Another time, Nancy heard "hysterical crying" and ran to find Jennifer sobbing in the back yard. "Jennifer was careful, precise and seldom broke anything." Once, she fell off a kitchen counter, but was unhurt. "She was a gentle, quiet baby," Nancy says. Jennifer was, from the start, a self-contained, imaginative child. It beat Winnie the Pooh, Ferdinand the Bull or anything by Dr. This story had become Jennifer's favourite by the time she was four, according to her mother. Her brother, Johnny, eight years older, brought flowers and kissed her on the cheek. Her father, actor John Aniston of the soap opera Days of Our Lives, came to get her in the family car. The birth, however, was as easy as a mother could hope for, with just two hours of labour in a Los Angeles hospital ward. Jennifer was born in February, 1969, into a family that was already riven with problems. Since that was the last straw, it seems unlikely that publishing a book will prompt much mercy, especially as it reveals a great deal about a rather private celebrity. The book opens with the fateful night on which Jennifer cuts the bonds of parenthood - "I will never forgive you" - after she has seen her mother gossip about her on a television talk show. ![]() Let's turn the page, but not the written page." "It is guaranteed to keep the estrangement going. This is absolute nonsense, says North America's favourite advice columnist, Dr. "Family separation," she says, "is an epidemic today." She piously hopes that her book will not further alienate her from Jennifer, but might actually prove to be a balm to psychic wounds and help speed up the "healing" process. More and more children, she says, are shutting their parents out of their lives as they grow up. Perhaps her readers will believe her argument that she is offering only a "self-help" book to help ease their pain. She insists, even, that she is entitled to write her book for "therapy," to tell her side of the story and earn a fistful of dollars while doing so. Nancy casts herself firmly as being on the receiving end of life's travails - always the victim - and yet is determined to set the terms, to be in control, to be, in that modern American way, entitled. There is a sharp tongue behind a formal manner, and an aggressive edge. She sits stiffly, wary of the world, on the sofa in a friend's house, the neutral, impersonal ground where she has insisted on meeting. Nancy Aniston turns out to be rather a difficult woman. There are a few problems with this pop psychology, however comforting it may seem. Now Nancy Aniston has published a book - From Mother and Daughter to Friends, A Memoir - that mulls the question: What happened? As the title, with its allusion to the show, suggests, celebrity has something to do with it, but so does the need for mothers to "let go" and form an adult relationship with their children. "You spend all this time raising a child, with a lot of good intentions, and you feel you have failed. Indeed, I can see her struggle against an urge to weep, visible even behind a rather generous application of makeup. "This has been extremely painful for me," says Nancy. Not only is there the agony of feeling the baby ripped from the maternal breast - even if that baby is all grown up - there is the shame. Few things can be more painful than being "divorced" by a child. Jennifer will no longer even speak to her. And the velvet ropes that protect celebrity are firmly up against any possibility of a proud parent sharing the glory of first nights, Oscars and Emmys. Nancy will be left weeping outside the church. If the showbiz gossips have it right, Jennifer will soon be walking up the aisle to marry Brad Pitt, the ultimate Hollywood catch, and the chances of her mother being there to witness the happy union are slim to zero. Mothers around the world will surely feel her pain. Behind the smiling face of the television character that has made her famous, Jennifer Aniston is an angry young woman.Īnd Nancy Aniston, her mother, is miserable. In the 3 1/2 years since that call, daughter and mother have met only once. "I will never forgive you!" she shouted before slamming down the receiver. ![]() Jennifer Aniston, star of television's Friends, was on the telephone to her mother. Nancy Aniston turns out to be rather a difficult woman - determined to set the terms, to be in control. Jennifer Aniston at the 51st annual Emmy Awards: behind the smile, an angry young woman. Jennifer Aniston's mother, Nancy, sees her new book as a way of reaching out to her daughter, who has barely spoken to her in years
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