Stars Share Their Secrets for Chasing Away the Blues

Cybill Shepherd pumps iron when she’s blue, Oprah Winfrey gets on the telephone and Bea Arthur and Michael Gross pick up a good book--or a bad one.

Some major stars of the entertainment world were asked what they do to chase the blues, and their answers, reported in the current issue of Redbook, range from surprising to inspiring.

“I pump iron,” said Shepherd, who said she got into it after the birth of her twins in 1987.

“Working out got me in shape,” she said, “and it’s a terrific stress-reliever--there’s nothing like starting off the morning by doing a bench press. After four of them, I promise you that you’ll feel like you can handle anything.”

Talk show hostess Winfrey talks. She said:

“Whenever I feel low, I reach out and touch someone, just like the commercial says. I call my best friend, Gayle, in Connecticut, and honey, we burn up those wires. I can talk to Gayle about anything--from work problems to man problems.”

Arthur scoffed at the idea of being depressed.

“I’m very seldom depressed,” she said. “I’m too busy reading. If I feel any problems beginning to surface, I read and read and read.”

Gross had a similar cure:

“I get into bed with a good book and read until I fall asleep. If I want to fall asleep faster, I read a bad book.”

Spouses can help beat the blues, as Marlo Thomas and Tony Danza know.

“Whenever my husband (Phil Donahue) and I feel we need ‘crisis therapy,’ we drive to our house in the country,” she said. “We sleep late, we don’t answer the phone, we sit by the fire and drink wine and catch up with each other. Valuing your marriage is one of the best things you can do for the blues.”

Danza put it this way:

“I go through a lot of moods and whenever I’m down, I turn to my wife, Tracy. She’s terrific at making me snap out of a bad mood. She can get me to laugh--and so can my son, Marc, and daughter, Katie.”

For Mel Gibson, it’s all in the mind.

“I operate on the simple belief that if you’re at the bottom of the barrel, there’s only one way to go--and that’s up. It may not happen right away, but I guarantee you that you will be back on top; sooner than you think,” he said.

Shirley MacLaine also takes the cerebral approach:

“First I try to figure out why I’m depressed. It’s usually not something obvious like a cab driver running over my foot. . . . I sit down by myself and say, ‘OK, Shirley, why are you feeling this way? Feeling sad is not a choice you have to continue to make.’ It takes a lot of effort, but then I can usually figure out what’s bothered me, and the depression lifts.”