Actress Gina Gershon is known for many things: her memorable turns in everything from “Face/Off” to “Showgirls” to “How To Make It in America,” her irresistible smirking pout, even her musical abilities — she released her own indie rock album in 2007. But few know what a cat lover she is. In her new memoir, “In Search of Cleo: How I Found My Pussy and Lost My Mind,” Gershon humorously and tenderly details her painstaking struggle to find her cat, Cleo, when he went missing a decade ago.
The beloved pet got loose when an assistant was taking her to the groomer in Los Angeles. Gershon enlisted a motley crew of friends, pet psychics, and good (and sometimes bad) Samaritans to help find the cat. After nearly three months of exhaustive searching — canceling public appearances, going out in the middle of the night — she had all but given up.
Then, she received yet another call from someone saying they’d found Cleo, this time from a gruff stranger who lived near the groomer where the cat had first gone missing. When Gershon first saw the savage, mud-crusted and cut-up beast, she didn’t believe it was Cleo. Then she opened his jaws and saw a perfect black dot on the roof of his mouth and knew it really was him.
Today, Gershon and Cleo, now 14, share an apartment, just the two of them, in downtown New York. “We’re intensely bonded,” she says.
We caught up with Gershon and talked with her about the book and being a self-admitted “crazy cat lady”:
How do you feel about the term “crazy cat lady”?
“Crazy cat ladies” get a bad rap. I don’t judge anyone… As long as they’re taking care of the cats and they’re in good heath, so be it.
Are you worried people will think you’re crazy after reading about the lengths you went to to rescue Cleo?
Animal lovers will understand it. Hopefully, it’s about what we all go through to get true love — told through the cat. I wanted it to be analogous to relationships. You could swap out cats for men, and everyone could relate to that… I’m getting reactions from girls in relationships now about how relatable it is.
What was the craziest thing you did to find Cleo?
Hiring Sonya, the pet psychic. I’m as cynical as you get. I think 99 percent of those kinds of people are frauds. But the stuff she knows about Cleo was so on point [like her favorite food bowl and the fact that she put tuna juice, not meat, on his food], she couldn’t look that up on the Internet.
What’s so special about Cleo?
He’s the little man of the house, and he’s really conscious of my health. When I’m sick, he lays on top of me. Cleo started stroking my head when my back hurt. He’s like a protective Jewish mother.
What do you tell people who have lost a pet?
Do everything you can to get your cat back. After 2 ½ months, I was ready to give up — yet I knew he was alive. Also, I learned a lot about compassion from this ordeal. I encountered so many people who were so incredible. I couldn’t have gotten through it without them.
Here kitty, kitty: Experts share tips for finding lost cats
* Being prepared is key, says Mieshelle Nagelschneider, renowned cat behaviorist and author of “The Cat Whisperer.” “Have your cat micro-chipped and wearing a collar with an ID tag that says, ‘Inside cat. I’m lost,’ and then your phone number.”
* Search at night with a flashlight. “The neighborhoods are much quieter for your cat to hear you call her name,” says Nagelschneider. “Often cats will be hiding in a tree, and a flashlight helps illuminate their reflective eyes making them easier to locate.”
* Stick close to home. “Generally, if a pet is lost, you want to look nearby,” says Peter L. Borchelt, Ph.D., a
Brooklyn-based animal behaviorist with 39 years of experience. “You hear all these stories about animals crossing the country, but a cat tends to get frightened and stays close to home.”
* Don’t give up. “I’ve had people who find a cat a month or two later,” says Borchelt.
* Be skeptical of pet psychics. One helped Gershon, but Borchelt says, “I don’t believe in them; I think they’re bogus.”
dlewak@nypost.com