Todays-Woman - Extra Work (part two)

Author:John Sammon

Acting jobs have always been hard to come by. Writer's note: This is the second installment of a passage from a book I'm working on (the first snippet is titled Extra Work), that recounts in part my attempts to become a movie actor in the 1970s.

Here I am, trying out for a movie in Hollywood, and there’s a line of acting hopefuls that stretches all the way down the block. This is going to be a long wait. Ads for the casting of this film, titled Mafia Hit Man, had been advertised in the local trade papers, Daily Variety and The Reporter, thus the big turnout.

The producers casting the film are looking for Mafia looking type men. So why standing in the line are there black actors and women, some of them elderly? It’s because any time a movie is to be cast and word gets out, it attracts the wanna-bees, the curious, the mentally disturbed, riff-raff and sycophants who hope against hope that somehow they might get discovered.

A smattering of actors who legitimately might be right for the part are also in the line. It’s really not fair to them that the others who have no business being there…are.

And then there’s me.

To while away the time while we wait for our two-minute audition chance before the producers, I squat on the pavement up against a picket fence and talk with some of the other actors who look legitimate to me. We talk about our aspirations and plays we might try out for, who has a union card (SAG) and other small talk that people of a similar interest rattle.

Out comes a man from the front door of his house. Don’t lean on my fence too hard, he warns me. I don’t mind you using it. Just don’t get any dirt on it.

I recognize him as an actor. He’s the man in the toilet paper commercials, the Charmin Toilet Paper commercials, the guy who tells women on TV to don’t squeeze the Charmin toilet paper. Mister Whipple. That’s who he is. Mister Whipple. He seems a friendly guy. He jokes a little with us about the huge turnout for the film tryout that has actors reclining along the fence in his front yard.

I don’t know his name, but it is Dick Wilson, a character actor who appeared in hundreds of movie roles and the television series Bewitched, but who will always be remembered for the thirty-second spots where he holds a roll of toilet paper. These commercials are what allowed him to purchase the small house he owns. He returns inside.

It’s beginning to grate on me, this cattle call and the long wait, the unfairness of it, hundreds of people in line who are not in any way right for the few parts being cast, but having nothing better to do, attach themselves like a bunch of leeches. I complain about this to my compatriots whom I’ve had about ten minutes to judge acceptable, like me.

What kind of Mafia don is that guy? I joke, pointing to an African American standing in the line. He must be from the South of Italy. We chuckle.

The line moves slowly. We get up, move a few paces, and sit back down on the pavement.

Finally, after an hour and a half, it’s our turn to be admitted into the inner sanctum, through a door into a dingy cavern of an old playhouse with antiquated wooden fold-up theater seats where five people are waiting. They are back in the gloom, seated low, barely discernable. I approach a microphone and prepare to say the single line of dialog an assistant hands me written on a piece of paper. Every person who comes before this spot realizes this could be the big break, the moment of truth that could launch a career that will place the world at their feet. This one chance could reverse your life, change it upside down, bringing glory and applause and riches and all the sweet things that come with becoming a cinematic idol.

All of that temptingly perched on this one moment.

Okay Louie….get outta here!

That’s the line I say. Into the microphone.

Thanks very much. We’ll call you, somebody from somewhere says mechanically. Next. Who’s next please?

That was it? For all the waiting?

We’ll call ya.’

I can tell by the way I’m dismissed they won’t call me. I’m bitter. About having to wait so long among fools with the same dream. As I exit the building, there are hundreds more waiting in line to deliver the same line I just did, some of them elderly women (who did they expect to play in the movie?). I don’t know why I do this, but I do. A wounded impulse. I say loud enough to be heard, to the guy I waited in line next to and talked to. I say to him, you mean the part has already been cast? They’re just doing this line to satisfy some kind of requirement from the guild (Screen Actors Guild)? We waited here for nothing?

People in line nearest me hearing this spread the word and the rumor races along the line like wildfire. The cattle call is a scam! Whaddyah mean? Are you guys bullshitting us? What’s the deal?

The crowd turns ugly and rushes the door to the hall, bombarding the attendant who had been letting them in one by one with angry accusing questions. I walk away. I hear shouts and curses behind me. This is my revenge.

The funny thing about Mafia Hit Man. It is never produced. I never hear about it coming out as a film because it never does. Hundreds of productions in Hollywood meet this fate. They are announced. Some work is done. The gullible show up and try out for them. And then. They just fade away, or fade to black to use a show-biz jargon. Simply vanish, never to be heard from again. The vicissitudes of unsure funding dry up to shut them down, or the producer is found murdered under his Brentwood home, or a million other reasons.

Whatever effort was expended on them quickly moves to other old buildings in Hollywood, other casting calls. The hopeful and the mislead and the self-deceived instantly forget and gravitate to these new possibilities, like a tribe of Bedouins following a lonely camel trail progress from one desert oasis to the next. Ten minutes is old in Hollywood, and there’s always another gambling chance to be had.

© Copyright 2007 by SammonSays.com