I used to listen to 'Perfect Day' by Hoku every single day in high school! 'On this perfect day, nothin' standin' in my way... Don't you try to rain on my perfect day.' It pumped me up when I was feeling down or defeated, whether it was from the cool kids making me feel left out or feeling overwhelmed with homework and mean teachers.

I thought, 'OK, Melissa Gilbert is playing my mom, and I'm playing her old role - no pressure.' So I went up to Melissa and said, 'It's such an honor playing your daughter,' and she smiled and said, 'Oh, shut up.' I thought, 'Great, a normal person.'

I did 'Lone Star Love' in 2007 with Randy Quaid, and that was supposed to come to Broadway at the Belasco and a marquee went up and everything... and it all fell apart, and that marquee came right down, and we got severance pay. And, it was very sad.

I'd always wanted to be on Broadway one day, but it seemed like a dream that might be unattainable. This business has a lot of ups and downs and I learned that pretty quickly.

No one ever said, 'Be a doctor.' But because so many members of my extended family - aunts, uncles - were doctors, there was this expectation that I'd probably be a physician.

I was a sailor. I was torpedoed, spent two weeks in a lifeboat. I was on the Murmansk run; I worked a 20 mm. machine gun, helped bring down a Stuka, all that kind of stuff. I've got letters from Franklin Roosevelt for things I did then. But those kind of credentials didn't work for you in the Cold War.

I am from a family of artists. Here I am, making a living in the arts. It has not been a rebellion. It's as though I had taken over the family Esso station.

Life was a lot simpler when what we honored was father and mother rather than all major credit cards.