The Time I Vommed on Jessica Lange
by Matthew J.X. Malady
People drop things on the Internet and run all the time. So we have to ask. In this edition, Marketplace Weekend host Lizzie O’Leary tells us more about what it’s like to vomit on a movie star.
@biocuriosity hi I threw up on Jessica Lange.
— Lizzie O’Leary (@lizzieohreally) February 18, 2015
Lizzie! So what happened here?
It was my senior year of college (1998), and I was on vacation in Akumal, Mexico, about an hour south of Cancun. For the first week, I was with my family, who had rented a condo there. Then my college roommates came down, and I spent about four more days with them. This is a long way of saying I was traveling alone back home. I speak no Spanish, though wasn’t feeling so hot, so was practicing “I am sick” and “please pull over.” By the time I got to the airport, I was a full-blown disaster. I remember checking my bags and noticing a really good-looking middle-aged couple with their kids as we all went through security. But in that way that you can’t place celebrities, I thought maybe they were friends of my mother’s or something.
By this point, I was bolting for the bathroom or trashcan every ten minutes to barf. It was very clear to me that whatever I had, it was nasty. I tend to get sick when I travel, but I was really, really far gone. Since this was Cancun in college, I would also like to note that I was a hundred percent sober.
At some point, I decided to call my parents (collect, of course). My Dad was in a meeting, and I couldn’t reach him. My mom was at opening day for the Orioles. I don’t think anyone had cell phones. I remember turning, sweaty and crying, back toward the international passenger waiting area. There were maybe twenty-five feet to the trashcan. I knew I wouldn’t make it. And I heaved and puked all over myself and the floor, in full view of about two hundred people.
Suddenly I felt a tap on the shoulder, and this very handsome man was wiping the vomit from my face, and offering me a Cipro. “Are you okay?” he asked. I managed a sort of weepy, strangled, “No,” and he took my hand and led me over to his family. At some point my undergrad drama brain realized who he was and squeaked out “You’re a really great playwright.” He looked appalled, but thanked me and continued being nice.
He led me to Jessica Lange and their two utterly disgusted kids. They were headed to Minnesota and sat with me for about forty-five minutes giving me sips of water and coke, and alternating Cipro and Imodium. And then, of course, I couldn’t help myself, and though I tried to hold it down, I heaved forward and wretched all over the floor and her ankles (I’m pretty sure she was wearing sandals).
How did she react? What did you say? And what was the remainder of the trip like following this incident?
She could not have been lovelier. I remember saying, “I’m so sorry!” and trying to play it off. I was also definitely way too old to be acting like such a baby. She told me not to worry, that she was a mother, and she just wanted to make sure that someone took care of me. I was twenty-one at the time, but emotionally, I was reduced to about age seven.
They sat with me until their plane boarded. Except for the playwright comment, I don’t think I ever acknowledged that I knew who they were. But they were truly fabulous people. If this had happened today, not in the nineties, I would have figured out how to get in touch with them to thank them. Back then, I was a moronic college kid and had no idea.
After they left me, I eventually boarded my flight to D.C. via Charlotte. Turns out that I passed out somewhere on the way and was hospitalized with E. coli poisoning in Charlotte for a couple days. But, you know, I was a vain college kid, and I lost some weight, which was pretty much what mattered to me then. Plus, good story?
Lesson learned (if any)?
Oscar winners…they’re just like us? No. I suppose it’s that people are truly lovely when you are alone and covered in your own puke. Also try not to get E. coli poisoning. It’s not great. But I do wish I had written them a thank you letter. I probably would not have made it home in one piece without them.
Just one more thing.
I can’t watch anything with either of them in it without cringing. And I wonder what their kids must have thought of that experience (one was a teenager, the other was maybe eleven or twelve). If my parents took care of some random girl in an airport, I would have been deeply skeptical.
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