Peter French/ZUMAPRESS.comGoldie Hawn hasn't acted in 13 years—not because there aren't roles worthy of her talent, but because she has chosen to focus on her family and her MindUP program. But there was, in fact, a time when Hawn was essentially blacklisted in Hollywood, a time when she was laying the groundwork for future actresses-turned-producers like Drew Barrymore, Sandra Bullock and Reese Witherspoon. In honor of Hawn's 70th birthday on Saturday, E! News looks back at how she paved the way for women in Hollywood and how their work is far from being done.
Born in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 21, 1945, and raised in nearby Tacoma Park, Md., Hawn knew from an early age what she wanted out of life. "At 11 years old I made a very definitive decision, and my decision was that I wanted to be happy. Above and beyond anything I ever did in my life, I wanted to be happy," the First Wives Club actress recalled in an episode of Oprah's Master Class that aired on OWN in 2013. "...'I want to be happy.' That's really what I wanted," Hawn explained. "Talk about an intention! That's a better intention than a white picket fence."
After graduating high school, Hawn began her acting career in 1967 as a cast member on the short-lived sitcom Good Morning, World. She was later cast in the sketch comedy show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, which made her a household name and led to her first major movie role in Cactus Flower. Critics fawned over Hawn, who would go on win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Hawn's popularity skyrocketed. In 1979, while she was six months pregnant with her daughter, Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer pitched her a possible film project. Already a mother to son Oliver Hudson, Hawn recalled their meeting in her 2005 memoir, A Lotus Grows in the Mud: "'Maybe it's not too late to make my marriage work,' I think to myself. 'Maybe if I spend less time working, doing films back to back, and more time at home with Daddy Bill and little Oliver, we'll be OK. If my new production company takes off, giving me a little more control over the movies I produce and can make for other people, then I can throttle back for a while.'"
The actress described Meyers and Shyer as "animated, energetic, inspired and full of youth." She liked them "immediately." Meyers explained the premise: "'It's a story of a spoiled Jewish girl named Judy Benjamin who joins the Army on an impulse after her husband drops dead on their wedding night [while making love].'"
"I laugh and laugh as they tell me the rest of the story," she wrote in her book. "The concept is so fresh, so brave and original. The female lead carries the whole movie, almost by herself. She embarks on a personal journey and becomes empowered and independent and strong. It couldn't be more different from my last movie. I can feel a flutter of excitement in my belly that has nothing to do with my baby."
Even then, Hawn wrote that it was "a dream role for any actress."
Knowing she couldn't film the movie until after she gave birth, Hawn asked when production was scheduled to begin. Meyers and Shyer confessed that the script hadn't been written yet, so scheduling filming around would not be a problem.
"I would be honored to make this movie," Hawn told them.
At the end, Hawn asked, "'Who do you have in mind to produce, by the way?'" After Meyers and Shyer said "no one," Hawn suggested that they "do this ourselves," explaining, "Maybe we don't need another voice in the mix right now.'"
Luckily, Meyers and Shyer agreed with Hawn.
According to Hawn, Warner Bros. "bravely agreed" to let her, Meyers and Shyer be the only producers attached to Private Benjamin. "The executives were not only trusting that two women and a man could produce this film, they were also banking on a story about a woman going into the Army bringing a good financial return. The Hollywood film industry at that time was still controlled by men," Hawn remembered in her book. "But none of us even thought of that as a problem or perceived any glass ceiling at the time. It was an exciting time for all of us."
Production began six months after Hawn welcomed Kate Hudson.
"I drove joyfully to our offices almost every day, packing my tiny Kate in her little car seat, her bottles and cereal in my bag, along with a few rattles and toys and her fold-up playpen. Oliver was in preschool, and his nanny looked after him when I wasn't there. It was so great having Kate cooing away in the office with us in the midst of the hustle and bustle of pre-production."
Director Arthur Hiller dropped out of the project, so Shyer approached Howard Zieff, who took it over. "Happy and fulfilled, I felt my life was almost perfect. I only wished there were two of me: the Goldie who could continue to be successful at my work and live the life I loved outside the home, and the Goldie who could be at home cooking and enjoying the domestic side of life that I also cared so deeply about," Hawn wrote. "I battled with myself over these two roles constantly, trying to balance both, but somewhere deep inside I knew that I couldn't win this one. There was never enough time in the day to accomplish my dream of having it all."
Private Benjamin was released on Oct. 10, 1980. "The film was a bigger, fatter success than I could ever have imagined. Not only was it the great creative collaboration of my life, it was the most thrilling time in my professional career," said Hawn, who later earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. "The movie opened at the theaters even better than anyone expected, and the only name above the title was mine. There was no male star to carry the picture, as they say, as was usually the case. If ever I had suspected how life-changing this movie would be for me, I could never have guessed how much."
"Everybody suddenly wanted to interview me. I made the cover of Newsweek," she explained. "I was touted as the Hollywood actress who broke the rules, broke box office expectations and blazed a new trail for women, especially for actresses who wanted to produce films for themselves and for others."
"I was happy but at the same time worried at this superinflated image the media seemed to have created of me. I wasn't the only producer on the film. Nancy and Charles did as much, if not more, than I did," Hawn wrote in A Lotus Grows in the Mud. "But because the media decided it would be so, I became the face of female power in Hollywood, even though Nancy is the one who has gone on to write, produce and direct huge box office hits like What Women Want and Something's Gotta Give, and Charles Shyer has directed many films since."
In hindsight, Hawn said she "hadn't considered the reaction within the industry."
Unfortunately, in the years that followed, Hawn explained, "It was increasingly difficult for me to be simply an actress for hire. I kept hearing things like, 'But Goldie does her own films.' Even though I met many wonderful, strong directors with great roles to offer, none of them hired me. I began getting a complex, thinking that they didn't want to work with me, when, in truth, they just didn't want the baggage of 'Goldie Hawn.' This realization was so crushing to me."
"There were several fallow periods that followed, and many times I looked back and felt the bittersweet sting of Private Benjamin," she wrote. "Of the films I have made since then, some I have produced and some I have not. I've worked alongside some very good directors and some not so good. I have been fearless in arguing points I have felt strongly about with studio heads. I have made some friends and I've made some enemies trying to help make my films be as good as they can be. Sometimes I was right to share my vision, and sometimes I was wrong. My only hope was that a great collaboration would be sparked, and that ego and fear would be left outside the door. But my passion and commitment to work was no longer tempered by the fear of not being liked. My tenacity and determination to be true to the person I had become were sacrosanct. I guess I came to know this about myself: for better or worse, I don't give up."
In spite of the progress Hawn made, little changed in the decades to come.
In the last few years, Witherspoon produced Gone Girl and Wild, but she's the first to admit that sexism is still an issue in Hollywood. As the actress-turned-producer said during her speech at Glamour's Women of the Year Awards in New York City just weeks ago, she met with studio heads to discuss the state of the industry.
"Each of the meetings started with something very casual like, 'How are your kids?' and 'Wow, has it really been that long since Walk the Line?' At the end of the meeting, I sort of casually brought up, 'So, how many movies are in development with a female lead?' And by lead, I don't mean wife of the lead or the girlfriend of the lead. The lead, the hero of the story. I was met with nothing, blank stares, excessive blinking, uncomfortable shifting. No one wanted to answer the question because the fact was the studios weren't developing anything starring a woman."
To her chagrin—but not her surprise—the Luckiest Girl Alive producer said the studio heads didn't apologize. "They don't have to apologize. They are interested in profits. And after all, they run subsidiary companies of giant corporations."
"But I was flabbergasted. This was 2012, and it made no sense to me. Where was our Sally Field in Norma Rae or Sigourney Weaver in Alien or Goldie Hawn in, you name it, any Goldie Hawn movie: Overboard, Wildcats, Private Benjamin? These women shaped my idea of what it meant to be a woman of strength and character and humor in this world," she continued. "And my beautiful, intelligent daughter, who is 16 years old now, would not grow up idolizing that same group of women."
Studio heads were often patronizing, but Witherspoon didn't give up. "I started my own production company, Pacific Standard Films, with the mission to tell stories about women," she explained. "And I was nervous, y'all. I was spending my own money, which everyone in the movie business always tells you, 'Don't spend your own money on anything.' I was warned that on the crazy chance Pacific Standard would acquire any good scripts we would never make it past our first few years in business because there just wasn't a market for buying female-driven material."
Noting that women are vastly "underrepresented and underpaid," Witherspoon made a plea: "If you're in politics, media, the tech industry, or working as an entrepreneur or a teacher or a construction worker or a caregiver, you know the problems we are all facing. I urge each one of you to ask yourselves: What do we do now? That's a big question. What is it in life that you think you can't accomplish? Or what is it that people have said that you cannot do? Wouldn't it feel really good to prove them all wrong? Because I believe ambition is not a dirty word. It's just believing in yourself and your abilities. Imagine this: What would happen if we were all brave enough to be a little bit more ambitious? I think the world would change."
Witherspoon made Hawn proud—and it was no coincidence that the Private Benjamin producer was the one who handed her the Glamour Woman of the Year award. "Many years ago, I saw it a show. It was called Legally Blonde. This movie knocked me out. I look at this girl, I say, 'Wow, look at this girl! She's got it! She's funny! She must be a genius.' Because all comedians are geniuses, aren't they? It is a sign of intelligence," Hawn said. "In the meantime, I spoke to her agent at the time. I said, 'Wow, a star is born.' And he said, 'Yeah, and you know what else she wants to do? She wants to produce.' This is a young girl who had an idea that she could be an actress, and three years later she wins an Academy Award, and she takes that and parlays it because she wants to make a difference."
The same could be said—and has been said—of Hawn.