Still Growing: An Autobiography (5 page)

Mom called me into the bathroom last, after making my sisters look really girly. “Kirk,” she said as she brushed my hair and straightened my shirt and jeans, “I want you to be nice to your sisters. No pranks today, okay?” There was an edge to her voice that meant business.

I nodded.

I wanted to trip Bridgette as she ran down the hall, but I practiced restraint. I wanted to thump the girls on their heads as they got into the
VW, but I resisted the nagging urge. I wanted to poke Candace until she swatted me, but today I knew better.

As we drove down the freeway in our VW bus, I sat next to the window and stared out, trying to be a good kid. My parents stared straight ahead for a long time, not saying a word. I knew this must be serious business.

Mom read from a map and pointed at street signs while Dad drove on winding roads to an exclusive neighborhood in Hollywood Hills. She tapped the window. “There it is, Robert.”

Dad gave a low whistle and pulled into the driveway of a house. “Bet this gal doesn’t re-use dryer sheets,” he quipped.

I don’t remember much except it was a
big
house. I guess I was expecting to go to an office building somewhere, but this woman’s office was in that big house.

Mom seemed very nervous. “Be on your best behavior,” she said, popping open her door.

Dad turned around and said in his stern voice, “You know how to behave. If you’re good, we’ll stop by McDonald’s for an ice cream on the way home.” Dad might be strict. But one thing was for sure: Whatever he said, he meant. We four kids looked at each other, making it clear with arched eyebrows and glares that no one was to mess up our chance for ice cream.

Silent as church mice, we exited in single file, trudged up the driveway and followed the sidewalk to the back of the house. A woman and her daughter emerged through a pair of French doors. She gave a smile that seemed forced and Mom motioned for us to go inside.

Inside, the office was even more intimidating. Black-and-white glossies of famous child stars filled the walls. Bridgette saw Adam’s picture, elbowed me and pointed. I nodded, scanning the other photos.

In the back of the room behind a cloud of smoke sat an old Jewish woman, beckoning with what must have been a long, bony finger, her raspy voice saying, “Come in, come in.” She looked like Larry King in drag, speaking in a smoke-scarred voice, “How are ya?” She motioned toward a sofa and some chairs. “Have a seat.”

We obeyed in unison.

Mom could barely speak, so Dad tried to get a little bit of conversation going. We were all terrified of this gruff, powerful woman. She was the most prestigious agent in town. The best. And though at nine I wasn’t sure what an “agent” was, I knew she must be extremely important to make even my parents nervous. Besides, I was afraid of anyone I didn’t know, let alone someone hiding behind a shroud of smoke. My imagination began to get the best of me.

It was like we were in the presence of the Wizard. Instead of “I am the Great and Terrible Oz,” she was the Great and Terrible Agent.

“You,” she said, pointing at me with a demanding finger. “Stand.”

Being on my best behavior meant I obeyed authority—immediately. I popped off that sofa without a split second of hesitation.

She got up from behind her desk and moved to the side, cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. My heart bumped around in my chest. She walked around, eyeballing me up and down. She peered at my hair and grunted, “You wanna be an actor?”

I watched her cigarette bounce up and down as she spoke. I tried not to think about how Dad and Mom always told us that smoking would kill us.
Focus, Kirk, focus
.

I nodded my answer. I must have. I wouldn’t dare move an inch unless she told me to do so.

Iris took a long drag and studied me a bit more. “Well, say this for me: ‘Hey, Mom, I wanna go to McDonalds.’ ”

I repeated her words in an unemotional, parroting way, “Hey, Mom, I wanna go to McDonalds.”

“No, no, no! You have to say it like you really wanna go to McDonalds. Say it with energy.”

“Hey, Mom! I wanna go to McDonalds!” I said with enthusiasm.

“Now try, ‘Hey, Tony, those Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes taste gggrreeeaaatt!’ ”

In my very best monotone I said, “Hey, Tony, those Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes taste good.”

“No, no. They taste grrreeaat!”

“They taste greeeaattt!” I added pizzazz and a smile and hoped that was okay.

“Look at those Hot Wheels go!” she said.

This time I knew I was supposed to be excited, so I pretended I was saying it to Uncle Frankie.

“All right. Sit. You,” she motioned to Bridgette. “Stand.”

The Great and Terrible Agent went down the line asking us all the same questions, looking at all of us the same way—like the type of jungle cat that eats her young. When she finished her perfunctory interviews, she looked at Mom and Dad, pointed to us and said, “I’ll give him a try for a year.” She skipped Bridgette and pointed to Melissa, “I’ll take her. Bring the little one back in a year; she’s too young.”

“What about Bridgette?” Mom asked, surprised.

“Nope,” Iris said in her blunt way.

“Why?”

Iris didn’t answer Mom. We had all thought she would take Bridgette, the one always performing at home, singing and dancing like a woodland creature in her own private Disney flick. Every photo we had of Bridgette featured the biggest smile—one that made her nose and eyes disappear into her cheeks.

“I’ll need headshots,” she barked, as though we knew what she meant. “Black-and-white glossies.”

“Can I take them?” Mom asked.

Iris exhaled. “Sure.”

Inside the car, Bridgette leaned between the seats and asked Mom, “Why didn’t she want me? Why didn’t she pick me?”

I played with the seatbelt as Mom tried to answer a question she didn’t have the answer to. I secretly wished that Iris lady
had
picked Bridgette instead of me. Life would have been simpler for me. But how could I tell my mom? She looked so excited.

But these fears were eclipsed once we pulled into the drive-thru. Everything changes under the glow of the golden arches.

It wasn’t too many days later when Mom got her first call from Iris Burton telling her the location of my first audition. “Kirk!” she said
the moment I dropped my book bag on the floor. “You’re going on your first acting try-out!” (She hadn’t yet learned the lingo.)

I had no idea what that meant, but I was quickly carted off to Adam Rich’s hair stylist upon the insistence of Fran. It seemed exciting, driving to the studio the first time. Would we get lost? Would we make it on time? Would the studio lot be cool? I was living in my own reality show montage—I just needed a rap song to underscore the drama.

We made it on time, and it
was
fascinating—but not in the way we expected. The building looked a lot like any old office building. We walked down a long hallway that looked pretty much like any hallway—scuffed walls, bad neon lighting, chipped ceiling tiles. Whether Mom chatted the whole way or was quiet, I don’t remember. I’m sure I didn’t say anything.

“Here it is,” she said, a little breathless. She turned the knob and opened the door.

Fran had told her what to expect, so she headed toward a counter that had a sign-in sheet and a stack of photocopied scripts (called “sides”). I followed her, feeling every eye on me. I didn’t like that. I didn’t want people looking at me, but they quickly turned back to their conversations.

The weird thing is that all the kids looked just like me: curly-haired Caucasians in dork-tastic clothes. I don’t know if Mom noticed. She was busy filling out the sign-in sheet.

We didn’t have headshots yet, so Mom handed the lady a Polaroid she’d taken of me in front of the house. She had written “Kirk Cameron, Age 10, Iris Burton Agency” on it and stapled it to my résumé—which probably should just have listed
playing
,
eating
and
torturing
as the skills I’d mastered thus far.

Mom took a copy of the sides and said, “Look, hon . . . this is for a chili commercial.” She scanned the room and led me to a couple of vacant chairs. “Let’s practice!” she said at a volume I’m sure everyone heard.

“This chili is better than my mom makes!” Mom said, cheesily.

I looked at her like she was nuts, because she was—especially if she thought I would say the line like that. “This chili is better than my mom makes,” I repeated.

“No, Kirk, be happier.”

She said the line again. I noticed other moms doing the same thing, until the door opened and a new mother-son combination walked in. It didn’t take long to see the games the other mothers played. It was a catty battle of “My kid is better than yours.” Even at nine, it was incredibly obvious.

Over the next 40 minutes, I watched the door open at least six times. All the moms did the same thing: When they signed their kid in, they paused at the sign-in sheet to scan the names above theirs. I later discovered they were trying to see which kid had which agent. Everyone knew the top agencies. And if Iris Burton represented a kid, everyone knew the competition.

If a recognizable kid walked in, you could almost hear the groans: “Oh, great. River Phoenix is here.” We quickly learned it didn’t take long to predict who would get the jobs.

When the mothers talked to each other, they spoke ridiculously loud so that the rest of the room could hear. “Oh, yes,” one would say in faux-humility, “
My
son just got off the set of a Richard
Donner
film. He only had three lines, but we’re hearing a lot of early buzz.”

“Well, it’s not hard to see why,” the other would reply, not meaning a word of it.

“I’m sure it’s just a matter of time for your little guy,” the first would say with utmost insincerity.

Some moms used the phone on the counter to call their child’s agent, speaking loudly if there was good news. “Oh, he needs to be at
Disney
tomorrow at one? Of course, we can be there. With bells on. . . . Oh, in overalls? No, ‘bells on’ is just an expression. Of course he can wear overalls. It’s a movie about a dairy farm.” Mom looked at me and rolled her eyes. I smiled back.

These kinds of incidents gave us an understanding of what was meant by the term “stage mother.” A stage mom was generally someone from the Valley who tried to look like she was from Beverly Hills, living her dreams vicariously through her offspring. They were always made up, artificial, loud and pretentious.

A few auditions in, Mom and I learned to find a private corner or hallway to practice. She loved to coach me on my delivery, but I didn’t
like her giving me suggestions. I started to think about the words on the page and what the commercial was trying to sell. I learned to go to a quiet, internal place where I could hear my own voice saying it. I tried to give the casting directors what they wanted to hear, what sounded best. Watching TV in the evenings became my research.

If the line was, “Make your reservations today,” I would try different inflections.

“
Make
your reservations today.”

“Make
your
reservations today.”

“Make your
reservations
today.”

“Make your reservations
today
.”

Usually I felt the right way to say the line in my gut. The only time I performed it out loud was when the camera rolled. I don’t know if that reluctance was a self-conscious thing or a deliberate attempt to keep the line from getting stale by saying it too much.

The casting director always said something like, “Thanks, that was really good,” but I was very hard on myself.
That was awful, I’m really terrible at this
, I regularly thought to myself.

Some kids spend years going to auditions and don’t land more than a commercial or two, so it was surprising that my sixth audition was my launching pad.

Moms were not allowed behind the audition door, but they often leaned next to it to eavesdrop. If the kid inside was known for booking a lot of commercials, many of the other stage moms leaned toward the door, looking as though a stiff wind had blown through the room.

For commercial auditions, I stood directly over a piece of tape on the floor, looking at the camera. At “Go,” I said, “Hi, my name is Kirk Cameron. I am 10 years old and I’m with the Iris Burton Agency.” I tried to sound bright and full of life, but not fake or over the top—just to let them see the happier side of my personality.

The casting director’s job is to get kids on tape to send to the producer or director. Often, that was the only person I could distinguish
in the darkened corner, though I could see several others. Their silhouettes were imposing.

“Okay, Kirk. We’d like you to add just a hint of sadness to your voice,” the casting director said. “Pretend your dog died.”

“Say it with a British accent this time.”

“Now say the line like a young Brazilian street boy trying to sell enough cashews to pay for his own education.”