But these days the real Linda Richman is a fast-rising star in the world of personal growth. For the last two years she has been giving “self-hope” seminars at the tony Canyon Ranch spa in Arizona. Soon you’ll be able to see her lectures on public television. And she has written a book, released in January, called “I’d Rather Laugh: How to Be Happy Even When Life Has Other Plans for You,” in which she dismisses what she calls “woo-woo spirituality” in favor of some straight talk on living with loss–all told from the no-nonsense perspective of one of America’s most famous Jewish mothers. Even superguru Deepak Chopra counts himself among her fans. “I have never met anyone who is as aggressively uncredentialed and yet so extremely helpful to people who are seeking some kind of solace,” says Chopra. “She has a lot of wisdom.”
Her healing touch, Richman says, doesn’t come from guided meditations or deep cleansing breaths but from hard knocks, and plenty of them. Neglected as a child, she was married for 29 years to a compulsive gambler. She describes in her book how for 11 years she suffered from such severe agoraphobia that she was unable to leave her apartment. At 47 she found herself divorced, broke and homeless. So she lived with friends and made extended visits to her two children. “The humiliation,” remembers Richman. “Even now my cheeks burn with the shame. I was living on couches–homeless, but in Donna Karan mules.” Just as she was getting back on her feet again, rustling up work as a casting agent, her only son was killed in a car crash. “Does having all these terrible things happen entitle me to tell you how to live your life?” she asks. Then she waits. “Yes,” she answers herself. “You bet it does.” She enjoyed the success of “Coffee Talk” and visited the “SNL” set regularly. “People would say, ‘Linda Richman, I love you!’ " she recalls, “and I’d say, ‘You don’t know me. You know my son-in-law’.” After a few weeks as a guest at Canyon Ranch, she joined the staff there and began handing out advice. “People in pain related to me because I’m like them. I’ve suffered,” says Richman. “It’s one thing to hear ‘Do this, do that and you’ll laugh again’ from a $150-an-hour shrink. It’s another thing to hear it from me.”
Upset? Richman suggests you burden your friends. Depressed? Call your therapist. Talk. Talk. Talk. Seek out people and things that are fun. Laugh a little, even if it hurts. And don’t forget the pity party. When the pain overwhelms you, switch on your answering machine, take to your bed and watch sad movies for two days until you don’t have a tear left to cry. “On the third day you must get up, wash your hair and get out the door,” she says sternly. “You may not feel great, but you gotta do it. Two days is healing. Three days is dangerous. Believe me. I know.” Your mother couldn’t have said it better.
