Working as Dr. Kathryn Austin the sometimes heartless heart surgeon on CBS-TV’s Chicago Hope, provides actress Christine Lahti with her share of drama. However, there was no director to yell "Cut!" when the 48-year-old actress experienced her own real-life health scare last year.
During a routine EKG, there was "a questionable blip on my test," recalls Lahti. "I was very frightened." Fortunately, her doctors determine that the EKG results had been misread; the Emmy-nominated TV doc is actually in perfect health. "My heart’s in really great shape thanks to Spinning classes," she says.
Spinning her wheels is only the beginning of Lahti’s fitness routine, however. It also includes regular hikes, Pilates and active play with her husband, television director Thomas Schlamme, and their three children (Wilson, age nine, and four-year-old twins Emma and Joe).
The daughter of a successful surgeon, the Detroit native was destined for a healthy lifestyle. Acting was part of the plan from her early days too. Even as a child, Lahti would emote for her parents or anyone else who would listen. Being cast as a tree in a school play and the Virgin Mary in a Christmas pageant gave her ideas – like moving to new York to be an actress in 1973 at the age 25.
In 1984 Lahti received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her mole as a foul-mouthed, but kindhearted, factory worker, who buddies up with Goldie Hawn’s character in Swing Shift. New York and Los Angeles film Critics Awards followed, as did CableACE Awards and six Golden Globe nominations for television and film roles. In 1995 Lahti won an Oscar in the short-film category for directing the comedy Lieberman in Love, and earlier this year she scored a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Television Drama Series for Chicago Hope after being nominated two years in a row. Again she got ideas.
The actress recently directed an episode of Chicago Hope and is planning on more directing gigs when, she says, laughing, "Hollywood no longer wants to look at my sagging face." In this exclusive interview, Lahti talks about her own take on fitness, fame and family life, and aging in a town obsessed with youth.
Living Fit: Has playing a heart surgeon made you more health conscious?
Christine Lahti: I try to eat low-fat, but once a week I’ll have a major dessert or an oily pasta. Mostly I eat fresh fruits and vegetables, chicken and fish.
LF: You have said that Spinning is partially responsible for how terrific you look these days. Why do you enjoy the bike workout so much?
CL: It’s fantastic not only for cardiovascular improvement but also for toning. It’s kind of like therapy for me; it releases a lot of tension. I also do push-ups when I can, but I normally don’t work out my upper body except when I’m lifting my kids, which is usually enough!
LF: During the time you were smoking cigarettes, did you try to stay healthy in other ways?
CL: No, not at all. There is a kind of self-destructiveness that seems to go along with smoking. If I had started working out and eating well, then I also would have had to face up to all my unhealthy behaviors.
I’m more proud of quitting smoking than of anything else I’ve done in my life, including winning an Oscar. I was so hooked on cigarettes that I allowed them to control my life. I had started smoking when I was 14 and after 20 years was up to two-and-a-half packs a day. I stay disciplined about eating right and working out now because once you get rid of something that self-destructive, you don’t want unhealthy behavior anywhere in your life.
LF: Where do mid-life actresses fit in the entertainment business today?
CL: There are only a few actresses over 40 who are still considered sexual in Hollywood’s eyes – Susan Sarandon is one of them – but there aren’t many parts for women over 40 that deal with sexuality. They’re usually just moms or, if the roles are sexual, they’re prostitutes, which is pretty pathetic. Most of Hollywood’s leading men, even if they’re 50, want 20- and 25-year-olds as their leading ladies. That’s the kind of thing that happens, and yes, it’s a little pathetic too.
One of the reasons I love my Kate Austin character is that she’s over 40 and has many facets to her, yet she’s not some kind of unrealistic superwoman. Often you see female characters on TV who have it all, but without struggle. Being a successful woman and mother without struggle is impossible.
LF: Your mom died a couple of years ago from breast cancer. How did this experience affect you?
CL: My mom’s illness and death were horrific. About five years ago, at age 75, she discovered a lump. She had it removed; it was a simple lumpectomy. Then three years later she began having soreness in her ribs. She had just had her 50th wedding anniversary celebration, and she said to me, "I think I got hugged to much at the party." So she had an X ray and a bone biopsy, and it turned out that there was metastasized breast cancer throughout her entire skeleton. Clearly there had been a misdiagnosis; they hadn’t caught it all in the beginning. She was diagnosed in May 1995 and died in December – that’s how quick it was.
That experience made me realize we’re so uneducated about how to deal with death that when it comes, we’re devastated by it. It’s a shame that in a society in which the aging population is growing, we don’t have a system to help us deal with the loss of people we love.
LF: How do you balance work and family life?
CL: I used to take my work home with me before I had children. I don’t do that now; I do my work and never bring the character home. I can’t. My children don’t care about show business; they don’t want to know about [Kate] Austin. And when I’m home, I want to really be there with them. Because of my kids, I wouldn’t sign up for a long-term project in which I was the central character. When I’m not working, my time is really about my children.
LF: What are your favorite activities to do with your kids?
CL: I love to put on puppet shows for them. We also dance to Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and Carousel or other musicals. Emma likes to dance with me as long as I’m holding her and twirling her around, but if it’s a free-for-all, she’s not as enthusiastic. Sometimes my husband, who’s a great dancer, joins in. The other night we put on the soundtrack from Saturday Night Fever, and the whole family was gettin’ down!
LF:How do you feel about aging?
CL: I joke with a girlfriend of mine who’s also in the business that we’ll be the only two actresses in Hollywood who haven’t had face lifts, and that we’ll be carrying our faces around in wheelbarrows! I don’t want to fight aging; I want to take good care of myself, but plastic surgery and all that? I’m not interested. Right now I feel really good, and I’m very excited about the future. I’m open to the possibility that the best may be yet to come.
Jill Daniel is a Los Angeles – based freelance writer who frequently profiles Hollywood celebrities.
taken from Living Fit Magazine May 1998 issue.