As part of the Oprah interview with David Arquette fresh out of rehab, they had a taped segment in which David’s sisters, actresses Patricia and Rosanna Arquette, discussed their chaotic and abusive childhood. (You can watch that segment on Oprah.com) They were very matter-of-fact about it but the details they gave were heartwrenching. At points Rosanna closed her eyes just remembering the hell they went through. There were five kids in that household and it sounds like their parents were nutjobs.
They came from a family of actors, with a grandfather who was on Hollywood Squares, a father who was a character actor and a mother who was a poet. When David was born they lived for a while on a commune in Virginia with no electricity, no running water and no bathroom. When David was about four they moved to Chicago and then to Los Angeles. The two of them discussed what they went through with one parent who was an addict and another who was abusive.
Rosanna – There was a lot of drama in our house
Patricia – There was a lot of chairs flying around
Rosanna – a lot of hole punching in walls
Patricia – My dad had a lot of issues, my mom had a lot of issues. She was abusive to use when we were little.
Rosanna – She stabbed me in the arm with a knife. Concussions. Just terrible, terrible physical abuse.
Patricia – She choked me to the point once where I started blacking out.
Rosanna – My father was an addict
Patricia – When he was using substance, which was usually marijuana, he would also drink whiskey
Rosanna – And so when you grow up in that kind of family, it is a family disease. It affects everybody.
Patricia – It’s like a minefield, and you never knew which one you were going to get, which morning, which mom which dad. Nothing you could really depend on.
Rosanna – In his later years, my dad did get help and get sober. And my mother, there was nothing but forgiveness and love at the end of her life.
Patricia – I think David was impacted my feeling like he needed to be the perfect son… You cannot fix it by being the best kid in the world, you just can’t.
[From The Oprah Winfrey show, aired 2-24-11]
After watching that clip, David got choked up and said that “the beautiful story about that sort of sad background is that my parents healed themselves throughout their lives. My father got sober, my mother became a marriage family counselor. We’re all dealing with processing our pain in different ways.”
David explained that he wanted to fix everything in his childhood by fixing things with Courtney, but instead he repressed his feelings and tried to cope with it by drinking. Courteney tried to get him to stop, but it took a long time until it got bad enough for him to take her seriously. We’ll get to more on his relationship with Courtney in a moment. It’s just so sad to hear what the Arquettes went through as children. As least they had a chance to know their parents and make peace with them once they got sober.
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