A long, strange trip (2024)

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Readers who pick up Goldie Hawn’s new memoir in search of a steamy Hollywood tell-all may be disappointed. Though the 59-year-old Hawn, a show-biz insider since the ’60s, doubtless has plenty of those types of tales, her introspective memoir, co-written with British journalist and author Wendy Holden, focuses more on Hawn’s lifelong journey to wisdom and self-fulfillment.

Each of us goes through transitions and transformations, Hawn writes in the preface to A Lotus Grows in the Mud. The important thing is that we acknowledge them and learn from them. That is the idea behind this book. Not to tell my life story, but to speak openly and from the heart. Expressed by any other star, this sentiment might be scoffed at, but coming from Goldie Hawn, one of America’s most personable and beloved performers, you can believe it’s genuine. Goldie Studlendgehawn was born on November 21, 1945, and raised in Takoma Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Her parents were both performers her mother ran a dance school, and her father played the violin. Hawn was an entertainer from an early age, and in Lotus she shares stories of her childhood, her days as a go-go dancer, her first taste of success on Laugh-In and her transition to Hollywood leading lady and brilliant comic actress. She also speaks openly about her two marriages (to Gus Trikonis and to Bill Hudson, father of her first two children, Oliver and Kate) and her relationship with longtime partner Kurt Russell. The two met on the set of the 1968 film The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band. Russell played a lead role, while Hawn had a bit part. When they met again on the set of the 1984 film Swing Shift, the two began a romantic relationship. They’ve been together ever since and had a son, Wyatt, in 1986, but they have not chosen to marry. As Hawn explained to Harper’s Bazaar in April, A marriage paper doesn’t do anything but sometimes close a door psychologically. I’ve always said, if I’m in a cage and you leave the door open, I’m going to fly in and fly out, but I’ll always come home. She and Russell divide their time among their homes in California, Aspen and Vancouver, where their son, Wyatt, plays hockey. Over the course of her career, Hawn has received many award nominations and a Best Supporting Actress Oscar (for her performance in Cactus Flower). She and Russell run a successful production company, Cosmic Entertainment. But as she reveals in her memoir, perhaps her favorite role is that of mother to her children. She’s also a grandmother in 2004 her daughter Kate Hudson had a son, Ryder, with her husband, former Black Crowes frontman Chris Robinson. Being a grandmother is amazing, Hawn told the San Francisco Chronicle soon after Ryder’s birth. It brings unbelivable joy. Joy comes easily to Hawn, who says the ability to choose happiness is in my DNA. Though she continues to grow spiritually and intellectually, the actress believes that fundamentally, she hasn’t changed much since her Laugh-In days. I’ve grown up, Hawn says. I’ve gone through the trials and tribulations of life. I’ve lost my parents since then. I’ve had two failed marriages. Yet the essence of that person I was has remained. Fans will enjoy getting to know that person in this frank, reflective memoir.