NETWORKWOMEN.COM: COVER STORY, JANUARY, 2000

JANUARY, 2000 COVER STORY
MARGOT KIDDER

"Speaks Up for Mental Health"

By JOAN TYOR CARLSON

She was an outspoken supporter of the Peace Movement and campaigned for bilateral nuclear freeze with speaking engagements throughout the country. In the 1980's she appeared as a surrogate speaker for Jesse Jackson and attended two Democratic Conventions. So, it was surprising to hear movie and television actress Margot Kidder demure when asked if she was going to take the story of her spectacular recovery from mental illness to Washington so that she could lobby for her theories. These days, she is constantly on the road, broadcasting her belief in the cure for what she considers the profound chemical imbalance that led to her being found wandering on a lawn in suburban Los Angeles one April morning in 1996.

"No, not Washington now. Who in government would want someone to advise them on mental health who was known for having the biggest flipout in history?" she states with a forthright honesty and simplicity that is extraordinary in today's headliners.

Margot Kidder is a keeper. A natural star who has been a favorite among audiences for over 25 years and has acted in over 100 television shows and forty feature films including a definitive performance as Lois Lane to Christopher Reeves's Superman that enchanted millions. She then became interested in directing film and worked as an apprentice film director before directing And Again, a drama produced through the American Film Institute's Woman's Director Workshop Program.

Long Islanders had the opportunity to meet Ms. Kidder on October 15 when Clubhouse of Suffolk hosted the Seventh Annual Mental Illness Awareness Day at the Huntington Hilton in Melville where she was the keynote speaker. Clubhouse is dedicated to helping people with mental illness return to the mainstream with vocational programs that lead to meaningful employment. Other keynoters in the past have included Art Buchwald, Rod Steiger and Jim Jensen. Over 900 people attended this event, now in its seventh year, which also featured a variety of workshops.

We caught up with Ms. Kidder in her home in Montana where she is frequently on the phone with anxious people suffering from depression who have heard of her work in the mental health field.

"This is flipout central. They call me as do their friends or relatives. This wasn't a job I asked for but it's very rewarding to spread the news. They know, as I do, that the mental health system is flawed. People are so relieved when they understand that manic depression is just a chemical imbalance in the brain, a matter of having too much dopamine which makes a person manic. It's a health condition like diabetes. The orthomolecular approach - also called the bipolar syndrome - makes sense," she says.

She is a disciple of Dr. Abram Hoffer, a psychiatrist who, four decades ago, started treating schizophrenics with massive doses of vitamin B3 when he discovered that vitamin supplements doubled their chances of recovering within two years. The author of some 26 books including Dealing with Depression Naturally / the Drugless Approach to the Condition that Darkens Millions of Lives and Healing the Mind the Natural Way: Nutritional Solutions to Psychological Problems, it is his opinion that vitamins also "cure" patients with bipolar syndrome - patients who had used lithium and other antidepressants for years, although his methods have not been in agreement with mainstream psychiatry which favors drugs and psychiatric counseling.

For years Ms. Kidder exhibited all the classic bipolar syndrome symptons. She spent money lavishly and had a complex love life involving, among others, Brian DePalma, Michael Crichton and Pierre Trudeau. There were also three husbands, author Tom McGuane, actor John Heard, and French director Philippe DeBroca.

In the early 90's, a car accident on a movie location led to spinal damage and partial paralysis. Her career suffered. The crowning blow came the day when she couldn't find the text of her autobiography Calamities in her computer, taking with it, she believed, three and a half years of work. At that point, she had the psychotic episode that led to hospital treatment and headlines around the world.

She told the world about this in an interview she had with Barbara Walters on "20/20" in which she said that it was a combination of everyday stress and unusual circumstances that lead to her breakdown. She had spent long periods in deep depression which she tried valiantly to hide and overcome but she was unable to cope.

This breakdown ultimately her to treatment by a Buddhist acupuncturist Elena Crippen and to her discovery of Hoffer's work. She starting taking vitamin supplements, avoided all wheat and dairy products as well as alcohol, and devised a regimen that has kept her in balance without taking the prescription drugs that she had used for years. One of the chief aids is GABA, an inhibitory neurotransmitter which helps the bipolar brain to rebalance itself.

"GABA blocks the action so that the mind doesn't rev up under stress. You don't need a prescription. It's readily available in any health food store. I now take between 500 and 1000 mg's a day. You can't take too much, really, because if you do, you starting loosing hair and you will get sleepy so you will know enough to cut down. I also take liquid Vitamin B because my blood doesn't absorb it in pill form due to my allergy to wheat. I take a lot of amino acids to keep the stress levels down," she explains. She also recommends acupuncture and/or cranial sacral manipulation once a week when under stress which is what she uses and notes that her daughter, Maggie, thinks yoga is another wonder.

"This movement started by Dr. Hoffer is becoming increasingly mainstream We now have a population which wants alternative medicine. Watch the companies in the stock market, chains like Nature's Way. And, Whole Foods which has tripled in a year!

"Dr. Hoffer said that it often takes the scientific community forty years to catch up with what is happening and the forty years are up, Young people are demanding courses in nutrition in medical school. It's all changing quickly. I don't want to negate all the great strides in medicine that have been made in other areas. But, it's ironic that there has been such resistance to Dr. Hoffer's theories in the medical community -HMO's etc. - because his way actually saves money by keeping people healthy. The hospitals in Montana have caught on to this now," she reflects.

While many psychiatrists and others dispute her findings, the regimen has been a godsend to her, she says. She is no longer dependent on drugs like lithium and lives happily in Montana, venturing forth for many lectures as well as actively pursuing a revived theatrical career.

"I'm a grandmother who is working constantly," she exclaims. "I'm sure that a good deal of the reason is that these days a lot of movie work is going to Canada as the exchange rate is so favorable and costs are very low. However, to work in Canada, the movie companies must employ a certain number of Canadians and, since I was born in Canada, I am an obvious choice. Therefore, a grandmother in demand. The roles I get to play now are more involved and richer than the simple ingenue things - these are character parts that involve a depth of understanding and skill."

She has had a lot of experiences to reference in her acting. She was born in Yellowknife NWT and raised in mining towns in Newfoundland. Her father, Kendall Kidder, was a mining engineer and with his wife, Jill, and their five children, they lived in various mining towns. Ms. Kidder adored her father, recalling that no other man quite measured up to him.

Ms. Kidder attended the University of British Columbia where she studied drama. After only a year, she left to try her luck in film and, at 17, she played a teenager in The Best Damn Fiddler from Calabogie to Kalandar. This led to a part in the movie Gaily Gaily in 1969. At this point, she worked steadily in almost a dozen films before starring in Superman in 1978. She was now an international star, the Margot Kidder we all know. Her rapid rise to stardom and the depths of her fall are a Hollywood legend and her legions of fans await reading about all of it in her own words. When asked about the status of her autobiography, which had been miraculously retrieved from computer oblivion by a tekkie genius, she groaned.

"The dilemma here is that it is difficult to write about oneself without involving others and I feel it is wrong to hurt and embarrass anyone else. What I say about myself is all right but not about others. The book is now listed on Amazon.com but it won't be out this year. Right now, I've got 1000 pages but it's not there yet. I don't want to write a tacky kiss and tell. I hope to focus on this soon," she says.

She intends to keep on appearing at conferences like the one here on Long Island where she got an amazing ovation. Actually, not amazing because she is an incredibly giving person with a voice that embraces the listener.

"I get a lot of calls like the young lady recently who told me about her delusion that the CIA was after her. I assured her that all of us with this condition had had that delusion, everyone of us including me. She was also concerned about having children - afraid that the lithium she has taken would affect them. I told her to go ahead and have kids but to undertake the preventative measures now so that she never need take lithium again. I'm glad that I was there for her," she comments.

She continues her activism, recently sending a Science of Healing tape, Masks of Madness, to Roslyn Carter. "I got a nice letter in return from Roslyn Carter. I hoped to get Tipper Gore involved but was unable to. It's a matter of perseverance," she says.

There are other things on the agenda. At the time of this interview, she was preparing for her granddaughter's first birthday and anticipating the release of a new film, Tribulation, in which she stars with Gary Busey and Howie Mandel. We can expect to see more of this great talent and generous spirit in the future.

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