-Birth Date and Place-
About 50 years to this day, the exact date not mentioned in her book, Kristen Johnson was born
in the suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
-Family-
She has a younger brother, whom she has looked up to her whole life. She also grew up with both a mother and a father. However, she does not mention any names or specific stories about her family as to protect their privacy from the readers of her book. What she does share was that her brother was an idol to her. Growing up, she wanted to be just like him, even though he was not popular or anything admirable in anyone else's eyes. She loved him dearly even though on a daily basis he was bullied and beaten for no reason at all. She never lost respect for her brother.
-School-
Her first school was a
highly religious Catholic school in her hometown, and she hated it
from day one. She was the outcast, didn't have the right clothes, the
right color hair, the most expensive shoes. She was also relentlessly
made fun of for her height for years which made her self conscious through middle school and high school. Young in her life,
and with the help of Amy, a fellow classmate, she realized that it's
a lot easier to make fun of yourself than to wait for other people to
do it for you. Amy was perfect, with the right clothes and the right
hair and every joke she made about the :jolly green giant” was
heard and laughed at by all. Eventually Kristen realized that not
only could she make fun of herself, but she was funny. Years later,
Kristen saw Amy at a mall. Amy, now smelly and fat, asked for an
autograph. Without much deliberation, she scribbled a quick “thank
you” on the napkin.
-Hobbies and Activities-
As an adult, the most
prominent point in her life, her favorite activities were pills and
booze, and booze and pills. As a child, she didn't do much more than
read books until she found acting as a teenager. Living in New York,
she would take the train into the city for acting classes and lessons
and it soon became her whole life. She doesn't elaborate on how it became such a big part of her life, but as she got older, her life was
equally devoted to acting and drugs. She'd had many roles before
being cast in 3rd Rock, but that was the first time she
had wanted a part so badly. All the others had been handed to her but
this one was a struggle. Once she got the part though, it became less desirable and the pills and booze went down even easier. When she
got the stomach ulcer, because of her little addiction, she realized
just how much acting meant to her-everything. Her whole life was
devoted to it, as her career, as her family as everything she had if
she wasn't drunk or high. She also realized that whilst in the
hospital, waiting hopelessly for her friends and family to call, that she was
alone. That she and her addiction had slowly but surely pushed
everyone out of her life so far that they were all waiting patiently
for something like this exact event to happen. As soon as she felt
better after the incident, she started acting again against the
doctors' orders which, can you guess? Landed her right back in the ER
not even a month later with an internal infection.
-Anecdotes-
Growing up, she had always
been very admiring of her younger brother. He was bullied all
throughout school and mainly by one particular boy a year older than he. There was nothing
anyone could do about the issue, and it was never anything her
brother did to deserve such punishment. One day, after watching
helplessly as her brother was beaten, she caught the bully walking
alone on his way home. Having had bad feet all of her life had gotten
her some very thick and quite heavy “corrective shoes” which she planted firmly
on his shin. She ran away, never bothering to explain to him who she was or why she did it.
She never spoke to her brother about the incident either knowing that
he would only be embarrassed by her action of loyalty.
Her second stay in the
hospital was on New Years Eve. She had always hated the holiday
because it had a knack of making a person feel as alone as they've
ever been. As she sits in her hospital bed watching the fireworks out
the window, she thinks about all the people outside who are watching
the same show. All the families, the sober, carefree, ulcer and
infection-free people out there who have no idea who she is and nor
do they care. She describes this night as being her lowest low, as it
being the night that made her yearn to be the sober one in the crowd,
not worrying about their next drink, not worrying about anything on
new years. She's struck for the first time the thought that maybe morphine and alcohol are not the only things that can make her happy.
This is the night she decides to check into her first rehabilitation
center.
-Career-
All her life she's been an
actress. From the teens, when she was taking the train into the city
for auditions and classes, to the final episode of 3rd
Rock she was an actress. Her career has a huge gap in it from the
time she got sick to the time she got better for good. When she was
in and out of the hospital, she always remained the main actress for
the part, her understudies were always that- understudies. They never
told her she could not come back, no matter how sick. And because of
that, and because this was her life and reason, she never quit
acting. I suppose now she's a writer as well having written “guts”,
the story of her journey through addiction.
-Reasons for Fame_
She was discovered for all
of the small plays she did when she was in New York, and then the
most prominent role she held was 3rd Rock.
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