The Bonjour Triste Test

1

Q. Has life for you up to now been a disappointment, a surprise, or a cliche?

A. Catherine Deneuve: More of a surprise than a disappointment, with more unexpected things than cliches.

Jessye Norman: Life for me up to now has been a surprise, a happy surprise, and I hope that this does not change.

Gloria Vanderbilt: A surprise! The phone can ring and in a second your whole life can change.

Nora Ephron: The greatest disappointments in my life up to now have been questionnaires.

2

Q. Do men at first, for you, have to be supportive, charming, or mysterious, and have they in fact been supportive, charming, or mysterious?

A. Catherine Deneuve: They have always had to be charming first and foremost, they still have to be, and they'll always have to be.

Jessye Norman: I need men around me who are supportive and charming. But, in fact, men have been mostly mysterious.

Gloria Vanderbilt: Above all else, supportive. And, yes, the men I am attracted to have always been supportive, but remain forever mysterious.

Nora Ephron: This question, for instance. I love questionnaires, but my answer to this question—like my answers to so many of the questions in the thousands of questionnaires I have compulsively filled out over the years—is none of the above. Is that my problem? Had I been on the lookout for supportive, charming, and mysterious, would I at the very least have had less time for questionnaires?

3

Q. What was most important for you: love, work, success, or security; and over the years have these things stayed in the same order?

A. Catherine Deneuve: Love has always taken top priority. But I've always felt it can, and should, adjust to my work. Success came so fast for me that I didn't have to choose between love and career, and life is exciting enough for me to know that success isn't everything. As for security, I need it and I flee it, because I sort of like to live dangerously.

Jessye Norman: I hope that all of this isn't over yet, but the important things for me have always been in the same order: love and security. Success and work are the main components of a sense of security for me.

Gloria Vanderbilt: In the beginning, love was most important to me. Then over the years there were times when I put work first and equated success with security. Now I have come full circle, for I know that love is all. Nora Ephron: No one ever answers this question truthfully, so why should I?

4

Q. Have your happiest moments been with another person, alone, or with several people?

A. Catherine Deneuve: Alone, and never alone. I always think of someone, feel an emotion for someone, whether or not I share it.

Jessye Norman: My happiest moments have been with several people—as in hundreds of people at a performance.

Gloria Vanderbilt: My happiest moments have been with one other person, with my children, and alone working when I am painting or writing.

Nora Ephron: My happiest moments have been spent alone, filling out disappointing questionnaires.

5

Q. Were your greatest fears of dying, of growing old, or of losing someone, and have they remained in the same order?

A. Catherine Deneuve: When I was a little girl, I was afraid of dying. And I still am today. I'm a bit scared of growing old. But now I know that the worst thing in the world is losing someone you care for.

Jessye Norman: As a child my greatest fear was of losing someone. I couldn't imagine being without my mother and father, brothers, sister, and friends; and this is still true.

Gloria Vanderbilt: I do not fear death or growing old and I never have. My greatest fear has been, and still is, the fear of losing someone. Abandonment.

At a certain age, a woman asks herself questions: about life, about love, about time. French writer FRANÇOISE SAGAN compiled this questionnaire, which was posed to movie star Catherine Deneuve (41), soprano Jessye Norman (39), autobiographeuse Gloria Vanderbilt (61), and novelist Nora Ephron (44)

Nora Ephron: My greatest fear has always been that my hair dryer will somehow plug itself in and hop into the bathtub while I am sitting in it.

6

Q. Are there years you would happily have skipped? How many: one, two, or more?

A. Catherine Deneuve: One year. I was a teenage mother, an actress, overwhelmed, desperate—and young enough to survive.

Jessye Norman: I think I probably might have skipped the age of fourteen or fifteen. The confusion of being neither a child nor an adult was bothersome.

Gloria Vanderbilt: I wouldn't have skipped a single one. Despite the painful ones, they are all part of the pieces of the puzzle.

Nora Ephron: I want to be exactly who I am where I am right this minute, filling out this questionnaire. If I answer one, two, or more to this question—as anyone in his right mind would—do I have to become the someone else I would have become owing to the fact that I wouldn't be who I am where I am right this minute unless I had lived every year of my life, or do I still get to fill out the questionnaire?

7

Q. Are there people you would happily have missed? One? Two? More?

A. Catherine Deneuve: A whole lot! A mob of people! Luckily for me, I've forgotten them. Jessye Norman: Answer: More!

Gloria Vanderbilt: It is from other people that we find out about ourselves. To have missed one might deprive us of an important clue.

Nora Ephron: More. But see Answer 6.

8

Q. What do you regret not having had time for: other loves, other sorts of work, other ways of life?

A. Catherine Deneuve: I haven't reached the age of regret yet. I almost didn't answer this question. I can't feel regret for things I haven't experienced—they may still lie ahead. That's my attitude now. Maybe I regret not knowing other life-styles, in which there are more than twenty-four hours in a day!

Jessye Norman: Other ways of life.

Gloria Vanderbilt: I have always pursued what was most important to me at that particular time and place, and I have no regrets.

Nora Ephron: I regret not having had time to become a major singing star.

9

Q. Would you have preferred a life that was more tumultuous, more peaceful, more productive, more heroic?

A. Catherine Deneuve: More productive, certainly. More tumultuous wouldn't be my style. If my life had been more peaceful, I would have been scared. And I'm not simple enough for a more heroic life.

Jessye Norman: My life is indeed a combination of all these things in varying degrees. I suppose I find a kind of spiritual satisfaction in wishing, as I do, for a still more productive life.

Gloria Vanderbilt: It is not within my geography to think in those terms. This is a question I have no answer to. Nora Ephron: Less heroic.

10

Q. If you had reproaches to make of people in your life, would they be that they paid too much attention to you, or not enough?

A. Catherine Deneuve: I believe I'm quite attentive to my friends, although certainly not enough to other people. Being an actress, I'm probably overattentive to myself! Jessye Norman: The easy answer to that question is that people pay too much attention to certain things for the wrong reasons and not enough for the right reasons. Gloria Vanderbilt: This depends on the time and the place in memory. Too much attention can strangle you. Not enough can devastate you, but too much is muchtoo-much better than not enough.

Nora Ephron: Too much. By all means, too much.

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Continued from page 63

11

Q. Would you like to live your whole life over again? Half of it? None of it?

A. Catherine Deneuve: Absolutely and positively not! I accept even those parts of my life that I don't like! Jessye Norman: I'd like to live the part between twenty-five and the present again. I'd do the same things, basically, but with more daring. Gloria Vanderbilt: Ask me that later. I'm in it and look eagerly forward.

Nora Ephron: Here's another question I've never understood. If I answer "Yes, I want to live my whole life over again," do I live it over again knowing the plot in advance? Do I live it over again in order to do things differently or in order to experience them in exactly the same way? Do I have to do it now, or can I wait until I die? If I have to do it now, does the world stand still while I catch back up, or do I have to miss the next forty-four years of the world in order to relive the first forty-four years of my life? When I finish reliving my life, am I fortyfour or eighty-eight, and who am I anyway (see Answer 6)? What happens to my apartment in the meantime?

12

Q. If yes, would you choose to be more attentive, more carefree, more tolerant, more severe?

A. Catherine Deneuve: The question doesn't apply.

Jessye Norman: I would choose to be more tolerant. My great desire in this world is to be more tolerant of the pace and priorities in the lives of other people.

Gloria Vanderbilt: If I had said yes, I would choose none of these. I always did what I did because I am myself.

Nora Ephron: More supportive, charming, and mysterious.

13

Q. Would you choose to die at thirty, at ninety, or at...?

A. Catherine Deneuve: Whatever for? Jessye Norman: I wouldn't like to choose.

Gloria Vanderbilt: I am blessed with great good health. And I would choose to die only if this health were irrevocably destroyed.

Nora Ephron: Eighty-four.

14

Q. Have you been, for other people, useful, obliging, or subordinate?

A. Catherine Deneuve: I've been obliging to most people, I hope. I don't know if I've ever been useful, and as for subordinate—I'd rather not know.

Jessye Norman: I think that I have been, for other people, and I am, for other people, useful, obliging, and even subordinate if that is helpful to them.

Gloria Vanderbilt: I feel I have given love to people, and if this includes being at times useful, obliging, or subordinate, I heartily approve.

Nora Ephron: No.

15

Q. What has been the worst thing introduced in your lifetime: the bomb, television, progress?

A. Catherine Deneuve: The best brings out the worst: the bomb—even if they have produced more horrible things since then.

Jessye Norman: The bomb.

Gloria Vanderbilt: The bomb.

Nora Ephron: The worst thing you can ever introduce into a harmless questionnaire is the phrase "the bomb."

16

Q. What has been the most marvelous:

television, contraception, progress? A. Catherine Deneuve: And the worst brings out the best: TV, contraception.

Jessye Norman: Progress.

Gloria Vanderbilt: Contraception. Nora Ephron: I wonder whether this questionnaire was originally written in French and translated into English by someone who was not fluent in either language. O.K., Frangoise, here's my answer: "J'aime la television, la contraception, et le progres, mais la chose la plus merveilleuse de ma vie, c'est le questionnaire!!!"

17

Q. Would you have liked to be Mme.

Curie, Marilyn Monroe, Colette?

A. Catherine Deneuve: Marilyn Monroe. She's unique!

Jessye Norman: Colette, if I couldn't be me.

Gloria Vanderbilt: None of them. It took me a long time to become myself.

Nora Ephron: I would not like to be someone else, because it's too big a gamble—for one thing, it means that someone else might get to be me and do a better job of it. But if I had to be someone else—Katharine Hepburn, Fred Astaire, Jane Austen, Thomas Jefferson, Frank Sinatra, Charles Dickens, Gilbert and Sullivan, Rodgers and Hart.