My travels with Uta - Uta Ranke-Heinemann

Christian Century, April 19, 1995 by John D. Spalding

FIRST, LET ME SAY that I respect and admire Uta Ranke-Heinemann. Granted, her "nervous breakdown" in New York a mere two days into the $20,000 publicity tour my company organized to promote the author and her latest book, Putting Away Childish Things, did almost send our marketing director into cardiac arrest. Still, Uta (no one else in our office calls her Frau Dr. Ranke-Heinemann, so why should I?) is a widely respected theologian and a bestselling author. Her previous book, Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven: Women, Sexuality and the Catholic Church, had already sold more than a million copies in Europe before it became a runaway bestseller in the U. S. in 1990--due in no small part to New York's Cardinal John O'Connor, who condemned the book, reportedly without having read it, as "scrawling dirty words about the church on bathroom walls."

I should also mention my own stake in the affair. If it hadn't been for Uta's sudden threat to grab the next flight back to Germany, Harper never would have flown me around the country with her in hopes of salvaging the tour. Instead, I would have passed those two weeks chained to my desk, writing jacket copy and press releases and wondering, as so many publishing professionals do, if I'd ever get to taste the glamorous lifestyles our bestselling authors lead.

When I first met her in her room at the Swissotel in Boston, Uta was--well, a wreck. Just to open the door was a major undertaking for her. She stood on the other side and kept asking who I was. (Big surprise. I was there at exactly 9:15-the moment we'd agreed I'd fetch her for our first appointment.

"Who is it?"

"John."

"Room service?"

"No, it's John."

"I don't vont my room cleaned!"

"It's John, from Harper."

"Harper?"

"John Spalding, from HarperSanFrancisco."

"Yes, yes," she said, swinging open the door-pleased, no doubt, to see I wasn't holding a vacuum cleaner. "Right you are. Come in."

She was wearing the smart, green leather dress I later learned was the source of her nickname--the "Green Lady"--given to her by the German press because it's the outfit the 67-year-old theologian wears at every TV appearance. It was also the only outfit I ever saw her in because it was the only one she'd brought with her. That, two blouses, and the "25 to 30" pairs of handmade white gloves she always carried with her in a bag. Such minimal travel wear struck me as odd because not only is Uta a successful author, she's also the daughter of the late Gustav Heinemann, president of West Germany from 1969 to 1974. As I tried to picture Patti Davis on a national author tour with just one dress and a bag of gloves, Uta's voice broke in.

"No matter how many times you tell ze hotel not to clean your room," she informed me at the door, "someone always tries to. Trust no one!"

After an abrupt handshake, Uta was off darting around the room, absently straightening things up and, near tears, explaining to me the events leading to her collapse at the Omni Berkshire in New York.

"Ze doors banged all night long, and I didn't have my sleeping pills. The ambulances--woo! woo!--never stopped. Each night I lay in bed, covered in sweat, my heart pounding like I was going to die. I phoned my husband, and he told me to come home if Harper didn't send someone. Finally I changed rooms with a nice man, and got my sleeping pills. But never did I sleep one hour in 58 hours. I was persecuted, John! Just persecuted. But the worst part was ze banging of ze doors!"

While I was still puzzling over the banging doors and ambulances Uta was dragging me into the other room so that I could show her how to turn on the TV--a lesson I would have to repeat at each of our many hotels. Then she handed me all the "inessentials" I was to take charge of: her room keys, plane tickets and spending money That done, she sighed, adjusted her wig in the mirror, and marched over to the door. "There ve are, John," she said with sudden calm. "Now ve go?"

"Uh, yeah. Let's go."

"Where are ve going?" she asked.

AS I OPENED the car door for Uta en route to our first stop, she fumbled through her bag and, from among the gloves, produced a large sheet of plastic which she then spread across the seat before hopping in. This she would do everywhere--cars, restaurants, radio stations--and it did not go unnoticed by some of our escorts. Ken Wilson, our escort in Los Angeles, was offended by the plastic sheet. On our second day together he confided to me that he thought Uta's behavior was a nonverbal comment on the condition of his car. (He was right. But it wasn't his car so much as all cars.) That morning he got washed.

Walking onto the set for her live interview on Eye Witness News at Noon, Uta stopped in front of me, handed me her bag, and gave me solemn instructions. "This bag," she said, "You must hold for me. But what is most important is that you do not set it on ze floor. It must stay clean. Do you understand, John?"

"I give you my word. It will not touch the floor."

"Good," she said, spinning around. "Together ve vill accomplish great things."