Twentynine Palms: Leading Lady in the Desert

We heard the coyotes on our first night there. It began with a single howl, followed by a lot of short yips, then a series of answering howls from further away. The howling and yipping must have gone on for about 20 minutes. And by the time they stopped I knew for sure that we were not in Hollywood any more. I had come to Twentynine Palms, a remote town about an hour northeast of Palm Springs located in the Sonoran Desert (adjacent to the larger Mojave) to play the lead role in the U.S. premiere of a play called "Actress." It was written by Josh Lazar in 1992, and had been performed only once before, at the Edinburgh Festival. Josh had won an award for the play, but he had never been able to find a theatre company willing to mount the show, until now, at his home company, Theatre 29, an astonishingly good venue for such a small town. But he had been unable to cast it locally, so he'd cast all of us (five actors)in LA and held rehearsals there, promising us an all-expenses paid two-weekends at the 29 Palms Inn on the Oasis of Mara in the desert in exchange for one weekend of performances in LA. I had never heard of 29 Palms, except in an old Robert Plant song from the early 1990s, but I knew it was near the Joshua Tree National Park, which I had heard was beautiful, and it had been awhile since I had been out of the city. A little time in the desert, even if it was hot, sounded good to me. Josh assured me they had air conditioning. The work leading up to the show was grueling. The story of "Actress" doesn't have a lot of action, but there is tons of dialogue, most of it mine. It is set is a fictional town in southern Minnesota, not unlike where my third husband is from. The premise is that the couple, Gene and Hedda Morgan, are awaiting the arrival of their younger daughter, Regina, who is returning home to perform in a play for one weekend. She had run away from home ten years earlier to pursue an acting career, and this is the first time she has been back since. Her older sister, Bell, was a successful actress in high school who gave up acting when she married her husband, Jim. But old resentments and sibling rivalries flare when she discovers that Regina is starring in the same play, and playing the same role, that was her triumph in high school. My character, Hedda, provides the comic relief in a sort of Edith Bunker role, and I adored playing her. But learning the dialogue and getting the accent and the gestures and tone of voice - well, it was all difficult. We rehearsed about four times a week for about four weeks and then daily for the last two weeks, heading to 29 Palms the Wednesday before we opened on Friday night. I really didn't know what to expect from 29 Palms. I knew that although the desert is empty, it is far from barren. There are many plants that flourish there - all different kinds of cactus, the yucca plant of which the Joshua Tree is one, and lots of other small scrub plants that I can't identify by name. There is plenty of wildlife too, although we didn't see a lot of it while we were there. In addition to the coyotes, there are abundant cotton-tailed jackrabbits, coveys of quail, iguanas, geckos, prairie dogs, and the less cuddly scorpions and rattlesnakes. It takes almost three hours to get there by car from LA, and on the way we skirted the beginnings of the High Sierra. The road into 29 Palms is about 4500 feet above sea level through a high mountain pass. Near the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park, there are the usual collection of vintage clothing stores, souvenir shops, quaint cafes, and tourist information booths. I promised myself I would come back to explore both these and the park, but the first night we were due for a long rehearsal. The town really does seem to be in the middle of nowhere. The desert stretches out between the distant mountains and the range we had just passed through for as far as the eye can see, broken only by a large group of palm trees clustered near the center of a small stretch of a main street. This, as it turned out, was the Oasis of Mara (which means "more" in the indigenous language), around which the 29 Palms Inn is built. Josh had told us the Inn was charming, but that really doesn't do it justice. It is one of the most unusual accommodations I have ever seen. The rooms are all small adobe houses with flat roofs, painted in various soft pastel colors that matched the soft sunset sky as we drove in. They are set in a large circle around the Oasis, and there is a beautiful pool with a casual but chic restaurant poolside. The ambiance is desert cool and seems a million miles from downtown LA. I was immediately enchanted. The theatre was also a pleasant surprise. It's large, nearly 100 seats, with a big stage, great acoustics separate dressing rooms for the men and women, a full kitchen, and a reception area for the patrons. And there is a parking lot, something that you almost never see in LA due to the lack of space which is of course not a problem here. Our rehearsal went well, so we settled in for an early night, and that's when we heard the coyotes. We see coyotes in the LA area pretty often. When I lived near Griffith Park I'd meet them on the street late at night occasionally, scavenging the garbage cans. Once a neighbor's cat was killed by a coyote. But I had never heard them howl the way they did that night. It was wild, and chilling, and exciting. The land out there really belongs to them. We just borrow it. The next day we had some free time, so we drove over to Joshua Tree to take the drive-through tour, which is about a 25-mile loop. These iconic trees, known to many from U2's equally iconic album of the same name, are a variety of the Yucca family, and are found in astonishing numbers in this park. As you drive deeper into the park, they are so thick it's almost like a forest. The tallest is about 40 feet, with many twisted branches. The park is also known for its many rock formations which are very popular with rock climbers. They look as if they have been stacked by man, but they are all natural. The park rises slowly to nearly 5000 feet at its highest point, which is a lookout over the Morongo Basin. It was a beautiful day when we were there, and we could see all the way to Palm Springs. I want to go back in the spring when the desert flowers are blooming - and when it is cooler. It was about 96 degrees when we were there, which was cool for the summer. For such a small and remote place, there are a surprising number of excellent restaurants in 29 Palms. The food at the Inn is excellent, but we also had great meals at Bistro 29 and the Carousel Cafe on the National Park Highway. I was starting to love everything about the place by the second day. Something about the light and the quality of the air, which is of course very dry, and the clarity of the sky at night, so bright that you could see the Milky Way and billions of stars, really spoke to me. Plus, with the dry air, I had almost no pain at all in my joints, which normally hurt all the time at some level. So I felt really well there. It would be a very quiet life, but I think I could live there. Friday was our opening day. There had been quite a bit of press, and I had already been recognized by a couple of people in town who had seen my picture in the paper. I have to admit that this was kind of cool. I've been recognized a couple of times in LA for some reality stuff I've done, but this was a much bigger part. It may be the most fame I ever get, and I enjoyed it. We had a large crowd for opening night, and we gave a near-perfect show. It was a hit! People laughed at all the right places, including some we hadn't expected, and everyone cried at the end, and then we stood in a receiving line to shake hands with the patrons, a charming custom that many community theatres still follow. I felt so gratified by the many compliments I received on my performance, as well as many hugs and thanks for coming all the way from LA. The locals were genuinely touched that a "professional cast from LA" had come all the way to the desert to perform for them. I was really moved by their gratitude. The next two nights were very similar, and on the last night we got a standing ovation, something that Josh said almost never happens there. Our one review said that "Josh Lazar has assembled a very talented cast of actors in a play that engrosses viewers from the first moments of the play," calling it a must-see. I didn't want to leave 29 Palms but I knew we had another weekend, with more adventures to come....to be continued.

On the Occasion of My Third Divorce

After my first divorce at 23 from my high school sweetheart, it would have never occurred to me that some 30 years later I would be living in Hollywood, pursuing an acting career full-time, childless, living with chronic illness, and finalizing not my second, but my third divorce. I would have been mortified, and probably suicidal. It's a good thing we can't know our futures - maybe all of us would feel that way. Yet when I look at how I arrived at each divorce, they all made sense, sad as they were. I dated my first husband for six years before we married, all through high school and two years into college. I only had three other dates with boys besides him. He was my first real love, but I think I married him mainly to please my parents, who had done exactly the same thing. I believe if my parents had encouraged me to leave home and go off to college, I would have, even if it meant breaking up with him, which would have been the right thing to do. But I was very shy then, and scared of leaving home, and I had been offered a full scholarship to the University of Alabama in Huntsville - even my books were paid for. So I took the easy way out, and stayed home for school, and married him in my senior year of college. In hindsight, this is the single biggest regret of my life. I don't know if my life would have turned out very differently if I had attended Bryn Mawr, the prestigious "Seven Sisters" college that was recruiting me, where my father wanted me to go. It is located near Philadelphia and would have certainly opened my eyes to the world sooner. But as it was, I took a trip to New York City my freshman year at UAH, and came home telling my family that I had found where I belonged. They laughed at me, but nobody laughed when I finally moved to the New York area after my second divorce in 1993. Who knows? Maybe I would have moved to New York earlier. Maybe I would have discovered my calling as an actress earlier. Or maybe I would have had a physical breakdown earlier and had to leave school. Not even God can change the past, and it is pointless to speculate. But I know if I could do it over again, I would have listened to my father and gone to Bryn Mawr. The short answer as to why my first marriage fell apart is that I was far more successful in my career than my husband, and this put too much of a strain on his ego which led him to abuse me emotionally and physically. We stayed together for four years, and I finally left when I began to fear for my life after he started sleeping with a gun beside our bed. It was not amicable; I left during the day while he was working so that he could not hurt me, and our marriage counselor advised me not to ever be alone with him. He took me to court to contest the divorce, even though we had no property to divide. I remember vividly the pain of sitting on the witness stand, testifying that my marriage was irreparably broken. And I remember the kindness of the judge, who wished me all the best in my new start in life. I never saw my first husband again. I remember how miserable I was over the next several months. I had no idea as to how to be single. I'd never lived alone, and this was prior to the age of video dating. We didn't even have personal computers back then, so there was no online dating. The best place to meet men when you were living in Birmingham, Alabama, was in church. And that is where I met my second husband. I was feeling terribly guilty over having left my first husband, as the Baptist Church to which I belonged at the time preached that divorce is unforgivable except in the case of adultery, which had not played a part in my divorce. But I joined the church's singles group, and met some nice, if boring men. In the meantime, I had a blazing romance with the man who lived next door to me at my apartment complex, who ultimately moved away after four months, leaving me with a shattered heart. I met my second husband at a church picnic about four months later, and when I discovered he was a guitarist who liked rock and roll, I was smitten. I was, and still am, a sucker for musicians. We started dating right away and soon were in love. But the sticking point for him was that he refused to have sex before we married. He was a 27-year-old virgin. Now, I wasn't the most experienced woman in the world, but I had been married, and I'd been around the block a few times after that, and I was a young woman with a healthy libido. In other words, I was horny, and frustrated. So I agreed to marry him after we had only dated for eight months, primarily because, a) I didn't know how to be single, and b) I wanted to have sex with him. Not exactly the best reasons for a marriage. I realized during our engagement that I was probably making a mistake, but my maid of honor told me I was being silly and that I just had cold feet. But you get cold feet for a reason. I knew after only a month that our marriage was going to be a disaster; the sex wasn't good, and we had very little in common. But I stayed for four years because I didn't want to be divorced twice. The marriage got us both to Nashville, which was one step closer to moving to the Northeast for me, but that was about the only good thing that came out of it for me. And once again, although we parted amicably, I have never seen my exhusband again. It's almost as if this marriage never even happened. Shortly after my second divorce, I began the Executive MBA program at Vanderbilt University, sponsored by my employer, Nortel Networks. Once again, I was getting an all-expenses paid education, and at a top-notch university. Since I was single, I treated this like the college experience I never had. I partied like mad and dated as many different types of men as I could, determined to make up for what I missed in my youth, and to find out what kind of man really suited me best. And after I graduated in 1992, I finally executed my plan of moving to, or at least near, New York. I transferred within Nortel to New Jersey, and I got an apartment on the ocean. This began three of the happiest years of my life. Within six months, I met the man who became my third husband, and whom so far remains the love of my life. And surprise! He was another musician. But he also had a day job as a computer scientist. Only one problem: he had a girlfriend - in another state. He and I were not involved romantically for the first three months I knew him. We worked together on producing a CD in his home studio, with me recording vocals for the first time ever. He didn't tell me about the girlfriend for about two months, but by then I was smitten. We got involved anyway, and it took him nearly nine months to finally end things with her. During this time I alternated between extreme joy when I was with him and extreme anger at him, wondering how he could be so cavalier toward both of us. I should have paid attention, because it revealed an astonishing lack of ability to empathize which was crucial after I became ill later in our marriage. But once he ended things with the other woman, and I became his "official" girlfriend, life was wonderful. I was by then singing on weekends in a wedding band, because the tape we had made together had gotten me jobs with two bands; we owned a 16-foot catamaran that we sailed every weekend in Sandy Hook Bay and watched the sun glint off the two towers of the World Trade Center; and at night we fell asleep in my apartment to the music of the waves crashing just outside my window. It was too beautiful to last, but I was aware of that and savored every achingly wonderful moment. About a year later, his company announced that they were moving to West Palm Beach, Florida. Neither of us wanted to move there. It was the mid-1990s, the height of the dot.com boom, and California was the place computer scientists went to get rich. So we headed west, and moved in together in Silicon Valley. At first, life in Cali was great. We bought a beautiful house on the San Francisco Bay about halfway between San Jose and San Francisco. I got a great, though stressful, job with Nortel in Santa Clara; he went to work for NEC. We worked long hours, but we carpooled to work together, and it was fun. We bought a boat. We were young and rich and in love. After two years of living together, he proposed to me, on the rim of the Grand Canyon at sunset. Does it get any more romantic than that? Probably, but still. We threw an elaborate weekend wedding event in April of 1998 that culminated with an outdoor sunset ceremony at the Highlands Inn in Carmel. It was the best day of my life. Our two-week honeymoon in Greece was fit for the gods. All was bliss. Until it wasn't, because I got sick. I had had health problems for a long time, mostly since my second year at Vanderbilt. I got bronchitis and I just never really got well. I have a mitral valve prolapse that I take medication for, and when I started the job in Santa Clara I started getting terrible migraines on an almost weekly basis. I injured my back lifting a computer monitor at work, and started needing to see a chiropractor every week. It seemed as if I was falling apart one piece at a time. But I was always able to keep working 10 to 12 hour days, until late in 1998, when I literally collapsed on a business trip to Dallas, with a blinding migraine. My boss sent me home and to the doctor, and the doctor sent me off to bed rest for three months. Then the tests started, revealing all sorts of problems: thyroid disease, Lyme disease, food allergies, chronic Epstein-Barr virus, and a few others. Three months' leave became nine, and then I resigned from my high-paid, high-prestige job to try a project management job at an Internet start-up that was close to my home. But that only lasted six months, as that work proved to be too stressful for me to handle. I had body aches and joint pains all over my body, and no one could tell me why. By this point I was using alternative medicine such as homeopathy to treat my various ailments, and the doctor treating me prescribed injections of raw thymus gland to improve my immune system. They made me feel much better, so I decided to try to return to full-time work as a management consultant for a prestigious Boston-based firm. But I had only been on the job for a month when I took the fall that ended my career while on a business trip in Boston, rupturing a disc in my lower back, an injury which remains inoperable. About three months later, the telltale butterfly rash of Lupus appeared on my face, and I was diagnosed with SLE. In October, my appendix ruptured; misdiagnosed with stomach flu, I became septic and nearly died. I went on disability that month and formally retired. 2000 was not a good year for me. As one can imagine, all this illness was very hard on a very new marriage. My husband had fallen in love with a high-powered executive who made a lot of money. Two years into our marriage, I had become disabled, with no job, and my income was about one-fifth of what it had been before. I guess he always expected that eventually I would get well, and go back to work. But I never did. And he told me later that without my work, I just wasn't enough for him. Oh, that hurt. But at least he was honest, finally. It took several years for us to fall apart. He started running marathons in 2001, the same year I started acting. And these were the two paths that diverged and eventually led us down roads that became too far apart for us to ever come together again. So we sat in the mediator's office yesterday, after being separated for over two years, bitterly divided over how to split our estate. Hard to believe two people who had once loved each other so much could so turn against each other. He had refused to speak to me on the phone for most of our separation, communicating only by e-mail, which means I have a written record of all the names he has called me, and the seven nasty messages he sent on my most recent birthday, including the one calling me an "evil liar." Lovely. But I had decided that enough was enough, and we were going to reach an agreement yesterday, one that was fair to both of us. It only took two hours, face to face, to agree on how much and for how long he will pay me. And as we parted, I said "I guess I may not ever see you again," and dissolved into tears. And he held me, and for a moment all the acrimony was gone and it was just the two of us, holding onto each other as if we would never let go. And then the moment passed, and we said goodbye, and "I love you" for the last time. And our 14-year marriage will pass into history by the end of the month. What to say, then, as I become a three-time loser at marriage? Have I become a punchline, another Hollywood poster child for divorced actors? I know I feel that way sometimes. Bur I did the best I could with the choices that I made. I tried hard to make my marriages work. I loved these men as best I could, given the situations I was in. I wish that I had been stronger, not so needy and dependent, and a better wife, better able to be a full partner, especially this last time. But I wasn't able to, mostly because of illness. And now, I sit in my beautiful Hollywood apartment, with my little pug Clarabelle at my side, and I look at the home that I have created with elements from all my marriages integrated into it, and I realize that I am the sum of all my experiences. I would not be the person I am if I had not been married three times. I might be a better person, but I might be less interesting or less empathetic or less forgiving. And I realize that each man has helped me move along further to get me to the place that I believe I was meant to be: here in LA, practicing my craft of acting, and drawing on my wealth of experience in love and heartache and pain to bring characters to life on the stage and the screen. I used to shrug off anything bad that happened to me by saying, "At least I got a good story out of it." My marriages have given a lifetime's worth of good stories. And actors are nothing if not storytellers.

The Life of a Disabled Actor

I don't choose to write about it very much, but I am permanently disabled with an autoimmune disease and multiple back injuries. I also suffer from chronic migraines which occur about once a week even though I take preventative medication. My illnesses were, in a way, what made my acting career possible. Before I became ill and went out on medical leave in 1998, ultimately retiring in 2000, I had a very demanding job in the telecommunications industry which required frequent cross-country travel and regular 50-60 hour work weeks. I loved my work and had always derived most of my self-image and self-worth from what I did for my living, and I enjoyed the high status and income associated with my career. Yet it was very stressful, and I had suffered increasingly ill health since about 1990 until I finally had to admit that I was no longer well enough to be able to work reliably.

Faced with a future completely devoid of the career I had loved, and unable to have children, I found myself returning to my childhood dreams of performing. I'd always loved to sing and dance, and had once staged a play in my parents' garage that the whole neighborhood had attended. I'd also written and performed in the Thanksgiving play that my fifth grade class put on. I'd been in a few plays and one student film in high school, and I'd never forgotten how much fun it was to act. I started to think that maybe now I could actually pursue those dreams, for fun if not for profit.

In a way, acting is a perfect job for people with disabilities. In my case, I can't sit, stand, or walk for much longer than a half-hour at a time, nor can I bend or lift more than about ten pounds. With acting, unless one does extra work, which I no longer do, you can usually take breaks, move around, stretch, and generally do whatever you need to do to keep from hurting. The most strenuous requirement is to learn your lines, and to show up for your call time. Those things I can still do, although I do miss rehearsals from time to time due to migraines. But I have never missed a performance, although these days I could, since I usually have an understudy in my plays. I have met many other actors on sets who are also disabled and who are now pursuing acting as a second career. Since I have never made more money than I am allowed to in a single month, my acting does not jeopardize my disability income; it's really considered a "hobby" because I have yet to make a profit.

The nicest aspect of becoming an actor at this point in my life is that there is really no pressure to become a "star;" no one would expect that of someone my age. I don't have to worry much about being thin, or having too many wrinkles; I'm what they call a "character" actor, so I can look "real" instead of like a model, and still get cast in secondary rather than starring roles, which is fine with me. And I do a lot of work in projects that give meaning to my life and make me feel like I am contributing to the community. For example, in December of 2010 I appeared in two plays for children's theatre companies; many of the kids we performed for had never seen live theatre before, and it was just magical for them. This past December when I performed in "It's a Wonderful Life," people told me they were deeply moved by the unexpected relevance of the speeches about foreclosures and greed and the importance of sticking together. Getting that kind of feedback from a live audience is one of the rewards of doing theatre - you know immediately what your audience thinks of the show.

Obviously, I don't like to advertise the fact that I am disabled. You wouldn't know it to look at me; my illness is invisible, and I don't have to use a cane or a wheelchair due to my back injuries. My health has improved since I have been living in LA permanently; the dry climate has lessened my joint and back pain, and since I'm not traveling frequently between LA and SF I'm not as tired as I used to be. But I still require about 12 hours of sleep a day just to function semi-normally, and after a day of work I usually have to spend a day in bed recovering. I save most of my energy for acting - I don't cook (I have my meals delivered), I order my groceries, I have a laundry service, and I get my house cleaned once a month. And if my dream of working as a regular cast member on a situation comedy came true, it would definitely be a challenge for me to work every day. But if that chance comes along, I will certainly give it my best shot. For now, I would be happy if I could just earn the maximum amount of money that I am allowed to make every month. In the meantime, I put my health first and try to do whatever it takes to feel my best so that I can stay active and feel well enough to do what I love.

The Return of "One Last Shot"

It's January 1, 2012, the year the world will supposedly end (if you believe the Mayan calendar, on 12/21/12). I'm not sure I believe that, but if so, it will be a short year and thus easier to document my continuing pursuit of my mid-life acting career in LA. When I last wrote, it was March of 2011. I was excited about my prospects as a new SAG/AFTRA member, finally living full-time in LA, able to pursue my dreams of being an actress with no distractions, or so I thought. But life has a way of happening while you are making other plans. The road less traveled turned out to be bumpier than I expected.

For one thing, my work opportunities dropped off considerably after I joined both unions. I had been warned about this, but I guess it didn't really hit me until it actually happened. Whereas when I was non-union I might have had ten opportunities to submit to per day and up to ten auditions a week, now I was lucky to get that many in a month. Suddenly my paid jobs dropped to one a month or so, and almost none were at SAG scale. Most were paid at what is known as "ultra-low budget," or basically, as little as the production company can get away with paying you and still be union-compliant. I was amazed at how many SAG productions there were that didn't pay actors anything. I refused to work on these, so consequently I wasn't doing nearly as much film or TV work once I joined the union.

Fortunately, I was a member of SkyPilot Theatre Company, which turned out to be a real blessing in both my work and personal life. I had joined the company late in 2010, and acted in my first show in January of 2011. I started going to weekly improv workshops hosted by the company, and began to feel much more comfortable trying new voices and gestures in a setting that was safe for me; it didn't matter if they worked or not. I got to know the company members, and they became a kind of surrogate family for me. And in the summer, I co-produced and played a lead in an important original play written for SkyPilot by Samantha Macher, called "To the New Girl from the Former Mrs.: Advice to my Husband's New Wife or Girlfriend." The show was a critical and commercial success, earning raves from the LA Times and LA Weekly, and putting SkyPilot on the radar of the LA theatre scene as a company to watch for new works. I wasn't paid, but I learned a lot about producing a play, and joined the administrative staff (also unpaid) of the company after the show closed. I am planning to produce at least one show in 2012, as well as assisting in fundraising and grant writing, areas that I have experience in from my past life. I also participated in several of the company's monthly readings of new works written by our in-house staff of playwrights, and enjoyed giving them feedback and helping to choose which plays we will mount in 2012.

In addition to the work I did with SkyPilot, I performed in two other shows in 2011. One was an original musical tribute to 9/11 called "We are Different Now," in which I played "the unsinkable Molly Brown" and had a great, funny monologue written just for me. The other was the play version of "It's a Wonderful Life," in which I played "Mother Bailey," at the Sierra Madre Playhouse for the Christmas season, which played to packed houses and earned rave reviews. Although the 9/11 musical was marked by production problems and difficulties with various personalities in the show, it ended up being a genuinely moving, patriotic production. However, the show came at a very difficult time for me, as my beloved pug, Pasha, had died on September 8th, just a day before we opened on September 9th. Pushing myself to do these shows on September 9-11 really made me understand what "the show must go on" is all about.

Although stage work dominated my acting life this past year, I also did three student films, two infomercials for skincare products, a couple of re-enactment shows, a game show spoof for Spike TV in which I was part of the small but enthusiastic audience, small speaking parts in two independent films, and had a small credited part in Seth Rogen's next comedy, titled "For a Good Time Call." I also did a spec commercial called "The Elephant in the Room" with a real live elephant! And I fulfilled my childhood dream of working at Six Flags by playing a gypsy at Magic Mountain's Fright Fest. Although I injured my leg the second weekend and had to drop out early, it was still a fun time; I enjoyed telling fortunes and scaring kids, telling them "I love children; they're delicious!"

Another highlight of 2011 was that I started going to acting class on a regular basis. I began an on-camera audition class every week with Charlene Tilton (Lucy Ewing of "Dallas" fame) and Bob Rusch, SkyPilot's artistic director, and it helped me grow enormously as an actress. I also did one scene study workshop per month with a major casting director, to try to get better known among those who can hire me on prime time network shows. And toward the end of the year, I got signed by a new agency (for me) for commercial, theatrical, and voiceover representation. So far, the Polygon Group has sent me on more auditions in two months than my last agency did in two years, and I booked the very first one they sent me on. So maybe work will pick up in the new year; I have two auditions this coming week.

In 2012 I am focusing on getting my first part on a prime-time network show. I have been acting for ten years now, and that hasn't happened yet. I once said that if I hadn't "made it" as an actress in ten years, I would give it up. But the problem is, how do you define "making it?" If it's by money made, as my soon-to-be ex-husband tells me, then I have certainly failed, because I have yet to make a profit as an actress. But I know many people who consider themselves successful actors who can't pay the bills with their acting income. I would like to be able to do a paid acting job of some sort every week, even if it only paid me gas money; that would be a start toward profitability. But I'm not giving up now. I haven't even been in SAG for a full year yet. Maybe in nine more years...we'll see.

Here's to a successful, and profitable, 2012!

Spring Awakening

When I started this blog on January 1 of this year, it was not my intention to post once every three months. I had very lofty goals of publishing at least weekly. I was sure my life would be so full that there would be plenty to write about. And I was right, there was. There was so much going on that I was completely exhausted every day, and the weeks kept slipping away from me without an update. And now suddenly, almost a quarter of the year is gone.

Yesterday was the vernal equinox, the first day of spring, traditionally representing new growth and new beginnings. In ancient times the rite of spring would be celebrated with sacrifices (sometimes human) to ask for an abundant crop. In the spirit of those ancient rites, I'd like to celebrate the good things that have come my way since I last wrote, and to commit to the universe the hopes I have for the future.

My year got off to an excellent start. I met with the delightful Jessica Russell, head of BluBay Talent Management, on January 5th, and signed with her company for across-the-board management three days later. Although our relationship has yet to yield any work for me, she understands the strategic direction I want to move in. That is, toward network TV instead of re-enactment roles on cable (not that there is anything wrong with those roles, but they only pay $100 per day, and in the long run I want to be making more money than that. A lot more). I was also asked to join the Sky Pilot Theatre Company, a relatively small group that focuses exclusively on new plays. There, I was cast almost immediately in two of ten one-act plays called "REWIND: Netflix Killed the Video Store," my first attempt at late-night sketch comedy, and got rave reviews. I also landed a lead on "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant," and learned that the newborns used in filming are covered with a mixture of cream cheese and strawberry jam to look, well, newborn. Yuck. And now that I was SAG-eligible, I got five vouchers in two months by doing background work, and had to become a member of the Screen Actors Guild. Not that I minded - this had been my goal for years, and was a must if I want to get network roles.

So now that I am SAG/AFTRA, with nine years of acting experience and some significant credits behind me, I find that it's almost like starting all over again. So much of the work these days available to actors without an agent (I still don't have one, but I'm looking, just slowly) is non-union, which mean unless it is live or theatre, I can't do it. The SAG/AFTRA work that is posted on the Internet is mostly background work and student films (although at the best universities - Chapman, Loyola Marymount, UCLA, and USC). I don't mind doing these, and in fact have booked four jobs since joining SAG four weeks ago. But the number of jobs available for me to submit to has dropped dramatically. I used to have about 20 per day; now I'm lucky to get eight. Where I used to audition about ten times in a week, now I'm lucky if it is four. But thank goodness, with my theatre company I am working every week. I'm currently in rehearsals for an original play called "The Crossings," not associated with Sky Pilot; I play an English woman and get to send the lovely Irish air, "Gartan Mother's Lullaby."

I think being in a theatre company is one of the best things about actually living in LA. My company has an actors' workout every week where we can come and do cold readings or work on scenes and monologues. We will be starting an improv group as well which I hope to be accepted for. We do play readings about once a month; so far I've done one, all monologues for women, playing a Jewish grandmother whose husband has just left her for a younger woman, and it was a blast. Most of our works are comedies and they are a delight to do. In "Rewind," I even got to play the "femme fatale" in a film noir parody and make out with a hot young man who is about half my age. Nice work if you can get it.

Which brings me around to the age issue. I thought that I would find being an older actress very tough, but to tell you the truth I think I might even have it a little easier than the younger girls. I don't have the huge pressure to be skinny or even pretty - I can always be a "character" actor (those are the people who aren't the beautiful leading ladies). I've been lucky enough to play quite a few leads too, though, and I think one reason is because there just aren't as many actresses my age. The competition is much less intense than it is among the 20-something actresses. On the other hand, there are less roles, but there is a wide range that I can play. In addition to the obvious ones (mom, teacher, nurse, business woman), I have played prostitutes (three times), murderers (three times), aging hippies (twice), gypsies (twice), and of course, zombies (twice). In my next film, I'll be playing the sheriff of a border town in New Mexico caught up in the wars with the Mexican drug cartels. God, I love my job!

For me I guess the oddest thing about being an older actor is that quite frequently I am the oldest person in the cast. It's quite an adjustment from my business days, when I was used to being the youngest ever, the first ever, the only woman to....And I was also used to being the hot young thing that got hit on a lot. I still get hit on occasionally (I'm not THAT old), but now someone else is the hot young thing. And although I kind of miss the attention, I find that it's kind of a relief too. It's like I can...exhale, to borrow from Terry McMillan. Also, I find that I am enjoying being sort of a surrogate mom or big sister to the younger cast members. Since I don't have children of my own, it's a great outlet for my maternal instincts. So right now, I feel like being older is a good thing. I may feel differently by the next time I write.

So what do I hope for, as I stand on the cusp of springtime? Well, I hope I am ready to blossom like the trees and flowers already arehere in LA. I'm hoping to start getting at least auditions for guest parts on network TV series. And by network, I'm referring to the Big Four - ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC. Everything else is considered cable. The type of parts I could expect to get would be "under-five" (as in less than five lines), featured, co-star and guest star, with each one being a little larger. Most guest star parts for women my age go to "name" (well-known) actresses these days, often former TV stars who will work for amazingly low wages. It's hard to quit when you've been acting all your life. My ultimate goal would be to have a recurring role on a network comedy or drama along the lines of "Castle," a police procedural with a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor. Universe, are you listening? In the meantime, I continue to pursue every role that is available to and suited for me, and work as much as I can. As long as I am having fun, and as long as my health holds up, I'm not giving up.

Moving on - I'm at the age where most women in Hollywood start having what is euphemistically known as "work done," i.e. plastic surgery, botox, liposuction, etc. I'm considering some of these options now and will try to write about that next time. Unless something more interesting happens between now and then. And if it does, it may take me a while to get around to writing about it. But that's a good thing.

Til next time - Jennie

Acting as a Calling

I am in the awkward position of being a working, over-40 actress in Hollywood. WAY over 40, although not too many people in the business know just how old I really am. And I'm not a child actor who grew up working, or an ingenue who has "aged out." No, I put myself in this position. I used to be a big-shot executive in the telecom industry, back when companies like Nortel Networks (where I worked for ten years, now bankrupt) and AT&T (where I began my career, now swallowed up by one of its "Baby Bells") were places you could expect to work for 30 years and then retire with a comfortable pension. But then AT&T was broken up in 1982, and then the dot.com meltdown - well, the first one, anyway - came in 2002. In between I had a career-ending accident, severely injuring my back and forcing me to retire in 2000. And that is where my acting story really begins.

I have always been a performer. I don't really remember learning to sing; it was like learning to talk, I've just always done it. I do remember my father teaching me to sing his favorite song, "Summertime," when I was about three, and about the same time insisting to my Sunday School teacher that I DID know all the words to "Here Comes Peter Cottontail" and proved it by singing it, unprompted, in front of the whole class. My mother always called me her "little ham." I knew I loved to sing, and when I started tap and ballet lessons at six, I also learned to love dance. But it was when I saw my first musical, "Oklahoma," at a local high school, when I was around nine, that I turned to my mother and said, "That's what I want to do when I grow up." She laughed, and the idea was never discussed again. But I just didn't know that I could have actually pursued acting as a career. Because I was a very good student, kind of shy, and very serious, my parents just assumed that I would go to college, study business, and as my daddy always said, "grow up to be a Vice-President at AT&T." Well, I did go to college on a full scholarship and later got an MBA at Vanderbilt (the Harvard of the South), and did go to work for AT&T, only to have the government break up the company six months later. My timing in business was always bad. With just a little encouragement towards a career in the arts, my whole story might have turned out differently.

However, I did have a very successful career working in corporate America, but I was never happy. I had started singing in bands at 20 while I was still in college, and I was always torn between music and business. My heart was in my music but my money was in my job, and I could never figure out how to break away from the golden handcuffs that bound me so tightly to my work. So I kept marrying musicians and settling for watching them live their dreams, until finally I met a man who had both a computer science and a music degree, and we began to figure out a way to integrate both sides of my life. It was going pretty well, too - I was a wedding singer in New Jersey, living on the ocean and telecommuting - until we moved to Silicon Valley and got married. The work ethic there is killer - 70 to 80 hour weeks were the norm. I started having serious health problems as a result of my job stress, and although I changed companies, the stress never really lessened. I believe my fall was the universe's way of saying to me: "Enough!" I have never been able to return to a desk job, or a standing job, due to the pain involved to my back, neck, and shoulders, and various other symptoms. I went on disability in September of 2000, so although my income was drastically reduced I did still have some money coming in.

However, although I couldn't work a full-time job, I still had my brain, and I was criminally bored and lonely. I drove my friends nuts sending them jokes on e-mail, and detailed descriptions of my symptoms and various procedures I'd had to undergo. I tried to do other things: I was a successful mystery shopper for several years, but the money was terrible and it's pretty hard work for not much reward (although I did get two trips to South America to rate hotels out of it). I put together a jazz band and sang a few jobs with them, but I couldn't stand up for long and after a while it was clear that I lacked the back strength you need to be a strong singer. Then a friend suggested I look into musical theatre, as I lived close to a small community theatre that put on several musicals each year. I signed up for a class called "Acting for Singers," and my teacher insisted that I should audition for an upcoming show, even though I felt I was "too old." The show was "Little Shop of Horrors," and I got a part in the ensemble, as a hooker (the oldest stereotype in the acting book). And, pardon the pun, I was hooked.

I loved doing the show, which ran in September of 2001, right after 9/11; it seemed like we were doing something heroic by singing our hearts out to lift people's spirits. And then the director of the theatre's next show, the non-musical comedy "Lettice and Lovage," asked me to appear in her play without an audition! It was only my second show, and I began to feel like I must be called to do this. I have always prayed since then for the jobs to stop coming if this is not the right path for me, and although they haven't always been paying work, I've always worked steadily ever since I started acting back in 2001, and I still believe that acting is my true calling.

About the time I started acting, I guess it began to sink in to my husband that I was not going to return to my high-status, high-paying job. Ever. And that was not the deal he thought he got when we married in April of 1998. He began to be resentful of the time and money I spent on acting, especially when the only way I showed a profit was by doing products demonstrations at WalMart that absolutely killed my back. We might have been okay, though, if two things hadn't happened to convince me that I needed to go to LA to act: In October of 2002, when I was a contestant on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" (I won $64,0000), Meredith Vierra said, "You have a really good look on film. You should try film acting." And early in 2003, when I started auditioning for student films at one of the local colleges in San Francisco, the head of the program came over to me after my first read and said, "You are absolutely a natural actress, and you have got to go to LA." Unasked, he gave me a template for an LA resume and told me to call him if I ever wanted coaching. I was amazed, and I began to feel strongly that I would forever regret it if I did not give acting in LA a shot.

So in January of 2005 I rented a small apartment in central LA for three months, intending just to see if I could get work, and to get LA "out of my system." Once again, I was surprised at the ease with which I was hired, from my very first day at a casting agency. And the other thing that I didn't count on was that I would fall in love with LA. The longer I lived there, the more I came to know and love its many quirky neighborhoods and shops, and to meet people from all over the world, including many Southerners like me (I grew up in Huntsville, Alabama). I was also happily surprised that there were many other disabled actors who mostly did extra work just for fun, as well as many over-40 actresses who had decided, like me, to give their childhood dreams "one last shot." And when the three months was up, I came home to San Francisco, but I left my heart in LA. Over the next five years, this would drive a huge wedge between my husband and me, both philosophically and financially. Ultimately, I realized that my health, both mentally and physically, was much better in LA due to its dry climate, and I asked him if he would move there with me. But as a computer scientist, his true home is in the Silicon Valley. His tribe is there; my tribe is here. We could find no way to resolve this dilemma, and sadly, separated in May of 2010 after a twelve-year marriage and a nearly 17-year relationship.

So I find myself here in LA, alone, old by Hollywood standards, yet still working steadily and happily. In 2010, I joined the Association of Film, TV & Radio Actors union, and became eligible (finally!) to join the prestigious Screen Actor's Guild (SAG) as of November 1. Also in 2010, I shot my first national commercial (for Wells Fargo; no residuals, though), joined a theatre company, played a lead in a primetime re-enactment series for Animal Planet, returned to musical theatre in "Willy Wonka," and did my first work in children's theatre as Tintag the Elf in Dancing Squirrel Productions' "The Adventures of Holly and Snowflake," which brings live theatre to at-risk and abused children around Los Angeles. I ended the year playing the rabbit in the wonderful children's story, "The Velveteen Rabbit," at the Children's Theatre of LA. I also have featured parts coming up in two feature films. I'm still praying, and the parts are still coming.

And I will keep doing this because I believe that the arts matter, and that acting is not a frivolous pursuit. I am fortunate to be able to do this because I have steady sources of income and don't need the money, but I would do it for free. Art is one of man's most primal and noble instincts, and it is as old as language. Man invented writing, and then began to write poetry and plays. We still perform the plays written by Euripides and others from ancient Greece. Art lasts. How many other human endeavors can we say that about? I feel privileged to be following in the footsteps of centuries of actors and performers who have done this before me, even, as I recently learned, my maternal great-great-grandfather, who was a famous concert violinist. I'm no longer apologetic about what I do. I am a proud actor.

What I will attempt to do in this blog is to write about the strangeness of being an older actor in Hollywood. I can't promise to write daily, or even weekly, but I'll write when I have something to say and I'll try not to bore you. Life here can be surreal, especially for a Southern girl like me, but it's not usually boring.