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Looking forward to an Atlanta return, this make-up artist was first confronted with another hair-raising decision.
"CNN fly me up to New York and put me up at the Waldorf," she said. 'They offered me a job in New York as a make-up artist there, but something inside of me just said, 'I love visiting here, but I don't want to live here.' So I came home and went right back to my job doing make-up for WCW and CNN."
Terri then met another famous Terry.
"Terry Funk was there that day," she said. "I forget if he had done Roadhouse, but he had been in movies. Literally, the day after I land, I had to go to work and do make-up for wrestling, and I said to Terry, 'I really need to talk to you. Can we grab lunch after TV today? He said, 'Sure, absolutely.'
'So, we went and grabbed lunch. He is part of my heart and soul. Basically, the reason I wanted to talk to him was to say, 'Look, this is what I want to do. You've done this. Tell me how I do it. What do I do?' It would be like a kid today coming to me to say, 'How do I get into wrestling?'
"We ended up talking about eight hours. We've been dear friends ever since and gone through a heck of a lot since then. I respect him, his family. He has a wife and kids who adore him, and he adores them, and that is something I respect to no end."
Funk had a legendary feud with the American Dream Dusty Rhodes. Terri eventually met Dusty's son, Dustin.
"I was in the wrestling business before I ever met Dustin [Rhodes]. I meet Dustin. We get together. I have [daughter] Dakota. I take a couple of years off."
Terri, 41, grew up in Live Oak, east of Tallahassee, Fla. She currently lives with her daughter in Gainesville. Married in 1993, Terri and Dustin divorced in 1999. They have an amicable relationship for their daughter.
It's been documented the friction (at that time) between Dusty Rhodes, son Dustin and then girlfriend Terri.
"Dusty loved me until he found out I was dating his son," she said. "Once he found out I was an integral part of his son's life, it was like, 'Oops, she has more control over him than I do. I don't like that.'
"He is a cool grandfather to my daughter, and to me that's what matters most. He is an awesome pops to Dakota."
Right place at the right time. Prior to wrestling stardom, Terri worked at a beauty salon in Atlanta, leading to her big break with CNN as a make-up artist.
"It was the weirdest fluke," she said. 'When I asked Susan Lisovicz from CNN as I was shampooing her hair, 'Who's in charge of make-up at CNN,' in my mind, I really was not forecasting that far ahead as to I want to be an actress, but I knew I was meant for something great, and I knew shampooing hair and sweeping hair off a floor was not it. It was step by step by step."
With fame comes headache.
"I've never done a nude," she said, "but there are several shots of me on the Internet. You've seen the shot were either Dustin's hands were covering me, or I was in a swimsuit, and it was photo-shopped out.
'It was sad because one day my daughter came to me, when she was in fifth grade. She said, 'Mommy, my friend said she saw you on the Internet.' I said, 'Pumpkin, I'm going to show you. I'm going to show you the pictures that were taken where mommy's body was covered, and I'm going to show you the picture that somebody doctored and changed it.
"My child has seen me naked enough. The minute she saw the photo that was doctored. She was like, 'Mom, that's not you.'
'That kind of stuff really bothers me. When people lie about me on the Internet, it bothers me. If I've ever done something, I am a firm believer in call me on it, and I will fess up and say either, 'Yes, screw you. I did it, and I wanted to,' or 'Yea, I did it, and I'm so sorry, and I'm embarrassed.'
"If you call me on something and say I done something, I'll tell you. If you say I've done something that I haven't done, I become militant. I really have a problem with that. To me, that's such an injustice.
"I'm not perfect. I try to be a good mom, but don't lie about me."
Terri had her hands in the door, doing make-up for WCW. Her foot soon followed.
'[WCW booker] Ole [Anderson] is the one who wanted me to be Alexandra York. I came up with the name. They came up with the character. Tony Schiavone and I had a meeting at the Omni Hotel for lunch one day, and he told me, 'This is what Ole wants.' I remember saying to him, 'What does it entail?' What kind of money are we talking about?'
"I came up with the name Alexandra York because it sounded snooty and perfect for the heel character. I can not take one ounce of credit for the idea of Alexandra, but I can take only credit for the name and whatever I did in the ring."
Terry Taylor helped.
"I was so young and so green," she said. "Terry Taylor taught me so much. I worked with Mike Rotundo for a while, and then it was Terry Taylor, Ricky Morton and Tommy Rich, but Terry really helped me. God love him. He had to deal with me being green and young.
'I remember getting out of the ring one night, and I got out of the ring where the babyface was standing, and I didn't think anything of it. I get back to the dressing room, and Terry's like, 'Don't ever do that again.' I'm like, 'What?' He said, 'You got out right in front of him, and that makes him look horrible because he didn't do anything to you. He should have, but he didn't. You should have never gotten out of the ring by him.'
'Well, good Lord, that stuck with me forever. We all learn. Nobody has ever gone into the business knowing everything. I don't care who your daddy is. There are times where you learn lessons where you go, 'Oh my gosh. How embarrassing that I didn't know that.' That was one of those times where I went, 'Oops.' I really goofed. I was green as heck, but I wanted to be the best I could be for them. It was more about them at that point than me."
Terri is best known for her character portrayal of the director, Marlena, to then husband, Goldust in WWF. Like Terri, Marlena loved to smoke cigars.
'I'm laying in the tanning bed one night. My child is a little over a year old. I'm thinking Vince only has Sherri Martel, who was on her way out, and Tammy Sytch, the cheerleader. I'm thinking he's missing this really elegant, sexy, glamorous sexiest woman. There's nothing that says hot, sexiness. It's either cheerleader or hard-ass woman. So I called Dustin up when I was in the tanning bed, and he said, 'Oh my gosh. That's awesome. Call Vince.' I said, 'No, you call Vince. I don't work for him. You work for him. You call him.' Dustin said, 'No, I want you to call him.'
'So I called Vince. Pat Patterson called me back. He was gracious. He said, 'Thank you so much for your idea, but we're not interested at this time.' He was nice. He was not rude at all. So I hung up the phone thinking being a mom is the most important thing to me anyway. It's all good. I had a great idea, but if they don't like it, so be it.
'Probably a month or two later, I was at my grandparents' home in Branford, Florida, which is even tinier than Live Oak, Florida. It was close to Christmas, and Dustin called me. Dakota and I were there, and he said, 'Pack your bags,' and I said, 'What are you talking about?' He said they want to do your idea.
"Literally, I was on a plane within the next day or two, and we did my entire idea. I came up with Marlena, the cigar, the dress, everything. It took me a month to get Vince to let me light the damn cigar. He hated cigar smoke. It was me and Pat Patterson who got him to let me do it.
'I was like, 'Vince, it looks so stupid for me to go to the ring with a cigar that's not lit. It's so hot if I'm blowing smoke, smoking a cigar.' He said, 'I hate that &^%$. I hate it. Don't blow it in my face. I hate it. Fine, light it. I hate it though. Fine.' I'm sure he would hate for me to say that because he was on the cover of cigar aficionado [November/December 1999] but anyway.
"I got to do the character I came up with, and the rest is history."
Terri recently participated in Wrestlers Rescue, a charity event for needy wrestlers spearheaded by her friend and former WWE diva Dawn Marie. After the event, Terri lit her favorite cigar, a Rocky Patel Edge Maduro, a full-bodied, smooth cigar.
"I love it," she said, "and I have a humidor full of them."
Terri envisioned the entire character, complete with lit cigar, and it served as a springboard to the initial run of WWE divas.
'When I was laying in the tanning bed, I thought, 'What does the WWF need to bring the women full circle. You have a tiny-booper cheerleader, and you have this woman going, 'Raaar.' You need someone who is elegant and sexy. So what can we do to pair that with the character Goldust?'
"The person who I thought of was the [1930s] actress Marlene Dietrich. The reason I thought of her was because everything about Dustin's character Goldust was old Hollywood. Marlene Dietrich was the one who wore pant suits. She was accused of being a lesbian. She was the one who people just could not put their finger on who and what she was. She was more the androgynous female, and I just thought it would be a perfect marriage between Goldust and his director Marlena.
"I never came up with the idea of me being the director. I just came up with me being the idea of his manager. Everything about who I was -- the demeanor, the name, how I was dressed, the cigar -- was me. The only thing WWE came up with was calling me his director."
Debuting as Marlena in 1996, she evolved into Terri by 1998 when the term 'diva' developed in WWE's female ranks.
"We had never had an on-location photo shoot in WWF," Terri said. 'If we were in Hershey, Pennsylvania for TV, one of our staff photographers might say, 'Hey Sunny,' or 'Hey Terri, let's pull you over here at the chocolate factory, and we'll do a couple of photos over here.' That was it.
'I absolutely loved Sante Fe, New Mexico and went there every year. I just told them, 'I'm going on a trip to Sante Fe, and I think it would be very wise, if you guys sent a crew out and did photos.' It was the company's first ever on-location photo shoot. After that, guess what happened?
"We then had the very first diva photo shoot where we went to the Dominican Republic, and it all snowballed from there. I will not be so cocky as to tell you that it was because of me, but I will tell you me, it was not until me and me talking them into flying out for a photo shoot with me on my vacation in Sante Fe, that it all started.
"Divas were not called divas until momma was there, and I will call myself momma."
Because she cares about people who are hurt, abused or wronged, Terri wants to continue helping others.
Make The World Write, an international writing contest created by Terri, affords a hard-working, good person, a family, a non-profit corporation or a company a chance to win her Florida home and $100,000 to make the world a better place.
"I'm thrilled to see the positive response to the contest, and how it's inspiring others to create dialogue about what they would do to bring the global community together," Terri said.
"While there is a $200 entry fee, I do not want people to go above their means in order to participate in the contest."
The Make The World Write contest focuses on the skill and passion of the writer. The winner will receive Terri's beautiful four-bedroom, three-bathroom home with a stunning pool complete with waterfalls, a hot tub and a playhouse, workshop or whatever you choose to make it, plus $100,000 for the winner to use at their discretion. She hopes the majority will be used toward whatever the winning essay depicts.
Entries should be postmarked by midnight Sunday, Oct. 5, Terri's birthday. She will award the winner on Thanksgiving, Nov. 27.
"What better time to award someone than on Thanksgiving," she said, "a time when we are all thankful for our blessings, whether great or small."
A minimum amount of entries must be reached for a winner to be determined. If the number is not reached, entrants will be refunded their entry fee minus a 20 dollar administrative fee.
To participate in Make The World Write and for information, visit MakeTheWorldWrite.com.
Visit theterrirunnels.com.
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