Stacey, Ribs and Pre-Menopausal Vitamins
It's been five months with my managers and zero auditions. They got me one meeting with an on-camera commercial talent agency. They called me with my appointment time of 2 pm and said I was to meet "Stacey" at this talent agency in Hollywood. I had heard of them, nothing outstanding, but again, I was open and willing to try to get my feet back in. I put two hours worth of change in the meter along Sunset Boulevard, walked past Carney's hamburger train and into the building. Mind you, I was 10 minutes early. When I walked in, the receptionist was eating ribs. Big, barbecue-slathered ribs, in a Styrofoam container with beans and mayonnaisey coleslaw. WHO eats ribs on their lunch break, while working? I was thoroughly amused by this. She kindly pointed at a sheet of paper with her BBQ-sauce-under-her-fingernail hands, and I looked at it. It was copy for a vitamin commercial. My first thought was: crap. I have to read for this Stacey?! My ego was yelling inside: "I am a genuine has-been … Read More
Gloria! Glor-ee-a!
"Gloria" is the worst song ever by Laura Branigan. That is all I think about when Gloria answers the phone at my management company. My second meeting was with Jim and Gloria. I mostly spoke with Gloria. Wait. Let me clarify. Gloria spoke about Gloria while I sat there. She was dressed all in white and has a blond bob haircut. She reminded me of Anna Wintour from Vogue magazine: very confident, opinionated and I could tell I didn't want to get on her bad side. Her whole office area was all in white and very tidy. She talked about actors and how actors' minds work, and what actors need to do mentally in this business and blah blah blah. No disrespect to Gloria, but wasn't I interviewing her? I mean, my new managers work for me, right? I found my mind drifting to whether I'd put enough money in the parking meter. Once in a while she would start talking about "so-and-so actress, the one that was in that movie about the girl getting married with that star from 'SNL'". After I filled in the … Read More
Are you there,manager? It’s me Tracy.
I started mailing out any head shot I had. I basically had a supermarket in my home office of hundreds of head-shots of me that never got used: some good, some not-so-great, long hair, short hair, smiles, not smiling. So I thought: What the heck? Send them out with my resume and see what happens. Like throwing a wad of gum at the wall, something may stick. A month later, “Jim” called. Jim called to say he would like to take a meeting with me. I was thrilled and then my next thought was: What is wrong with this person? Don’t get me wrong, I was thrilled he wanted to meet, but I didn’t have any recent credits to show for. I'd really only done an '80s sitcom, some commercials, low budget movies, and a few guest star roles years ago. I made the appointment and we met. His office was in a really quaint building that had an open atrium in the center. It felt like the buildings in the New Orleans streets at Disneyland. I walked into his office and it was nice. I know this sounds weird, but … Read More
False Advertising
Tony was a young, hip go-getter who represented talent. I actually thought this was a break ... for a change. When we met, he wanted to represent me before I even interviewed him. God that felt good, hopeful…but I was suspicious. Only because I was feeling insecure. Why would someone want to represent me, that didn’t really know me yet? For all I knew, he wanted to put me in a bear costume and book me on the kids show "Yo Gabba Gabba" and I probably would have said "Great!" I left that meeting feeling like I'd been discovered again. Tony was so excited to represent me, he almost made it seem easy to jump-start my dead career. But after two months, I'd gone on ZERO auditions. They said no one wanted to read me. No one. They couldn't get me an audition. Probably even for the bear on "Yo Gabba Gabba." I constantly asked, "Are you submitting me for the home runs? Or the first-base roles? I'm willing and ready for anything just to get my feet wet again. One line, one word, one syllable, a … Read More