She’s rehabbing her reputation

It isn’t easy to cozy up to Paula Poundstone. She is not warm, ingratiating, glib or self-revealing. She has mastered none of the faux bonding techniques so many celebrities use with interviewers to make themselves seem worthy of prime time.

On Sunday, at 10 a.m., she is barely awake and highly nonverbal as she ushers an invited guest into her home in a manner that suggests she had little part in issuing the invitation.

Balloons float from the white picket fence and signs drawn by the three Poundstone children -- ages 4, 8 and 11 -- still decorate the front door and living room. They read, “Poundstones Together Forever” -- the theme of a party the night before to celebrate the family’s reunification.

On Dec. 11, after her children had spent 18 months in foster care, Poundstone regained custody. They were removed from her home after she pleaded no contest to a felony count of child endangerment and misdemeanor infliction of injury on a child. The endangerment charge involved drunk driving with children in the car.

Now her lawyer and manager are on a campaign to put the comedian back in circulation, to get her face in every magazine, newspaper and TV show possible -- including People magazine, “Larry King Live,” and now The Times -- in an attempt to refurbish what they consider an unfairly tarnished image.

Her career is picking up slowly. The bookings are trickling in -- her next is at the Grove of Anaheim on Dec. 27 -- but the campaign is geared toward picking up the pace.

Poundstone -- yawning, uncombed and with a hacking cough -- obviously isn’t thrilled with this new public relations putsch. But if it will help her family’s life get back onto an even financial keel, she’ll put up with it. Within limits.

Poundstone says she has “apologized endlessly to my kids. I have explained that I made a really bad mistake, that I owned up to it and had to be punished. I tried to explain it as a sort of lesson, so they know that when you do something wrong, you should confess and take the punishment and never do it again.”

She says she has not touched alcohol since her arrest and never would again “because of the terrible toll it inflicted.”

A charge of lewd conduct was dropped soon after it was brought against the comedian, says her attorney, Richard Pfeiffer. A court gag order prevents them from discussing why the charge was ever made, and why it was never pressed. Poundstone says: “I can only tell you that if they could have nailed me, they certainly would have. I pleaded guilty only to what was true -- which was my alcohol problem.”

On this morning, it seems evident that the children are all Poundstone cares to discuss -- although only in ways she believes will not invade their dignity or privacy. This attitude has been irritating to both her longtime manager, Bonnie Burns, and Pfeiffer, who asked The Times to meet with the comedian, hoping to reestablish her image as a caring and responsible -- they might call her extraordinary -- mother.

The attorney has asked to sit in on the interview, not because he’s afraid Poundstone might say too much, but because he’s afraid she won’t say enough. He explains: “In the Larry King interview last week, King started to ask questions about her children’s disabilities and she stopped him. She said her children are wonderful people, they aren’t defined by disabilities and they weren’t castaways that she rescued.

“But if you meet those children, see what Paula has done with and for them, see the love in that family -- you will get a totally different picture than was implied when the charges were brought. She never got the huge publicity when the [lewd conduct] charges were so quickly dropped.”

Thomas, the 4-year-old, awakens in a back bedroom, runs into the living room, climbs on Poundstone’s lap and remains there to help with the interview. He is highly verbal about the family’s nine cats, one dog and the constipated lizard who gets a 20-minute massage from his mommy every day. Not to mention his depth of knowledge on how firemen dress to fight fires and why Christmas trees need water.

Thomas “is great in school, has lots of friends and he’s an excellent child, aren’t you?” Poundstone says, rocking him gently. He became her foster child when he was 2 days old, and they have been together ever since. She adopted him when he was 2. The attorney whispers that he had certain “health problems” the reporter should know about. Poundstone refuses to continue such a discussion.

Toshia, Poundstone’s 11-year-old daughter, has joined the party. How are you? the visitor asks. “I’m happy,” she answers in a soft voice. What do you want for Christmas? “Whatever I want, my mama will get me,” she replies sweetly. She walks toward her mother, and drops unsteadily into a chair beside her. “She’s just stopped using her crutches,” Poundstone says.

The attorney is aching to explain. When Paula and Toshia leave for the kitchen, he whispers: “She has cerebral palsy. Paula takes her to therapy a few times a week, and does exercises with her every night -- and now she’s walking without crutches.”

Poundstone, asked later about this and other health issues the lawyer has mentioned, becomes upset that her daughter may be misrepresented as “damaged.” All three of her children go to the same Santa Monica public school. Toshia has been mainstreamed. She has friends. She feels comfortable. “The story is about me and my problems, not about them,” Poundstone says.

Poundstone explains that she’s known Toshia since she was 10 months old and became her foster mother when the child was 4. “When I told her I was going to adopt her, I said, ‘I want you to take my last name so we sound like the family we really are.’ But I didn’t want her to lose the middle name she already had, which is Marie. Or the last name, because that is part of who she is. So I told her we’d push those names into the middle. And I said since we are going to see a judge to do this right, you can also choose one more middle name if you want to. So her full legal name is Toshia Marie Alice-In-Wonderland Johnson Poundstone.” Poundstone’s middle child, Allie, is in bed with the flu.

At the time of her arrest, Poundstone was caring for two foster children along with her own three. (The foster children were placed in other homes.) She has fostered eight children through the years, she says, including the three she has adopted. When asked why she began fostering children, Poundstone says, “I wanted to do something important.”

How could she juggle a career and such a large family? “I had two nannies -- it was critical that the children have consistent care, get to school and gymnastics and all their other appointments when I was away performing -- which I tried to keep to a minimum.”

Of course, at the time her mothering began, Poundstone’s career was on a high note, her financial picture was solid, she owned a lovely Santa Monica home. She could afford the lessons, the therapies, the tutors, the nannies. Since her legal problems began, she says she has gone into “humungous debt.” She sold her home to pay for the army of lawyers and assorted other costs related to the cases in criminal and family courts.

Her attorney, again perhaps too vocal for Poundstone’s liking, explains her situation. “She has nothing left. She rented this house, which is expensive, because she wanted to keep the children in the same school.” The house is quite small, reportedly leaks when it rains and bears no resemblance to the “very nice place” she sold.

“She has had all those lawyers to pay,” Pfeiffer continues. But that was only a part of it, he says. After six months in rehab, she was allowed unlimited monitored visitations with the children, who had been placed in foster care. The monitors were to be hired at Poundstone’s expense.

“She didn’t just hire monitors for a few hours a day to be with them. She was there when they opened their eyes in the morning.” Poundstone chimes in: “That’s true. I took them to school and picked them up, drove them to appointments, spent the day with them, scrubbed and tubbed them here at home, then took them a few blocks to the foster home and stayed with them till they fell asleep.”

Poundstone agrees that the astronomical costs of hiring monitors for a year of 18-hour days, along with lawyers’ fees, and the loss of work have set her in dire financial circumstances. “Oh, and don’t forget the $250 per hour psychotherapists ordered by the court -- 12 therapists in 18 months,” Poundstone says.

But in her abrupt way, Poundstone says she is not in any real sense complaining. She allows as how she understands that she “had to pay for the really bad thing I did, which was to drink and endanger my children by doing so.” She sounds relieved to have met and coped with that problem and to have it behind her. Now, she hopes, her future will be clear. The question is, will she be able to rehabilitate her reputation, will she get enough gigs to keep her kids supplied with what they need, and maybe a few extras. She has just lost her children’s health insurance, she says, because she isn’t earning enough to qualify for AFTRA union benefits.

So far, she says, “the bookings aren’t coming as fast as I need them to. And it’s difficult to promote them. You gotta do these radio interviews, where you call the morning DJ, tell a few jokes and tease your upcoming show. But now, those DJs have all turned into Mike Wallace.” Every time she wants to promote a performance, she says, she has to “address all this business all over again. It’s one step forward, two steps back.”

Some critics have written that her current shows are funnier than ever. But the clubs are not packed when she plays. What happens if she never gets back to peak performance? She can’t concern herself with negative thoughts, she says. In fact, she’s surrounded by goodwill. “What’s interesting is total strangers come up to me frequently and say the most supportive things. One woman got out of her car and asked if she could give me a hug.”