Dorian scratched his head and helped himself to more potatoes. “That’s a very interesting question. The writers have never really come right out and said it. Because they’re afraid if they get too specific that they’ll lose viewers. Like if they say it’s tobacco, for example, then smokers and the entire state of North Carolina will stop watching the show. All we know is that Gainsborough industries has polluted the heretofore pristine waters of Huddlerville and that no one can swim in the lake anymore. You should concentrate on the relationship between Darva and Wilkes, though, because that’s the scene you have. She’s a woman who will stop at nothing to achieve her goals. Like the time she tried to seduce Wilkes by playing a song she wrote about how love-starved she was for him. See, Melanie Mason, who’s been playing the role, used to be a B-level country & western star, so they wanted to give her a chance to perform.”
“I hope they don’t expect that from me,” I told Dorian. “I play guitar about as well as I play ice hockey.”
We retired to my bedroom and Dorian helped me get through the scene, beat by beat. He really knows how to handle this kind of script from years of observing principal soap actors at work. Dorian doesn’t pass the downtime between crowd scenes by reading the newspaper or chatting with the other background actors and day players; he studies the stars and learns as much as he can about how they dress and comport themselves off-camera, as well as the way the good ones analyze and tackle relatively inane material and make it playable.
“Find the transitions within the scene,” Dorian suggested. “I hate to say it, but act like it’s Shakespeare. Go beat to beat, moment to moment. May I?” He asked me for the script, then began to mark off sections of dialogue. “See, here, she’s coming on to him; then here she’s making it seem like her plan to kidnap Greta is his idea. Here she’s flattering him by pretending to wax enthusiastic about his antique gun collection, playing the ‘little woman’ and appealing to his macho side, playing the eager student to his experienced and knowledgeable teacher. You’ll want to make each shift very clear. Your intention is the same all the way throughout, of course, but you’re going about it in several different ways.”
“Dorian, you’re a hell of a coach,” I observed. “You really should consider parlaying your master’s degree into a teaching career. Shit, if I’d gotten an MFA, that’s what I’d be doing, assuming I’d be good at it, instead of working outside the business for a bunch of arrogant attorneys. You’ve got a great handle on script analysis and you know how to talk to actors.”
Dorian’s expression hardened. “You know how I feel about that. Teaching, to me, is like…” He started to tear up. “It’s like admitting my failure to make it as an actor. Maybe not so much failure as defeat. One thing I love about you and Izzy is how you guys throw yourselves so completely into your roles. Total emotional commitment. I’ve just never felt entirely comfortable pulling out all the stops…doing the psychological digging to reach rage, or fear, or lust.”
I touched his hand. “Dorian,” I said gently, “the teaching thing was just an observation. I wasn’t suggesting that you quit acting. Now or ever. There are those who do both, you know.” To lighten the mood, I playfully smacked the top of his head with the script. “Besides, you’re a working actor. Much more so than Izzy and me put together. It’s how you make your living. So stop beating yourself up, and stop kvetching!”
But Dorian remained glum. “I have a ‘look,’” he said. “And right now it’s a marketable one. The All-American Boy. My employment—unfortunately—has little to do with talent.”
The grass is always greener…
I endeavored to cheeer him up. “You think you’re the only ‘All-American Boy’ in show biz, Jack Armstrong? Think of all the other six-foot-tall, blue-eyed blonds you beat out of a role.”
Dorian plastered a grin on his face. “Okay, you win. Dorian’s pity party is over.”
“Good, because I still need your help here,” I replied, returning to the soap script. “So what’s the actor like who plays Wilkes Chamberlain?”
“Hunky. Dark. Dumb. Too dumb to be my type. Well, put it this way, he’s no Einstein.” I wondered if Dorian was saying that the actor was gay. Not that I cared either way, but Dorian could get gossipy and I was curious. He shook his head at my question. “Pathetically straight. He may even be married with a kid or two.”
After Dorian went home I delved even further into the script. Yeah, it was drivel, but it was lucrative drivel. A lot of actors, especially those trained for the stage, have a tendency to demean soap opera actors…
Don’t let yourself fall into that trap, Alice. It’s acting. That’s where your heart is. You’re an actress. Even if you’re temporarily making ends meet by doing other work.
Yeah, I know. Sometimes I forget.
It does you no good to belittle the writing or the acting. There’s nothing demeaning about making a damn good living doing what you love to do best.
My conscience had a very good point. After Uncle Earwax’s insults and Ramona Marlboro making a practice of poking her head in the ladies’ room to ask why her temps had been in there for so long, frankly, I’d never felt more demeaned than in the past few weeks.
Focus on your future, Alice.
So, by Tuesday, I was totally psyched for the soap audition. Big-haired Darva was under my skin, in my blood, I was ready to nail the scene. I was anxious and antsy all morning at Newter & Spade.
I hate having to run to an audition in the middle of the day. It’s hard to switch off my day job brain and kick those acting synapses into place, then click back over to day job brain again. And I find myself having an allegiance to my temp jobs that’s often above and beyond the call of duty. Dorian was right when he melodramatically intoned that evening at The Wooden Horse that loyalty is my middle name. With Uncle Earwax, even though on some intellectual level I realized he didn’t appreciate me, he was still family. And as Gram is fond of saying, “A family takes care of its own. Through thick and thin.” Given my uncle’s penchant for not paying too much attention to details, I felt that if I wasn’t there to keep an eye on things, he’d ending up doing something that would result in some form of malpractice. Izzy switches gears with considerably more ease than I do, and I admire the hell out of her for it.
In the ladies’ room at Newter & Spade, I changed out of my suit and into my Darva outfit—a red tube top, short skirt, and Candies mules—and made my hair as big as it could go with the help of Natalie’s skillful backcombing and half a can of hairspray. Since I wasn’t sure what the situation would be like at the network, I figured I’d better do the wardrobe thing back at the office, taking my civilian clothes with me in a shopping bag in case there was an opportunity to change back into them after the audition. I didn’t really want to spend too much time walking around the city looking like Darva. It would help me get into character on the way to the audition, but might get me assaulted on the way back. I got a couple of curious comments and several strange looks from other visitors to the ladies’ room. Needless to say, on the subway ride uptown, no one batted an eye.
My appointment was with Lois Sarkisian, the soap’s casting director, a legend in the industry. I arrived at her office fifteen minutes ahead of schedule and introduced myself to her secretary, Janet, who in this industry will one day be sitting at Ms. Sarkisian’s desk. Janet asked me to wait in Ms. Sarkisian’s outer office and apologetically told me they were running a bit behind schedule. She hoped I didn’t mind waiting. “Of course not,” I replied cheerily, surreptitiously checking my watch and hoping that Ramona back at Newter & Spade wasn’t doing the same. “It happens.” It’s important to try to maintain a good attitude when you get thrown a curve like this, because if they think you’re cranky or a pain in the ass they won’t want to hire you.
I made use of the time by attempting to give my scene one last review, but instead, I became anxious watching a couple of other actresses enter and leave. My competition was significantly blonder,
taller, and thinner than I was, and they, too, were dolled up (or down), in trailer-trash chic.
Shit, I thought, as I looked at one of the women, I should have worn a charm bracelet. That would have been a perfect key to Darva’s character.
Alice, you always do that.
Always do what?
Psych yourself out. For God’s sake, stop worrying about how the other actresses look and what what they’re wearing. Just go in there and have fun.
Right!
Lois Sarkisian opened her door and poked her head out. She was holding my headshot. She smiled pleasantly and beckoned me inside. The first thing she did was scrutinize my face and compare it to my photograph. “Well, you look like your picture, and that’s a good thing,” she said succintly. “You have no idea how many people I call in based on a glamorous photograph, and what turns up in my office on the day of the audition bears as much resemblance to the headshot they sent me as you do to Sylvester Stallone.” She went behind her desk and motioned for me to sit opposite her.
“Wow,” I said stupidly, knowing from the hundreds of auditions I’ve attended, how truly unsurprising it is for actors’ photographs to look exponentially better than the performers do in real life. Ah, the miracles of retouching, airbrushing, and digitial photography. I extended my hand across her desk. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Sarkisian.”
She shook my hand but was otherwise done with pleasantries. “Let’s hear the scene.” She donned a pair of bifocals and picked up a copy of the Darva/Wilkes Chamberlain scene. Ms. Sarkisian read with little inflection. I had the script memorized to the extent that I could lift my gaze from the pages and make eye contact with her when I said my lines. I was having fun and playing for keeps, remembering to take each roller-coaster dip and hairpin turn, shifting my intentions with each section of the scene, all the while maintaining my overall objective to convince Wilkes to kidnap my innocent young daughter Greta from her adoptive parents, Grayson and Greer Gainsborough. I had the final line of the scene, and I made sure to keep my gaze on “Wilkes,” holding the cliffhanger intensity of the look for three or four seconds, which is how the scene would be played on the air—with a tense, dramatic “button” until the camera stopped rolling and they went to a commercial.
“Terrific! Just terrific, Alice,” Ms. Sarkisian said, putting down her script. “You found the arc of the scene and the shifts and nuances in it. You’re a real actress.” She sounded somewhat surprised.
Actually, I was the one who was surprised. “Well, what kind of people usually audition for you?” I asked her. I figured it was a legitimate question.
“Beautiful people. Many models. Like the woman who came in right before you did. They have a terrific look for soaps but I can’t use them because they can’t read a line of dialogue to save their lives. And they lack the training as well as the stamina to learn several pages overnight and be ready to perform them in one take the next day. We rarely do more than one take, unless someone muffs something, because we’ve got to shoot an entire one-hour episode each day.” Ms. Sarkisian pushed her chair away from the desk and took me in with her gaze. “You’re very good, Alice. And I’m glad I called you in. It was refreshing to hear someone read this stuff who really knows what she’s doing.” She slid her chair back to the desk and peered over her bifocals at me, then looked through them down past the bridge of her nose. “But you’re just not pretty enough for me to put you on tape and send it out to Frances in L.A.”
Frances Dixon was the Los Angeles-based soap’s executive producer, the final arbiter of who got hired to hang out in Huddlerville.
Did you just hear what she said to you?
“I’m not…what???” I repeated Ms. Sarkisian’s words. Yeah, grant it, I’m not built like a supermodel, but I’ve never been considered unattractive.
“You are very pretty, Alice. Don’t misunderstand me…”
What could I possibly misunderstand?
“…but you just aren’t pretty enough. Do you watch the show?”
I nodded mutely, robbed of words.
“Most of the women in Huddlerville, except for the older characters and the extras, of course, have a certain look to them…”
Yeah, a certain anorexic look.
“You see, the camera already makes a person appear ten pounds heavier than they are in real life. And you appear lovely right now, and you have a sexy quality to your persona, but part of my problem with your look is that once we put the camera on you, you’ll look too heavy.”
“I can lose those ten pounds,” I blurted. Goodbye Ben & Jerry’s, hello Benzedrine.
“We need to have our Darva by next week,” Ms. Sarkisian responded, sensing my desperation.
“I could—”
Ms. Sarkisian interrupted me. “Your weight is only a part of it. As I mentioned, and I meant it as a compliment, Alice, there’s a sexiness to you, a ripeness, that isn’t optimal for soaps. When we’re looking to fill a role like Darva, we cast women who look as close to our concepts of physical perfection as we can find them and who can still read a line of dialogue without bumping into the furniture.”
Well, there’s nothing much you can do about that, Alice, and you shouldn’t try. You are who you are. Now thank the lady and get out of her office.
“Another thing for you to think about, if you’re still bent on pursuing a career in daytime drama,” Ms. Sarkisian began. “Losing ten pounds or so is a good start, but you should consider getting a nose job.”
I froze. This was too much. For the record, I do not have Cyrano’s honker, a nez to end all nezes, plastered to the center of my face. Not even remotely close. It’s not a pert little button nose, but it’s a perfectly acceptable one. So, now this woman, a total stranger with the power to put me on national television five days a week, has decided that I need plastic surgery. Well! I was in a car accident when I was sixteen, sitting in the back seat of a taxi that got rear-ended near Times Square. In the era before mandatory seat belts in cabs, with no restraint, I went flying into the partition that separated the front and back seats, busting my nose and thereby necessitating stellar reconstructive efforts to prevent me from looking like a prizefighter for the rest of my life. So, in fact, I’d already had a nose job, thank you very much.
I understand all too well the nature of her profession, but Lois Sarkisian, a good fifteen pounds overweight herself—not counting that ten-pounds-for-the-camera allocation—who still wears hand-crocheted vests and has poorly highlighted hair, has a lot of nerve to rip apart people’s appearances the way she did. What happened to simply thanking me for coming in, complimenting me on the work I did on the scene, but telling me they’ll be seeing several other candidates for the role, and saying bye-bye? Where does it say “eviscerate the actor” in the casting directors’ handbook? I’d already had enough damaging negativity to last a lifetime from college professors who’d felt it was their duty to discourage their fledgling charges from ever making a serious stab at the business. Small wonder Dorian took such a dim view of acting teachers.
I rose, shouldered my purse, and grabbed the bag that contained the suit and shoes I’d been wearing at Newter &
Spade. “Thank you—” I began, continuing to observe audition protocol.
“You are quite a good actress, Alice,” Ms. Sarkisian reiterated, interrupting me and extending her hand. “But you should seriously consider that nose job.”
I took her hand, shook it, and held it firmly while I looked her straight in the eye. “Again?” I asked, then released my grasp, turned, and walked out of her office.
Chapter 5
“Gram…?” I sniffled into my cell. Through tears, I told her what had just transpired in Ms. Sarkisian’s office. “No, I haven’t left yet…where?…I’m in one of the…stalls in the ladies’ room. Thanks…I know, but I feel like after all these years I should have a thicker skin than this…I don’t?” I touched my nose, the poor, innocent protrusion that had been the unwilling victim of Ms. Sarki
sian’s abuse. “I’m glad you don’t think it’s ugly…though it could use some powder right about now. I’m sure it’s bright red.” I sat on the toilet and cradled the phone to my ear, listening to her words of comfort. No value can be placed on having someone who loves you so much and is always in your corner; who will get mad at the world on your behalf, then switch gears and calm you down, and even when milk and cookies aren’t an immediate option, will offer you the emotional equivalent. Gram was a goddess. And I’ve been trying to live up to her examples—and her expectations—all my life.
I left the stall and went to the sink, checked my image in the mirror, the better to study my nose from every angle, and splashed some cool tap water on my tear-stained face. Darva stared back at me. Our relationship, however brief, had come to an end, so I changed back into my civilian clothes and stuffed the Darva outfit and accessories in the shopping bag.
Like Gram said, you’re disappointed and hurt right now, but it isn’t the end of the world. Pull yourself together, Alice.
So I did. I took the elevator to the lobby, marched straight past the security desk and out into…
A pouring rainstorm.
No umbrella.
My suit was about to shrink exponentially, probably to the size of a washcloth. My shoes would most likely melt on the trip back to Newter & Spade, no matter how successful I was at negotiating the kind of puddles that routinely accumulate at city street corners.
Ms. Sarkisian’s secretary had collected the guest pass issued to me by the security desk when I entered the building, so I couldn’t get back upstairs to change clothes. And even if they’d let me back in, getting soaked through to the skin in my Darva getup, an already skimpy outfit that fairly screamed, “come and get it, y’ all!” was not a good idea.
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