Hollywood Hopefuls

Hollywood Hopefuls

 

Last night I watched three documentaries on Amazon Prime. One of the three, Camp Hollywood, was an award-winner written and produced by a stand-up comic, Steve Markle, who came down from Canada for 90 days to see if he could win the “overnight sensation” lottery in Hollywood and take his career to a whole new level.

 

The documentary wasn’t at all about him. It was about the other Hollywood hopefuls living at the same Highland Gardens Hotel where he stayed.

 

The documentary was equal parts tragic and triumphant, in my opinion, which is Hollywood in microcosm. There are so many talented people reaching for the brass ring down there that far too many end up falling short not because of lack of talent but because of the fickle finger of fate.

 

I met at least  one of those individuals when I lived and worked there: the Marilyn Monroe lookalike. I spoke to her on a couple of occasions by Marilyn’s star. She seemed to be a very nice gal, and she was a “star” on the boulevard, standing with Marilyn fans at Marilyn’s star, posing. She looked and acted the part.

 

When I went down to Hollywood, I didn’t go with any notion of becoming a star; I went down with the notion of simply getting a job at a studio where my skills and creativity would be appreciated and adequately compensated. The childhood dream I’d had of becoming an actor or writer didn’t even raise its head while I was down there (especially since my first few jobs in Hollywood as  temp or permanent employee supported writers on Baywatch, Eddie Dodd,  Parker Lewis Can’t Lose and The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. and I could see the ringers they were put through; no, thank you to all that stress and sleeplessness!). I just wanted to work in the industry, to be any part of helping “make the magic.” I succeeded and came home 14 years later to write about it in some of my books.

 

DeForest Kelley said more than once that I’d come to Hollywood to become a screenwriter (he told Nicholas Meyer this when he introduced me to him). That was news to me!  Maybe it was De’s dream for me. I dunno. He also said I could become head of a studio. So did my dad. Those two had a lot of big, money-making dreams for me! I was just happy to be in the mix down there. I had no “goal” other than doing the best I could in whatever “role” I found myself. And I succeeded at that. (Executive secretary, hardware lease administrator, floater.)

 

But back to the documentary. It was heartbreaking to see some Hollywood hopefuls pursuing their dreams in ways that were futile, self-destructive, and unhelpful, even though the ones who were doing everything by the book (staying sober, showing up ready to audition, clean and tidy) weren’t having much better luck…

 

We viewers of the documentary have the luxury of sitting in judgment, wondering how long we would have lasted under the same circumstances (some had been trying for their break for 30 years!), but what I came away with overall was the undying spirit and resiliency that most of them showed. They “knew” where they belonged and only utter failure was going to dissuade them from pursuing their goals. So the occasional gig that lasted maybe just a day “fed” them until they could land their next few crumbs from the Hollywood smorgasbord.

 

I “get” that. Before I became a published writer in magazines and newspapers, I was possessed by the same spirit of “I was was born to do this.” Every rejection letter I got was hopeful. There were no form rejections that lacked commentary; all the editors said, “Try again. You’re good; this piece just isn’t right for us/we just did a piece very much like this…”

 

Hell,  I’m still possessed by “I was born to do this!”  If that ever goes away, I’ll hang up my keyboard and disappear for good.

 

Creative people simply can’t live happily any other way.

 

Afer Camp Hollywood, I watched another documentrary called The Casting Couch, the dark side of what happened for too many decades before the #MeToo and #TimesUp movement called foul, about what women (and many men, too) had to do to get the part that made them famous…

 

For women especially, exchanging sex for star billing (or even the mere scent of any billing in a major motion picture) was considered “par for the course” — the expectation. Those who refused got sent back to their hotels.

 

One thing I found off-putting by that documentary was the contention by some of the men who were interviewed that lots of women didn’t mind sleeping their way to the top (and still don’t), which is why it became an expectation later on.

 

Back in the day, all women had to trade that horny men considered fair trade (given the patriarchal society we lived in before the women’s lib movement) were their bodies. Blaming them for their bondage is like blaming slaves for theirs. The currency was determined by the slaveholder; the slaves didn’t get to vote. Nor did women until they got the right to vote, birth control, and enough rights to gain some clout in the halls of Congress, in boardrooms, and on college and motion picture campuses. It’s a whole new world–but still not equal.

 

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