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Warner Brothers bravely agreed to go with our triad as 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. But none of us even thought of that as a problem or perceived any glass ceiling at the time. Not at Warner Brothers, anyway. Bob Shapiro, the head of production, loved this movie and what it had to say. He told us from the outset, “If I can’t make this film, then I want to be first in line to see it.” He was a source of such support during the usual obstacles all films come up against in the long process of production. It was such an exciting time for all of us. We moved into our offices on the Warner Brothers lot and began to build the dream team that would, we hoped, bring this wonderful script to the silver screen. We needed everything from a director and cast to a cinematographer and set designer. We needed to look at actors and locations, costumes and line producers. All this just six months after I’d given birth to my perfect baby girl. 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 gurgling away in the office with us in the midst of the hustle and bustle of pre-production. We found ourselves a wonderful director, Arthur Hiller, who had directed The In-Laws. For reasons I was never sure of he dropped out He was a good man, and there were no hard feelings. It was difficult, however, to find another director at that stage of pre-production. As fate would have it, we were crossing the streets of the back lot on our way to lunch one day when we ran into a friend of Nancy and Charles’s: Howard Zeiff. “Hey, Howard, what are you doing?” Charles asked. “Nothing right now.” The three of us looked at each other and smiled. “Nothing? Really? How would you like to direct our new movie?” So there goes another Hollywood story. Howard Zeiff became our new director. Happy and fulfilled, my life seemed 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. 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. Sometimes I’d get home much later than I might have wished and was unable to meet everyone’s demands for attention. Some nights I raced home just to bathe my babies and tuck them in bed. I knew that my marriage was suffering as a consequence. The struggle of juggling all this was an enormous burden to bear, and the guilt relentless. The icing on the cake was the slight chance that this film would be a great big fat success. But I also feared that possibility. I knew that if it was a success, my obstacles would only be harder to overcome. The pressures that would put on my already fragile marriage would be almost insurmountable in this business where one party always feels left out of the parade. But I was on this fantasy ride at Disneyland and I couldn’t jump off. For one thing it was way too much fun, and secondly, the train had already left the station.