Tammy Grimes was discovered by Noel Coward when she appeared in a New York City cabaret. He then cast her in her first Broadway play, Lulu, which launched her theatrical career. She went on to win Tony awards for her roles in The Unsinkable Molly Brown and Private Lives. She has starred in her own television series The Tammy Grimes Show. It has been said that her recorded voice is the most famous woman's voice in America. Tammy was twice awarded the Mother of the Year Award. She and her daughter Amanda Plummer, the actress, live in New York City.

When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a star with a wonderful husband and four children by the age of twenty. When I was twenty-four, I'd married my knight in shining armor, Christopher Plummer, and had our daughter, Amanda.

I was starring in a Broadway show called The Unsinkable Molly Brown. My wishes had all come true. By the time you're thirty, if you think you have realized all your dreams, you think you're an old lady and there's not much left. My marriages didin't last. I suppose my work has lasted, but apart form my parents and siblings, Amanda is the only person I deeply love.

I could almost tell she'd grown. Something would be different, and I could never quite catch up with the changes. She was always a surprise, always fascinating. I wanted to hang on to that special love, that deep feeling accompanied by pain. I never wanted Amanda to grow up. I missed her dreadfully. The times we spent together on a special intimacy, a quality that I remember best from the day I woke up and my daughter was brought to me in the hospital. I won't top that feeling in my lifetime.

Amanda took it for granted that all mothers had the same routine I did. In school she realized other mothers were not the same. I could never have been happy giving up my work and Amanda would inevitably have felt guilty. Mothers have to tell themselves that they mustn't feel guilty about anything. We can't compare ourselves to the unattainable perfection of imaginary parents. Amanda's childhood was filled with nannies. Swedish nannies, German nannies, French nannies, Scottish nannies, and Irish nannies. We once had a German nanny who accompanied us on the road for Molly Brown. One day, I found the source of the strange smell that had followed us around for days. Amanda had been washing a huge doll she carried with her and it was waterlogged. Our luggage was enormously heavy and it wasn't just the doll: the nanny had also packed her health food- tin cans, fruit, jars upon jars. We were dragging a store around America. I tell Amanda she should write a book, but, of course, she saw it all quite differently.

Amanda watched me from backstage at the age of two. Sometimes on Sunday matinees, I'd bring her on stage if I could, hidden underneath my coat. I always told her she had to keep very quiet and as she kids in the stage chorus trooped by, she'd shisper, "Shhhh!"

I used to dream that Amanda would marry a wonderful man who bred racehorses in Kentucky and I'd sit by the fire with my grandchildren. Instead, Amanda has followed me into this business. I said, "After all these years living with me, how could you possibly want to act?" We agreed she'd go to Middlebury College, and in her third year she called up and said, "My mind is white. The walls are white, the mountains are white, and I've got to go."

We've supported each other's career ever since. When I went to see the opening of Agnes of God, I was tremendously thrilled and tremendously criticial. Fortunately, she can take it. Amanda is very tactful about my performances. She'll say. "That was beautiful. Better than the last, much better than the last."

When she was fifteen, I shipped her to Ireland to learn how to hunt. She cried on the way to the airport. I said, "Amanda, you love horses. If you can't stand it, come back in two weeks." She returned the day school started. I could only reach her by mail. I couldn't even telegraph her. During college, I put her on a plane to Egypt with the family of one of her friends. Driving back from the airport, I suddenly thought, "I just sent my daughter to Egypt? Wait a minute---" I was learning how hard it was to walk away.