56 MAY 2017
»Goldie and her co-star,
Amy Schumer, in their
new movie,Snatched.Throughout the various traumas and
successes in her life, meditating
is what Goldie has turned to when
others might turn to cocktails.
A homemaker at heart
Goldie is wearing a little black dress,
bare freckled legs and a heart-shaped
tattoo that pokes out of her strappy
sandalled foot. Her hair, at 71, is the
same as it’s been most of her life – long,
blonde and tousled – but there’s no
facial sculpting. She’s always been
pretty. She was the woman who broke
moulds. Before Goldie Hawn, it was
impossible to be a pretty, funny woman
in the movies. Notthat she sees herself
that way. She’s always been insecure
about her looks and
describes herself as a
comedic actress. “I’ve
never done stand-up
or anything like that,”
she says.
Born in 1945 in
Washington D.C.,
she was discovered
on the popular TV
sketch showRowan
& Martin’s Laugh-In,
appearing on it from
1968 to 1970. She
came to Los Angeles
around the age of 25
and made the movie
There’s a Girl in My
Soup. She maintains
she came without any
other ambition except to get married,
have a family and run a dance school.
Goldie always thought she would
go home to D.C., but she never did.
She was always shocked by her
huge appeal, not because she’s self-
deprecating, but because she’s always
believed that making children happy
and homemaking was what she was
here for. “I wanted the white picket
fence,” she has said. The nearest she
got was The Hawn Foundation for
children – tohelp them triumph over
traumausing meditation techniques.
“A fearful child cannot learn.”
Her spell away from movies to focus
on her foundation came naturally, she
says. “When you’vebeen working for
40 years at being funny, there comes a
moment where you look at your life
and say, ‘Who am I now and where do
I want to go? Do I want to continue
to repeat myself or do I want to do
something different?’ I want my life
to be enriched by different actions,
not just by one thing. That’s why I
have developed and produced scripts
for children that can go into schools.
It was exciting to me.”
By the same token, Goldie feels her
new movie wascompletely organic and
not a decision to goback into acting.
“I didn’t know Amybefore the movie,
although we met on aplane once,” she
says. “In my heart, I haveadopted her
now. I love her.” She beams, afull-on
Goldie beam, not a Hollywood beam.The movie is a mother and daughter
caper, a female mix, if you like, of
TakenandThe Hangover.Definitely
room for a sequel and definitely very,
very funny. The Amy/Goldie chemistry
is totally natural and believable.Search for enlightenment
That said, to think of Goldie Hawn
as simply funny and light would be a
mistake. As the child of a Presbyterian
father and Jewish mother, she grew up
fascinated by all religions. Going to
the Catholic Church with her best
friend as a little girl, even then she was
looking for answers when most children
her age hadn’t even thought of the
questions. She vividly remembers the
day at school they showed a movieabout the Cold War and what could
happen if The Bomb was dropped. “It
stayed with me,” she says. “It was very
impactful. I remember thinking I’ll
never live to kiss a boy. I’ll never be
a mom. I was very anxiety ridden.”
That anxiety stayed with her for her
whole life – that’s how the meditation
came in. It also helped her get through
her divorces, first from Gus Trikonis
and a particularly nasty one with Bill
Hudson, the father of Kate and Oliver.
The divorce was gruelling and seemed
to cause much angst. It is perhaps
why Goldie and Kurt are one of
Hollywood’s longest lasting couples –
together now for more than 30years,
but never married.
“Relationships
are hard,” she says.
“None of them are
easy. Both Kurt and
I had gotten out of a
relationship that was
basically all about
money and we both
looked at each other
and we were like,
marriage – no way!
What’s yours is
yours, what’s mine
is mine. We’re going
to do this thing
separately and we’re
going to be together.
We’re going to enjoy
each other. There’s
no marriage here.
“Marriage binds you lawfully in
a way that, suddenly, you’ve got to
give up your money. Kurt was married
for three-and-a-half years and he had
to give up all his money, his house
and hundreds ofthousands of dollars.
I was married and my ex sued me for
everything, after four years. The laws
are like that.”
Of Bill Hudson, even to this day,
she admits, “He was fun.” It was a
passionate relationship and the other
side of passion is, of course, darkness.
With Kurt, it was different from the
start. It was instant cosiness, a slow
burn. They met when they co-starred
inSwing Shift,which Goldie also
produced. “You know when we fell in
love? I loved the way he looked at my