
What were your earliest experiences with a healthy lifestyle?
It's hysterical that you ask that, because I was at a baby shower a little while ago, and all the women were talking about, "Well, our mothers did this," and "Our mothers didn't do that," and "Our moth-ers drank and smoked through their pregnancies" and "Our mothers didn't breastfeed us." I was like, "My mother quit smoking and drinking, and my mother breast-fed. My mother tried to feed us liver for breakfast and was making yogurt when I was four."
Liver for breakfast?
Yes, (laughs) because she read a book by Adele Davis. It came out in the '60s and was a very avant-garde new healthy living diet book at the time. My father was thrilled, but my sister and I looked at her like she was crazy. (laughs) So I grew up very healthfully. I think before most people were doing health food, my mom was. So I rebelled dramatically when I first moved away from home. And now I've gone back to it. I mean, the kinds of things that stuck with me were that a salad should have seven different kinds of lettuces and vegetables. We'd go back east, and I couldn't believe that they were putting head lettuce on my plate. A health food store looks much more familiar to me than a regular market.
When you were a child, were your friends kind of grossed out by what you'd be eating?
I grew up in northern California in the '70s, which was fairly avant-garde anyway. And I went to an alternative school, so a lot of people had the same weird brown breads and healthy toppings. That was back when Fruit Rolls were something really earthy and weird. (laughs) It was amazing to me, when I'd talk to friends who had Fruit Loops for breakfast. One time, my mother let me get Lucky Charms at the market - I still feel guilty about this! I was just drooling because I'd always had a killer sweet tooth, and when we got home, she looked at the Lucky Charms box, then looked at me and said, "I just can't do it!" And she threw it away. So I snuck into the backyard, and reached my little, tiny hand into the garbage can, into the box of Lucky Charms, and took a handful and ran into the bushes to eat it. I was so disappointed when the garbage man came! (laughs) Now I have incorporated meditation into my day also, so I think of them as connected. Meditation has deepened what yoga did; yoga brought a sense of equanimity and calm, and the ability to take things as they come without judgment. Meditation has deepened that to an incredible degree. For my body, yoga seems to bring the muscles up to the surface. I mean, I'm good, hearty German stock. I'm a strong breed. (laughs) We don't get sick, we're not frail, and I'm not a tiny person: I have strong legs and strong arms. Yoga helps to lengthen my muscles and bring them out. I always felt that there was this layer of fat between my muscles and my skin. I just couldn't get them to come to the surface, and yoga seems to do that.
Had you gone to the gym to try and get a trainer to help you with that in the past?
I build muscle incredibly quickly. I love to work out with weights, and if I wasn't on Melrose Place I'd probably have about five or ten pounds more of muscle - I love it! But I can't do it on a show like Melrose Place because the other women are so tiny that I'd look like the Incredible Hulk. I already feel like an Amazon! (laughs) I was saying the other day, "I should just have scenes where I carry the other women around because I'm the sturdy one!" Yoga also really makes my stomach smoother. That seems to be where I carry my weight. I'm lucky that I don't carry a lot of weight in my hips and my butt. But I do carry it in my stomach, and my arms. And yoga helps my posture, too. Mostly though, it helps my mood.
What are some of your favorite restaurants to go to that cater to your type of eating?
There's a great new restaurant here in Los Angeles called The News Room, which is healthy food. There's a restaurant called A Votre Sante. I can basically eat anywhere. I love The Ivy - it's my favorite restaurant. It's not health food; I'm not insane about it. I don't think that good-tasting food that isn't health food is necessarily bad for you. I think you have to be relaxed about your diet or else you'll go crazy. When I was younger I got really obsessive/compulsive about my diet for about four or five years, and that was insane; you can't keep up. I've outgrown that, thank God!
What were the most significant changes yoga has made in your life, both mentally and physically?
Meditation must help with that as well. How did you get started with it? That and the meditation release so much, it's amazing. I started meditat-ing a year ago, and it changed my life dramatically. When I was younger, I watched my mother do it. That was the time of day when I couldn't scream, "Maaaa! Maaaaaa! Feed me! Take care of me!" (laughs) So I didn't understand it, but as I grew up and I started exercising, then doing yoga, I thought, "What's the next level?" Someone I was working with had gone to the TM (Transcendental Meditation) Center, and had learned how to meditate, and he was just blown away by it. I was going through a difficult time in my life, and I thought it was the right time to do it.
Would you consider yourself a vegetarian?
I eat fish. London Broil was the hardest thing for me to give up. My mom's not a vegetarian, and no one else in my family is. I always leaned towards vegetarianism, and to this day am involved in animal causes. From the time I was five, I kept trying to be a veg-etarian, but at that age you can't go to a friend's house for dinner and say, "I don't want the chicken. Can you make me something else?" (laughs) I was 17 years old, and I was in a play in high school about animal rights, and I came home on Thanksgiving, and I said, "Mother, I'm not eating meat anymore. It's animals!" I was being really dramatic, and she goes, "Alright, have more potatoes, I don't care. Good for you." (laughs) And that was it, and it stuck.
How did you first discover yoga, and how often do you do it?
My workouts vary a lot. I do it at least every other day. It's one of those things that have always been in my consciousness. I've always heard about it, and have always known instinctively that it would be good for me. There's a book called Initiation that I read probably about 10 years ago, about a woman who, as a child, starts doing yoga poses naturally, and she talks about the power of yoga. It struck me then, but I just couldn't ever get it together to begin. I started it about three years ago in earnest, and it changed my body and my attitude, and I could see such dramatic effect immediately on the days I didn't do my yoga, and I'd be irritable and cranky, and my brain would be full of thoughts that had nothing to do with anything I was going through at the moment. When I would do it, and I had so much equanimity and calm and joy, I'd think, "Hey!" And I never stopped.
Was it the pressure of being out in the public eye of the entertainment industry that led you to obsess about your diet?
It was the pressure of being a 19-year-old actress and still having baby fat and being criticized for my size. I was basically going through the "freshman ten" on television. I look at these young women now who hit 18, 19, or 20, and the media starts giving them flak for their weight, and I know what that leads to. It kills me. I really want to jump out and strangle 'em. It's probably causing much more harm than the public is even aware of. It's so disgusting. They don't get it. Don't they understand that she's a young girl, no matter how successful she is? At 18 or 19, everything's taken personally. That takes a long time to unlearn. Naomi Wolf (author of The Beauty Myth) said on a talk show that it's incredible to watch how as women get more real power in the world, the body we're supposed to have gets more insane: the waist gets smaller, the breasts get bigger, the hips get more boyish. It gets less and less natural. And the amount of money people spend on surgery and diets is taking energy away from them and the world. Yoga and meditation help me stay grounded and remember that my body is what I live in while I'm on this earth, instead of there to compete with other women. And when it gets really bad, I think, "Okay, I want to be a realistic, strong body to look at when young girls are watching the show," instead of, "I'm going to win and be the skinniest one even if it kills me," and then be one more unrealistic body for girls to aspire to.
Realistically-sized role models are so hard to come by these days.
Most of the women who I know and work with who are really thin, like Heather (Locklear, co-star on Melrose Place), always talk about the fact that they eat junk. (laughs) She said to me one day, while I was eating my really healthy whatever, and she was eating her deep-fried everything, "You know, you're lucky. You have to eat healthy. I wish I had to eat healthy." And I thought: A) She's lucky I love her so much or I'd have to kill her, (laughs) or B) In a way, I see her point. I started out really having to watch what I ate, and that led me to a very healthy diet. If you start watching your weight in a healthful way, most of the foods in your diet will be good for you. I don't mean eating diet foods, and just any nonfat this and that, and a lot of NutraSweet, but eating whole foods that work in your body. I was trying to explain that to someone who wanted to start eating well. I said, "You need to put things into your body that your body can use."
Exactly! Foods that your body can recognize.
What kills me is something like Olestra, and we know, before it comes out, that it causes cramping, abdominal pain, and - I gotta say it - anal leakage, the funniest thing I ever heard. Yet, people are clamoring to get it! You know, I love sugar - love it love it. I go to holistic doctors now, so I treat most problems through nutrition, and right now I'm off of sugar to treat a stomach problem. So, the first day I was off of it I went right to the candy store and bought a bag of sugar-free candy. I asked the salesperson, "Would this cause stomach aches?" She said, "Not if eaten in moderation." Since I know nothing of moderation, I ate the whole bag on the way home. I was up until 4 a.m. with stomach pains, and almost went to the hospital.
While you're on the set, how do you make sure that the foods you have around are healthy?
I bring a lot of stuff. I exercise a lot and I found that unless I get a lot of protein during the day, my blood-sugar becomes too low; I get the shakes, I get stupid and cranky. Not eating meat, I can't walk around with a piece of chicken breast, and you really can't walk around with fish, (laughs) so I eat Smart Dogs (soy hot dogs) and tofu. I carry that stuff around with me. What is the extent of your involvement in animal rights organizations? A lot. It's a really tight-knit com-munity in L.A., so once they find out you're into it, it's all over - you can kiss your free time goodbye. (laughs) I work primarily with a group called PAWS, which stands for Pets Are Wonderful Support, and they take care of the pets of people living with AIDS, so that they can keep them. Pets are wonderful, necessary support when we're going through things, and often people with AIDS have to give up their pets because they can't afford to feed them, walk them, or bring them to the vet, and PAWS takes care of that. I also work with the AMANDA Foundation which takes pets out of shelters and finds them homes. A lot of the groups rescue pets from the pounds where they're put to sleep, and find them a home so they're never put to sleep.
Let's say, as "Alison," you were asked to say something that you didn't believe in, what would you do?
You know, it's a soap opera, and I understand that, and if everybody got their act together and started living a healthy life or getting some therapy that really worked, the show would be over. Suddenly, we'd stop doing crazy things. which is the nature of the beast, and I hope it gives me a platform from which to talk about the things which I do believe in. If people are watching the shows and getting clues on how to live my heart is broken. (laughs) Thomas Calabro (plays "Michael" on Melrose Place) said that he hopes people watch the show so that they don't have to do the things that we do. (laughs)
Is there anyone else in the cast of Melrose Place that follows a health regimen?
I'm kind of the resident health person. People come to me about diet and fitness. I'm so committed to it, it's so much my thing, and it helps to keep me so happy. It's difficult there, because the refreshment table has to be stuff that travels well, so what can you really get? Rice cakes? You can't have little vegetarian high protein snacks. There are donuts, bagels, cookies, and crackers, so it's not easy. The makeup trailer is so adorable; it's such a chick place! Our key makeup artist is such a mom! She just set up a coffee and herbal tea bar. She makes whole grain rice, and sometimes I make a vat of vegetable soup and I bring that in for everybody. It's an incredibly sweet group.
And you also avoid refined flour?
I do. Mostly because it doesn't do anything for your body, and I grew up on whole grain bread. One of my closest friends literally eats white bread and bologna, which is hysterical to me. But she grew up on it and can barely tolerate whole grain bread. I'm so grateful to my mother, for all of the complaining I did while growing up.
Do you look for anything in particular when shopping for skin care and cosmetics?
There's a place here called Vera's Retreat here in L.A., and there's also one in the valley, and I've been really into her products. They're very natural. I went yesterday and Vera herself was there, and she gave me this preservative-free, super-new kind of cream, so I'm anxious to try that. I wash my face with Lever2000 soap. My dermatologist recommended it and it's great. It's become very simple for me; I used to spend a ton of money on skincare, and I found that it just made me break out. The most amazing thing that I've found lately is Black Currant Oil. I started tak-ing it, and it's helped my skin immea-surably. And I've added some fats back into my diet. I was doing nonfat and my skin suffered, and I can't believe how nice my skin looks now. By the way, yoga and meditation have an incredible effect on your skin, because in meditation, you become so aware of what's going on, and you slowly release the tensions in your face. I'm constantly squinting in kind of a nervous half-smile. Even when I wasn't smiling, I had laugh lines, and meditation relaxed that. So when I'm not smiling, I don't have this sort of ready-to-be-attentive-to-you look on my face. (laughs)
Have you ever tried any alternative therapies?
Oh, practically everything, literally. When I was growing up, my mother was doing Primal Scream Therapy, and Rolfing, and the gamut. I rebelled against it for a while, and then I came back to it. I do Applied Kinesiology now, I've done acupuncture. I'd like to try a yoga or meditation retreat, but I'm terrified though because I just read a book where the woman who wrote it meditated for 10 to I I hours a day at one. I'm just not ready for that yet. (laughs) I want to find one that's mostly getting massages, eating a lot, with, like, a half-hour of meditation a day!
So what else is coming up for you, work-wise?
Well, right now my dog just threw up, so I'm cleaning that up. (laughs)
Which one, Ed or George? I know you have two basenji dogs.
George is so smart, he needs a job! He needs a really complicated hobby like computer repair or something! He gets so bored. I have my entire house child-proofed, and he can open the child-proofing. You never know what you'll find with him.
Are your dogs also a source of relaxation for you?
Absolutely. I can't imagine not having dogs now. We always had animals around the house when I grew up. We had rabbits, rats, dogs. I spent my life savings on a cat when I was seven. She just died at 19. We used to share Gummy Bears, so she was definitely my cat. That's one of the reasons I'm so involved in PAWS, because I really know what it means to come home to a house that has animals, instead of an empty house, especially when you're going through something painful. And I love having something to take care of. My business can make one so self-centered. There's so much about "me, me, me." I come home, I put on my sweats, and I walk my dogs, and it's incredibly grounding. Or, I clean up after one of them's thrown up, you know, then I remember who I really am. (laughs)
So, let's get back to what's coming up for you work-wise.
It's really just Melrose right now. I do have a movie coming out in February, called Chairman of The Board. It stars the comedian Carrot Top - he's very, very funny - and Larry Miller. I am "the girl." (laughs) It's not my movie, so I can't talk a lot about my character. It was a really cute script, and Carrot Top is really great in it.
Do you get to travel often?
No, I'm not a big traveler. Uh, oh - George?! Yikes, one of those scary noises. (laughs) I do family-based travel, but I'm a real homebody. I like to cook, I like my home, I like my friends: I really, really like my life.
Do you feel like your life is what you would call "balanced"?
Yes. Yes. I'm at a really good place.
