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Goldie Hawn A Wallflower?

When Goldie Hawn first appeared on the comedy TV show, "Laugh-In," she was cute and funny, but not much more than that.

Well, she's about to turn 60. And she's still cute and funny. But much more than that. She's savvy, thoughtful, a mother to four fascinating young people, and still in love with Kurt Russell, the man she's been with for the last 22 years.

About a month ago, Hawn, Russell, and their kids, sat down with in their New York apartment.


Is Hawn a ditzy, dumb blonde?

"Ditzy dumb blonde? I can be ditzy. I can be," says Hawn. "My kid'll tell you. I mean, well, what did I do last night? I put black eyeliner on my lips without looking. … So, the answer is, yes. I can be ditzy."

But she's not dumb. In fact, she may be the smartest dumb blonde in Hollywood, having made millions playing to type. It's an image that started by accident.

In 1968, producer George Schlatter cast her as a dancer in "Laugh-In," the groundbreaking TV comedy show. One day, he asked her to introduce some segments on the show. It didn't go as planned.

"I was a little nervous when I went on, and I'm a little bit dyslexic, which means I'm not a lot dyslexic. But I do switch words sometimes and numbers sometimes," says Hawn. "So the camera went on, and I got the words mixed up, and I started laughing. And I said to George, 'George, I did it wrong.' And he said, 'No, Goldie, it was just fine.' Hence, the character was created."

A few flubbed lines later, a star was born, and Hawn became an overnight sensation on the No. 1 TV comedy show in America. She took that image to the big screen, and won a best supporting actress Oscar in "Cactus Flower."

Thirty years later, she's was still playing to type as an aging actress struggling to stay young in "First Wives Club."

Wildly successful playing the stereotype, she's anything but that off-screen. Her 22 years with the same man, actor Kurt Russell, is an eternity by Hollywood standards. And together, they have raised four well-adjusted kids. But they've never married. Why?

"It's not as if we didn't talk about it. We talked about it a lot," says Russell. "And the bottom line of it was, neither one us really cared. In that regard, Goldie and I don't have much truck with society. We live outside of society to a large degree."

Adds Russell: "There's a lot about society I just don't give a s--- about, and neither does she. We just don't care."

The secret to their successful relationship is not the norm either. Theirs is an open-door policy.

"For instance, I don't like the idea of somebody closing a door and saying, 'You can't walk out the door.' I don't like that feeling," says Hawn. "Now, if somebody keeps the door open, I could be a bird in that cage forever and never fly out."

"And if you have a girl who says that, then you don't cheat," says Russell. "I mean, if you have a woman who does feel that way, and you meet them, I gotta tell ya, it's pretty exhilarating."

"Open marriage?" asks Wallace.

"Doesn't work," says Hawn. "Open marriage does not work. It's a great concept."

"You've tried it?" asks Wallace.

"Early in the '70s, it was a big deal about having relationships that way. And I can't say we tried it," says Hawn. "But in my first marriage, I think there was sort of -- we discussed it. Ultimately, human nature doesn't let it happen."

Hawn has learned a lot the hard way. As a kid, she was just another awkward Jewish teenager growing up in Tacoma Park, Md.

"I was awkward as a young girl. I just didn't feel very attractive. And boys didn't take me as sort of their -- they didn't-- you know. I wasn't the girl with the big hoo-has," says Hawn.

"And I think that I'm happy about that. Because I like that I got an ugly girl's personality. In other words, a homely girl always has to develop that muscle. And I did. But the good news is that I never considered myself beautiful at all. And I still don't."

Judge for yourself. At 59, she's still a cover girl.

But there's more to this book than the cover. Now, there really is a book – a memoir that's as much her spiritual journey as an autobiography. In it, Hawn writes of being confronted with the ugly side of the opposite sex for much of her early life.

Her show business career began as a go-go dancer, performing in seedy dives from New York to Las Vegas. Reading her words for the audio version of the book was not easy: "It's dawn, and I'm fleeing Las Vegas like a thief. Slamming the door on five shows a night, the vampire hours, and the drooling perverts. Three months of men who only want one thing. I've had enough." It was the late '60s, and soon after, her career took off with those comedic parts on TV and film. But off camera, her life was no joke. Her trademark grin became a false cover to what was inside.

"During that period, I went into a period of depression. A fear and anxiety and non-specific anxiety attacks, of where I actually didn't know -- I lost my smile, like I had to force it," says Hawn.

"I was afraid. I left everything I knew. I left every friend that I had made. I was away from my family. I was in Los Angeles, Calif. I'm a family girl. I don't know. I just lost it."

Hawn says it took nine years of psychoanalysis to get through the anxiety, and the depressions. Meantime, her career was on a steady climb, skyrocketing in 1980 when she both produced and starred in "Private Benjamin." That film got her another Oscar nomination and firmly established her as one of Hollywood's most powerful actresses.

In 1983, producer Goldie auditioned Disney star Kurt Russell to play opposite her in "Swing Shift." He was instantly smitten. Their first date took place on Valentine's Day. Late that night, Hawn suggested they go to her house.

"And I turned around to say something to her, and she was running at me. And she jumped up on me. And it was sheer – it was honesty," says Russell. "It was just-- that's the way she felt. That's exactly how she felt. She wanted to hug me."

"You didn't think she was a tramp?" asks Wallace.

"Just enough of a tramp. I like that," says Russell, laughing. "I don't like that pure -- thing all the way. I like her trampiness. She has just a touch."

At the time they met, Russell was a divorced father of one, and Hawn was a twice-divorced mother of two. Wyatt would soon join Hawn's kids, Kate and Oliver Hudson, and Russell's son, Boston.

Today, Kate Hudson is a successful actress in her own right, an Oscar nominee for the film, "Almost Famous." Oliver Hudson is also an actor.

Boston, 25, is a Georgetown graduate with degrees in both neuroscience and theology. And Wyatt, now 19, is as aspiring hockey player. In fact, Russell moved the family to Vancouver for Wyatt to further his hockey dream.

"He said, 'If this is really what you wanna do, you have to get serious about it,'" says Wyatt, adding that his parents moved to Vancouver for him "to fulfill my dream to be a hockey player."

"When you have seen you mother in sexually explicit things on screen, does that embarrass you?" asks Wallace.

"We have a very sexual family. They've never hid, you know, their sex or sexuality or sensuality has never been a hidden issue in our family," says Kate Hudson. "I mean, we were always very open about those things. And my mother's a very flirtatious, sensual person, and sexy and all that."

Between love scenes and raising kids, Hawn is always on the go. She participates in local rituals like the Festival of Colors in India. It may seem bizarre, but her interest in things mystical and spiritual is serious. She's practiced meditation for 30 years now and she's converted to Buddhism.

"I've been practicing Buddhism for a while. So, I call myself a Jew-Bu, because my tribe is still Jew. But my philosophy and my practice is really Buddhist," says Hawn. "Buddhism is really, one of its main practices is understanding and experiencing compassion, and how that ultimately is a road to happiness."

Truth be told, ask Hawn who she really is and the word "actor" doesn't even come up. She'll tell you she's a mom first. And at 59, she's happy to be still the girlfriend of Kurt Russell.

"We have a lot of good days," says Russell. "That's why I figure it this way. If it's 3 percent really bad, and 7 percent not too good, but 90 percent fabulous … I think I'll take that. I would honestly say that ours has been 2 percent really bad, 2 percent so-so, and 96 percent fabulous."

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