Lucky Stars (4 page)

“We’re gonna have to wait this out a while, let the dust settle,” advised Mickey Offerman, who’d been my agent through thick and thin. (Well, through thin and less thin.) Despite an inauspicious first meeting during which Mickey had said, “If you get your hair bleached, your teeth capped, and your tits inflated, I’ll sign you” and I had said, “I’m an actress, not a beauty pageant contestant, and if you’re not interested in representing me I’ll find someone who is,” our partnership had gone very well up to that point. But Jack Rawlins had handcuffed Mickey. “We could go back to sending you out for commercials,” he offered. “So you can keep the money flowing in.”

Back to commercials. Swell.

When I discussed this with Maura, she came through yet again with a glass that was half-full instead of half-empty.

“Look on the bright side,” she said in her customarily upbeat tone. “Before Jack Rawlins, you were hating your mother. She probably looks good to you now, compared to him, right?”

f
our

I
was determined to claw my way back into the movies. I was determined to show everyone I was not Sledgehammer Stacey.
I
was determined to prove that Jack Rawlins’s negative assessment of me was merely an example of his snotty, mean-spirited personality, with no basis in reality whatsoever, and that I was, in fact, an actress with range and nuance and, damn it, subtlety.

But just in case he was a teensy-weensy bit accurate in that I did have a slight tendency to go for too much in front of the camera
(The New York Times had
called me “grating”), I decided to take a few brush-up acting classes. Why not, I figured, given that I had time on my hands while I waited for Mickey to send me out on auditions. It wouldn’t hurt to perfect my craft, would it?

I enrolled in a class given by a rather well-known
teacher named Gerald Clarke. I’d heard about him for years, heard how actors swore by his supposedly radical approach to teaching.

Well, I found out just
how
radical on my very first night in his Santa Monica studio.

“Let me begin by stating right at the top that this class is not going to be about nurturing you or making you feel safe or reassuring you that you have talent,” Gerald said to the twenty of us who had gathered precisely to be nurtured and made to feel safe and reassured that we had talent. He was standing up on a small stage and he was wearing a pair of jeans and a black turtleneck. He was in his early fifties, I guessed, with a receding hairline, a protruding gut, and a complexion that bespoke teenage acne. “This is a class for actors who want to be better actors, actors who understand that in order to be better actors they must be stripped down, forced to confront their vulnerabilities, forced to confront the personal conflicts in their lives that prevent them from losing themselves in a character. In this class you’ll learn that you don’t
play
a character, you
become
the character, which necessitates—no,
demands
—that you be stripped down to nothing.
Nothing!
Does everyone
hear
me?”

“Is this guy a drill sergeant or an acting teacher?” I whispered to the woman next to me, who, I realized with some dismay, was the vixen I’d been running into at auditions, the one who annoyed everyone with her bullshit gamesmanship and gigantic hooters. We had to stop meeting like this.

“He just wants us to get in touch with our issues,” she whispered back. “If you don’t think you can handle it, honey, maybe you should sneak out the side door.”

“I can handle it fine,” I said. “If anyone should sneak out—”

“You. The one who refuses to keep her mouth shut while I’m talking.” It was Gerald Clarke and he was pointing at me, shooting daggers at me, making me the focus of every eye in the room. “Step on up here and let’s see what you’ve got.”

“Me?” Nothing came out but a croak. “You want me?” I tried again.

“Why not?” he said. “Since you seem to be the chatty type, let’s have you chat us all up. What’s your name?” Sledgehammer Stacey. “Stacey Reiser,” I said with false bravado.

“All right, Stacey Reiser,” he said, “let’s have you come up here and blow us away. I’d like you to do an improv of approximately three minutes. Here’s the premise: You’re a customer in a department store, browsing at the perfume counter, and an attractive man sidles up to you, asking for your help. He claims he’s there to buy some perfume for his wife, but the more he talks the more it’s clear that he’s there to score with you. Go.” Go. Yeah. Well, it wasn’t as if I hadn’t done improvs before. They were a staple of acting classes. I just hadn’t done one after being decimated by Jack Rawlins, so my confidence level wasn’t particularly high.

I inhaled, exhaled, took a moment to collect myself, then arranged my body as if I were standing beside a department store perfume counter.

“Oh,” I said, spinning around to indicate that I’d just been tapped on the shoulder by the phantom man. “So it’s your wife’s birthday? Well, I’m not sure I’m the one to ask about the right fragrance. I’ve just been standing here trying different ones, spraying on a little of this, a little of that, to see what smells good on me. No, I guess I don’t mind.” I held up my wrist so he could sniff it. “You think your wife will like—”

“Stop stop stop,” barked Gerald, waving his arms in the air. “I can’t listen
to another word of that crap.”

I
froze, my arms at my sides.

“You’re much too frightened to connect with the primitive sexuality needed here,” he went on. ‘Too inhibited. Have you ever actually had a man come on to you, Susan?”

“It’s Stacey,” I said, trying not to dissolve into tears and/or vomit “And the answer’s yes.” Just not in a long ti
me, unless you counted Ethan, th
e hairdresser, and we had come on to each other.

“I don’t believe you. You move as if you’ve been in a nunnery all your life.”

“But that’s not true. I studied movement when I was—”

“Excuse me. Are you the acting coach or am I?”

“You are, but I don’t understand why you’re—”

“Why I’m what? Trying to put you in touch with your issues? Trying to strip you down to your basic shell? Trying to undo all the bad habits you’ve picked up during your stab at acting?”

My
stab
at acting. I’d done more than stab at it. I’d thrown myself at it. And my efforts had paid off. I’d gotten a part in a feature film, and if it weren’t for Jack Rawlins I’d be getting parts in other feature films.

“Here’s my guess, Sally,” said Gerald.

“It’s Stacey,” I said.

“Someone down the line told you not to overact, so you’ve pulled inward, crawled inside yourself. Am I right?”

Yikes. Had he seen Rawlins’s review, too? “I suppose that could have happened,” I acknowledged. “Down the line, I mean.”

“Okay. So here’s your way out of the problem.
You’re going to put yourself in contact with your body.”

“Oh, you mean I should stand differently when I talk to the man at the perfume counter?”

“No. I mean you should start moving your hips in a circle.”

“Move my hips?”

“Yeah, and lead with your pelvis. Now! Do it!”

I took a huge gulp of air and, in front of a roomful of strangers, I began rotating my hips in a circle. I felt like a kid playing with a Hula-Hoop.

“Now touch your breasts and your ass,” he commanded. “Really connect with your sexuality.”

Touch my breasts and my ass? How about connecting with
this,
I wanted to tell the twisted jerk. I decided then and there that I was not interested in starring in Gerald Clarke’s peep show. Maybe I
was
uptight. Maybe I
was
self-conscious. Maybe I
was
out of touch with my sexuality, but I had my standards of conduct and they didn’t include prostituting myself for my art
.

While I stood there not touching myself, Gerald looked at the group and said with an exasperated sigh, “Obviously, Samantha doesn’t want to work on her is
sues. Anyone else want to try th
e exercise? Volunteers, please?”

Naturally, the vixen raised her hand.

“Ah, good,” said Gerald. “Your name?”

“Brittany Madison,” she said as she sashayed onto the stage, planting herself next to me. She was a very big girl. It was like standing next to Mt. Rushmore.

“Okay, Brittany. Now why don’t you show us how it looks to connect with your sexuality. Rotate your hips in a circle, leading with the pelvis.”

Brittany complied willingly.

“Now touch your breasts and your buttocks and let
all your inhibitions go. Do what feels good to you, what feels fun to you.”

I continued to stand there, dripping with flop sweat. It was a toss-up which made me more uncomfortable: failing Gerald’s test or having to witness someone else pass it.

“This is wonderful,” cooed Brittany, who was now sliding her hands down her body, swaying from side to side, licking her lips.

“You see this, class?” Gerald exclaimed. “Brittany is connecting with her sexuality, getting in touch with it, breaking down the destructive barriers in her psyche. Brittany, ladies and gentlemen, is what
I
call an actor.” Brittany, ladies and gentlemen, was what
I
called a
n
exhibitionist.

I
quit Gerald Clarke’s class—he wouldn’t refund my money, the bastard—and told myself to go back to my roots, stick with what I knew, rely on the skills that had served me well in the past, before Jack Rawlins (or, as I had come to refer to it in this dismal period, “pre-JR”).

I also told myself that I didn’t mind dropping down a rung on the acting ladder by auditioning for commercials again. As Mickey said, I’d be keeping the cash flowing in while we waited for the movie and television people to come to their senses. Commercials were a sure thing, we agreed—a needed boost to my fragile ego.

The first commercial I went out for was a national spot for Tide. I was supposed to play a young mom who does the laundry, dresses her kids for school, hands her husband his neatly folded shirts, and then says, with a big smile, “We’re a Tide family. Shouldn’t yours be, too?” It was dopey in that way that a lot of commercials for household products are dopey (why would a young
mom be excited about her stupid laundry detergent?), but I was just the hired help, so it wasn’t my place to judge. The main thing was that I was a shoo-in for the job. The entire creative team led me to believe I was. But when they showed my tape to the client, he nixed me for the part. Turns out I reminded him of his dreaded ex-wife. No Tide commercial.

The second commercial I went out for was another national spot, this one for Midol. I was supposed to play a hip young woman who’s sitting in a restaurant with her friends, doubled over because she’s been stricken with horrendous menstrual cramps. As the camera comes in for a close-up of her face, she winces in pain, turns to one of the friends, and says, “If only I’d brought my Midol.” As I’m pretty good at wincing in pain, I got the job. Unfortunately, on the day of the shoot I was in a nasty fender bender en route to the studio and ended up wincing in pain for real. Not only did I arrive at the shoot over two hours late, but I arrived with a neck that was so whiplashed I couldn’t make it turn the way it was supposed to. What’s more, the two Percocet I popped wreaked havoc with my speech and instead of saying, “If only I’d brought my Midol,” I said what sounded like, “If only I’d brought
my doll.”
Yup, I lost the job. And to add insult to my pathetic injury, the person they replaced me with was none other than Brittany Madison.

The third commercial I went out for was a national spot for Tic Tacs. I really wanted this one, because it was a cute spot, a funny spot, a spot that would showcase my comedic flair. I was up for the part of a bride who’s standing at the altar during her wedding, about to be kissed by the groom in front of a church full of family and friends, when she stops, stares into the camera, and
says, panicked, “Does
anybody
have a Tic Tac?” The minister reaches into his robe, pulls out his Tic Tacs, and hands her one. She swallows it, smiles gratefully. The minister says to the groom, “You may now kiss the bride,” at which
p
oint the bride and groom suck face.

The ad agency had already cast the actor who was playing the groom, so they brought all the actresses in to read with him—and to kiss him—to determine which couple had chemistry. He was a great-looking guy—sort of a young Mel Gibson—and I had no trouble getting in touch with my sexuality where he was concerned. Consequently, I won the job. The Saturday before the shoot, I went to the beach with Maura to celebrate. It was a relaxing day, during which we read, talked, napped, people watched. Big mistake. Two mornings later I woke up with a huge and thoroughly unsightly cold sore on my upper lip. Was I pissed! I had applied and reapplied the sunscreen. I had worn a hat with a wide brim. I had done everything I was supposed to do in order to
not
get a cold sore and, yet, there it was—a blister the size of a nickel and still growing. Maura did her best to camouflage it with makeup on the day of the shoot, but it was pretty damn ugly. Still, I wanted the job so much that I showed up and tried to pretend it wasn’t there. I ducked into wardrobe, donned my bridal gown, and kept my hand over my mouth until the cameras rolled. No one mentioned the Thing—not until the groom stepped closer in anticipation of our kiss and took a good look at me. Mel Gibson Junior
lowered his head and was about t
o pucker up when he recoiled in horror and announced, “There’s no way I’m kissing
that.
”
So much for the Tic Tacs commercial.

“Maybe I should write Jack Rawlins one of my complaint letters,” said my mother, after I arrived home from
yet another tough day and moaned that he was responsible for my career woes. She had used her key and let herself into my apartment and was busily alphabetizing the cookbooks in my kitchen. “Or maybe I should give you a nice haircut, dear. Those split ends aren’t very flattering.”