Charlene Tilton walks through the doors of a Nashville restaurant, arms open wide. "Can I give you a hug?" she says, by way of greeting, before rapidly chit-chatting about how Nashville has changed in the seven years she's lived there and which library has the best storytime for her grandsons.
With her wide smile, Tilton still exudes effervescent Lucy Ewing charm, even without the voluminous golden locks that were her trademark as the iconic '80s darling on Dallas. But dressed in a green chenille sweater, skinny jeans and ankle boots that boost her petite 5' 1 1/2 inch frame, the 64-year-old actress is now more stylish grandma (her grandkids call her "Glamma" AKA, Glamorous Grandma) than blonde bombshell—and that's just the way she wants it. "On Dallas, it was such a whirlwind," she says. "The older I get, the more I've learned to be present in the day-to-day. I'm very content."
That sense of peace is welcome after a life that has been marked by profound turbulence. Her mother, Katherine, a secretary, became pregnant unexpectedly after meeting an Air Force pilot at the Pentagon, where they both worked at the time. "My biological father didn't want anything to do with me," Tilton says. "He had to have known about me—Dallas was so huge—but he never reached out."
While millions of Americans tuned in every Friday night for the glamour of Dallas, Tilton— who appeared on some 500 magazine covers at the height of her TV fame— kept her harrowing personal life a secret: Her mother struggled with severe mental illness and was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia. "Back then mental illness wasn't talked about," says Tilton. "It was swept under the rug." Today, as she enjoys a quiet life in Tennessee with her daughter, Cherish Lee, 40, and her grandsons (ages 6 and 2) nearby—and a revived career as a character actress—Tilton is eager to share her story: "Bringing things out in the open is so helpful."
Tilton's earliest memories are of instability: Her mother raging while someone repossessed their TV as Charlene watched Captain Kangaroo; being kicked off a train from their L.A. home to Omaha after her mom had a breakdown; police taking her mother away, leaving 5-year- old Charlene alone in a strange city; seeing her mother wrapped in a straight jacket. Movies were a rare escape. "Everything was magical on screen," Tilton says. "I saw Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music and thought, 'I want her to be my mother.'"
After Katherine was institutionalized when her daughter was 5, Tilton shuffled between relatives and foster homes. In one home, "I remember the kids saying, 'When is she going to go?' and the parents said, 'We're trying to send her off but we can't get anyone to take her.' I thought, 'I'm never going to depend on anybody to take care of me.'"
When Tilton was almost 8 her mother was released, and they moved back to California. But despite medication ("There were always a lot of pill bottles around"), her mom continued to struggle. Once when she chaperoned one of Tilton's junior high dances, "she started fighting with herself, having a full-on conversation," Tilton recalls. "I wanted to die of embarrassment." Their apartment was often filthy and her mother refused to urinate in anything other than Tupperware containers: "That went on for years. I could never bring friends over."