When Osborne began his own movie company, Underground Films, Trevor became his assistant, taking over the company several years later. Beneath the banter and the wisecracks, Trevor was a driven soul, a young man out to make his mark in an uncompromising industry. When Meghan first met him on that night out in West Hollywood, she liked what she saw and was attracted to his passion, drive, and ambition. He was a guy with an aphorism for every occasion. “Hope is the greatest currency we have in this business,” he told the wide-eyed wannabe. True or not, it’s a great pick-up line.
His favorite saying belonged to producer Neal Moritz, the man behind The Fast and the Furious franchise: “Don’t give it five minutes if you’re not gonna give it five years.” Trevor said it so often that, in time, Meghan began to use it herself, presenting the phrase as though it had sprung fully formed from her head. Her version is more refined: “Don’t give it five minutes unless you can give it five years.” But Trevor had aphorisms—and chutzpah—to spare. As he once told a former USC buddy: “I’m a gigantic believer that all this shit can come to an end any minute now, and you’ve gotta take advantage of [it]. I’m Jewish and all that, but I think you got one shot at this life, so if you have a chance to have some fun and you’re not hurting anybody else and you can still take care of everything else to be taken care of and—I always find a way to have a lot of fun. That’s never an issue.”
He was the quintessential example of a young man who burned the candle at both ends, playing and working hard. Cuba, Palm Springs, New York: the world was his oyster—at least until he reached his credit card limit. As he said: “If I’m on a plane going somewhere, when I land I’m working, on the plane I’m working, when I’m drinking I’m working. But I’m always having a lot more fun than most other people I know.” A driven producer and an ambitious actor—it was a classic Hollywood combination.
When Trevor’s movie Zoom began production in early 2005, Meghan had recently snagged a brief appearance on the sitcom Cuts. It was one line, one measly line, but Meghan felt that she was on her way to the stars. Later on an anonymous blog, Working Actress, she described that feeling: “At the start of my career, I remember freaking out, and celebrating over getting one line on a shitty UPN show. At the time, that was a big success. It was phone calls of congrats, and flowers, and celebratory dinners with wine glasses clinking. It was a landmark of more work to come, and a glimmer of hope that said ‘holy shit, you’re really doing this.’”
While she waited for her close-up she made ends meet as a hostess in a Beverly Hills restaurant, teaching gift wrapping at a local store, and using her other skill, her impeccable handwriting, to earn decent money as a calligraphist. She had learned the skill back at Immaculate Heart, and as she later commented: “I’ve always had a propensity for getting the cursive down pretty well.” At that time her claim to fame was writing the envelopes for the June 2005 wedding of singer Robin Thicke and actor Paula Patton.
The roles were coming, but not as quickly as she would have liked. In the summer of 2005 she was booked for a role on the show Love, Inc. and later in the year, around Thanksgiving, a TV movie called Deceit. That was followed by an appearance as an insurance salesperson on the short-lived sitcom The War at Home.
While Meghan was steadily but slowly chugging along, Trevor went from boom to bust. His movie Zoom, which was released in the summer of 2006, was an unmitigated disaster. The family action film, described as a “dull laugh-free affair,” received a 3 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie’s star, Tim Allen, even received a Razzie nomination for Worst Actor.
It was not much better for Meghan. So far, 2006 had been a bust both for film and TV roles, though the couple’s social life got a bit of a boost when in August they were invited to the Hamptons for the Coach Legacy Photo Exhibit. The event celebrating the American handbag manufacturer saw the couple sipping champagne and rubbing shoulders with wealthy socialites and the celebrity fringe—but it didn’t help them up the Hollywood ladder.
The daily rejections would have broken someone with less grit, but Meghan knew it was a numbers game. As girls dropped out and headed home, defeated, and the more she went out for parts, the greater her chance was of booking something. As her motto said, don’t give it five minutes unless you can give it five years. And her five years were not even close to being up.
Like other girls doing the rounds she had a gym bag containing the essential wardrobe for every possible part she may be called for: red for a feisty Latina, pastels for the girl next door, mustard yellow for African American. Short skirts, long skirts, blazer, bikini, and tops—everything she needed was in her trusty tote.
At the same time, as she acknowledged, being ethnically “ambiguous” allowed her to go for virtually any role. “Sadly, it didn’t matter,” she later wrote for Elle magazine. “I wasn’t black enough for the black roles and I wasn’t white enough for the white ones, leaving me somewhere in the middle as the ethnic chameleon who couldn’t book a job.”
She was sitting in her sweats, fabric tubes covering her forearms to keep skin oil off the envelopes she was hand addressing for a calligraphy client, when her agent called.
He had secured an audition for her. There was one hitch. She had to appear in what the producers coyly described as a “body-conscious outfit,” that is to say a bikini, swimsuit, short skirt, or shorts so that they could get an idea of what her body looked like. It was a cattle call for the position of briefcase girl on the popular TV game show Deal or No Deal, but with nothing else lined up, she agreed to go. After all, it was only a short drive from the West Hollywood home she now shared with Trevor to Culver City, where the auditions were taking place. As she picked out her shortest skirt she could have been excused for wondering: Is this why I earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations?
5
Short Skirts, High Heels
Tameka Jacobs considers herself lucky. Then again, luck is a relative term. It was lucky she had a healthy pair of lungs when her African American mother, a prostitute addicted to meth, left her alone in her crib for two days and nights straight while she plied her trade and then got high. It was only baby Tameka’s sustained screaming that alerted the neighbors to the fact that something was wrong. After the police were called little Tameka found herself in foster care, farmed out to a white woman named Mary Brown as a temporary foster parent. Ms. Brown wasn’t considered suitable, and there followed a tug of war between the foster mother and social services, who wanted Tameka placed with a black family. The city won, and Tameka was raised in relative prosperity in a leafy California suburb where she learned tap, ballet, and jazz. If she had stayed with her white foster mother, Tameka is certain that she would have ended up going nowhere. Once again Lady Luck took a shine to Tameka.
Like so many teenagers, she arrived in Hollywood wide-eyed and eager to make her mark as a model or an actor. Previously she had worked for a radio station in San Francisco before trying her luck in the City of Angels. At 5 foot 10 she was a head above the competition, and striking, too. She wrote the book on multiethnicity, with creole, Norwegian, African American, French, and Spanish in her genes. And that’s just what she knows about. She was a standout, literally, at auditions, and it was not long before she was able to leave her seedy basement apartment in gang-scarred Echo Park, which was not the hipster heaven it is today.
First, she did some modeling before auditioning for a new entertainment show, Deal or No Deal, hosted by Howie Mandel. The show, based on the Dutch original and replicated across the world, was predicated on the tension between greed and prudence, a sure-fire ratings winner. Contestants chose from twenty-six briefcases that contained a cash value ranging from one cent to $1 million. During the game the contestant eliminates various briefcases in the hope of being left with the million-dollar case. Periodically the contestant is offered a deal by an unseen banker. The offer to quit the game and take modest winnings is matched by the possibility of going on and winning the big prize.
The audience is always eager to see them risk it all with the briefcases.
The briefcases themselves are held by twenty-six beautiful smiling girls arranged temptingly in front of the contestant. This is where Tameka came in. She was asked to be briefcase girl 21, a position she held from the day the show opened in December 2005 to the end of its run in 2010.
When she was first asked to join, Tameka was over the moon. It was almost everything she could have asked for. She was paid $800 per episode, and they regularly recorded seven episodes a day. That was $5,600, more than $23,000 a week, when the going was good. Then there were endorsements and personal appearances thrown in. Fame and riches for standing for hours on end holding a briefcase full of pretend cash. The irony was not lost on her.
Plus it was fun being a briefcase girl. The other girls were rowdy, catty, and goofy, it was just like being in a sorority house. They had only two enemies—the cold in the studio and the achingly high heels they were all asked to wear.
Meghan joined the gang in 2006 for season 2 after successfully passing the audition. Along with model Chrissy Teigen she began as a backup in case regular girls were ill or failed to show up. Eventually she got a full-time slot as briefcase girl 24—close to Tameka. When she first arrived, Tameka clocked her as another multiracial girl. “It was never discussed between us,” she recalls. “We just looked at one another and knew.” It was an unspoken code, a shared understanding of a lifetime of misunderstandings, quizzical glances, and snide comments condensed into one knowing look. They had connections in common, too—early on Tameka had been taken under the wing of model, talk show host, and all-round superstar Tyra Banks, who was, as Meghan well knew, a legend back at her old high school, Immaculate Heart. Now it was Tameka’s time to return the favor, giving Meghan the lowdown on the personalities, on who and what to look out for. She briefed her on the daily routine and what to bring to set—a pair of cozy Ugg boots after a day on high heels in near-freezing temperatures was a must. As they chatted it was clear to Tameka that Meghan saw this as a stepping stone to earn some money before trying for more serious acting jobs.
The average Deal or No Deal day began at five thirty in the morning as Meghan and the other briefcase girls gathered for hours of hair, makeup, and final fittings for their skimpy outfits. With outfit changes every episode and multiple episodes filmed each day, they often had to endure three separate fittings. A rack of beautiful matching ball gowns would arrive to be unceremoniously hacked to pieces so the girls’ legs and décolletage were on full display.
After rough fittings for length and shape there would be a final wardrobe session where the girls sucked in everything and the dresses were pinned down. Some dresses were so tight that the girls couldn’t even bend down to put on their agonizingly high heels, so an assistant would be on hand to help.
The briefcase girls all wore Spanx shapewear not only to make their stomachs flatter but to keep them warm in the near-freezing studio temperatures. As a final touch they inserted what briefcase girl 13 Leyla Milani liked to call “chicken cutlets”—or it could be pads of tissues—into their bras to enhance their cleavage.
As Meghan stood there hour after hour, trying not to shiver, her feet sore from the cheap high heels, a painted smile on her face, she thought of the paycheck at the end of the week. This was not what she had in mind when she went into acting but, at only twenty-five, she was earning more money than she had ever earned in her life, and the shooting schedule was perfect: long blocks of filming followed by weeks of down time, which gave her the opportunity to attend more auditions and go traveling with the man she playfully called Trevi Trevi Trevity.
While the Hamptons had been sampled, there were other spots she wanted to visit, schedules permitting: Greece, Mexico, Thailand, anywhere in the Caribbean were all on her list. The foodie in her fantasized about going to Bangkok and sampling the menu at Chote Chitr, the restaurant that had been featured on National Public Radio and in the New York Times.
Of course, that was if Trevor could make the time. He was always busy, and unlike the boyfriends and husbands of her Deal or No Deal “sisters,” Trevor never visited Meghan on set. In fact, it was so unusual that it was noted by the other girls. However, there were plenty of other celebrities, mainly sports stars, who dropped by, some clearly trying to get up close and personal with the girls. One guest caused quite the frisson: Donald Trump, then organizing the Miss Universe pageant and making a guest appearance as the banker on Deal or No Deal to cross-promote The Apprentice. The frequently bankrupt real estate mogul toured the set, giving girls his card and inviting them to play golf at one of his courses. Tameka Jacobs recalls: “He was a creep, super creepy, but some girls were attracted to money and power and took his number.”
Meghan was one of the girls who gave the future president a wide berth. Not that she was known for joining in much with any of the after-work events, occasions when a bevy of beautiful women, several minders in tow, trawled the bars of West Hollywood. As Meghan is now known as a thirsty socialite, it is surprising that she rarely, if ever, joined in these raucous nights of karaoke and chasers.
For a girl who would end up living her life on Instagram, it is remarkable, too, that she never posed for a silly picture, mugging for the cameras like the rest of her colleagues. Meghan knew her angles—after all, she had been taught by the best, her father—and always posed sweetly. If caught with a drink in her hand, it was only ever champagne, and she was never heard to swear—somewhat surprising given how well-known her eventual breakout show is for its off-color language.
Aside from promotional photos in costume on the Deal or No Deal set, Meghan’s only promo work for the show was self-serving, appearing at a C-level gifting suite for the 2006 Emmys in casual wear, where she was duly photographed looking at yoga mats and resort wear. Meghan’s lack of involvement in office gossip—she was always studying lines for an audition, recalls Leyla Milani—and after-work play was just one of the reasons she stood out. The other was her eating habits. While the other girls “sucked hard candy and ate raw vegetables” between scenes, Meghan would eat pizza or bags of chips, seemingly unconcerned about bloat or weight gain. And while many of the other girls thanked their lucky stars for this opportunity, Meghan saw the gig as a temporary berth. As Tameka recalls: “She was super sweet, adorable, a little sheltered, wholesome with a good head on her shoulders. Looking back, it was clear that she had a brand and wanted to protect that brand for a future career as a serious actor.” She knew where she wanted to go, and it certainly wasn’t spending her days on Deal or No Deal.
During the shooting break in November, she auditioned for and got the part of a Latina murder suspect on CSI: NY. The part once again had Meghan flashing the flesh when her character is introduced wearing a corset and suspenders. Then it was back to the cold NBC soundstage in Culver City.
During Meghan’s time on Deal or No Deal, Trevor had a film in production, a marital comedy, License to Wed starring funnyman Robin Williams. Meghan secretly hoped there would be a role for her, but the bit parts that might have suited her went to more experienced actors who had worked with the director, Ken Kwapis, on the TV series The Office. It was to become a source of conflict between the couple; Meghan was disappointed that Trevor didn’t try harder to include her in some of his productions.
No matter. She had the feeling that this could be her year. During the February round of auditions for the 2007 pilot season, she came away from a meeting with top casting agent Donna Rosenstein with a positive spring in her step. Rosenstein had been a senior vice president at ABC for many years, overseeing the casting of such series as NYPD Blue, Roseanne, and Twin Peaks, and had since set up her own company. She was Meghan’s best chance yet at the big time.
She loved the part she had been asked to read for, a former stripper and streetwalker called Kelly Calhoun who had been rescued from her seedy life by a born-again Christian cop who had fallen in love with and married her.
The show
, named The Apostles, was part police drama, part Desperate Housewives, complete with similar voiceover narration, and was set in a suburban Southern California cul-de-sac where all the residents were police officers and their spouses. Shortly after her reading Meghan got the news she had been longing to hear. “Meghan, you got the part,” her agent excitedly told her. When she told her father he wrote her a loving note of congratulations, the actor keeping his tender letter in a hand-carved box by the side of her bed.
Meghan’s character wasn’t the most feminist of women, but compared to her role as a briefcase babe, Kelly Calhoun was at least a step in the right direction. Her African American husband, played by Keith Robinson, finds himself conflicted, berating her for her immoral past but drawn to her sassy yet vulnerable personality. In the tight-knit enclave Kelly finds empowerment and friendship with the other wives. She startles them first by sharing sex tips on how to keep things hot in the bedroom and then by teaching them the tricks of the stripping trade, demonstrating how to disrobe seductively. Meghan had a good feeling about the show. It ticked all the boxes: a strong cast—Shawn Hatosy from Alpha Dog, who specialized in playing tightly wound, edgy characters, was one of the leads—a solid backstory, feminist themes, and plenty of room for conflict and tension in the insular cop community. It was Desperate Housewives in uniform.
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