My parents were devoted. Civic minded. We had family counsels. Three of us children against two of them. We lived a 'Leave It to Beaver' time.

My parents were devoted. Civic minded. We had family counsels. Three of us children against two of them. We lived a 'Leave It to Beaver' time.

Junior and senior high school years were not a good time.

Texas is so big, and the place where I grew up was so little, and I was such a little thing growing up in the middle of it. I had two choices: I could either spend my life feeling insignificant, or I could look on the life I lived as a microcosm of the universe.

I had a dozen years to act before starting a family then found that motherhood dwarfed everything else. Once or twice a year, I take a project that appeals to me for its redeeming social value.

Celebrity status for me came slowly. I wasn't an overnight sensation. I had time to prepare emotionally.