Hollywood Rat Race
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In this never-before- published memoir of Hollywood, Ed Wood, Jr., reveals the down and dirty about the cutthroat world of movie-making.
ISBN-13: 9781568581194
Media Type: Paperback
Publisher: Hachette Books
Publication Date: 01-06-1999
Pages: 176
Product Dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)
Ed Wood was the subject of the 1994 Tim Burton film Ed Wood. His movies include Plan 9 from Outer Space, Orgy of the Dead, and Necromania.
Chapter One
Hollywood and You
You became a typist for an insurance company!
You became a clerk in a department store!
You tried your hand in one of the many laundries!
You had to take a waitress job at a drive-in!
You failed as an actor or actress in Hollywood!
Some of you started in grade school or even as early as kindergarten.
Perhaps it was only to dress up in Mother's clothes or put on
Dad's pants, hat, and vest, but in actuality you were playing a part.
It is natural in the very young to play act, to make believe.
Then later, other desires and ambitions take over. The drama
teacher may have a hard time finding enough exhibitionists for the
annual plays, but you are not shy. Not you! You knew you wanted
to be an actor or actress more than anything else in the whole wide
world. Haven't you been reading every movie magazine you could
get your hands on since the time when you could only understand
the pictures? Aren't you always the first to volunteer? Aren't you
readily acceptable? At the outset, you get only the smaller parts--a
gingerbread girl or boy in the yearly Hansel and Gretel or one of
the group in the just as yearly Alice in Wonderland.
Then the following year you'd made it. You played a wicked
stepfather or mother in Hansel and Gretel, followed by a fine job as
the mean old Mad Hatter or Queen in Alice in Wonderland.
So sad! It seemed, even early in your career, you were destined
to be the old, wretched ones. Where are the fine clothes of the lovely
ladies? But all that changed the following year when you got the lead.
You've arrived. You're just wonderful. Your mom, your dad,
and all your friends say so. Even your teacher, she's given you an
A. (It probably should have been an E for effort.) Nothing can stand
in your path now. You even played the lead in your middle-school
graduation pageant.
The long summer. You read all the movie magazines--end on
end of movie magazines. The stars wear those pretty clothes ... the
men are so handsome ... the bright, wonderful smiles (courtesy of
their dentists) ... not a care in the world.
With a glow to your cheeks, with a gleam in your eyes, you
proceed to high school! Now it's just a bit harder to get a part in a
play, even a walk-on. You find this very difficult to figure out. You
were in great demand in elementary school, why not here?
And so you ponder it until you talk to other aspiring young
talents. Then you face the facts. High school is the melting pot of
many grade schools and their drama classes. Your competition
stronger. You must work harder and harder, even the plays are
stronger and even the one-line or one-speech bits have become
more difficult, as have the teachers. Then comes Romeo and Juliet,
Hamlet, and The Merchant of Venice. But still you cling to your
ever present movie magazine.
The glamour, the lights, the great silver screen of Hollywood. You
must act! You must! You must! You must! But how? The competition
has become so strong in high school that you want to cry in the
hopelessness of the situation. The lines, much more difficult to learn.
The teachings and direction, more demanding. It had been so easy
back in grade school. Miss Ipswitch had never been this tough. And
she liked you. She was a good drama teacher--she knew real talent
when she saw it. But that high school drama teacher ... what's with
her? She wouldn't know talent if it jumped out of a bush and bit her.
Is this, then, a first look at what the art of acting is going to be
like? More than you can possibly realize.
Acting is an art not easily practiced. Certainly it seemed like
all fun (and no work) in the beginning. It was amusement for your
friends, parents, and classmates. Now the friends, parents, and
classmates are joined by outsiders--people you have never seen
before, nor they you. Besides they are a paying audience and paying
audiences want a little more than just you, unless you can really
cut the mustard. Now mixed with friends and relatives are those
who do not pat you on the head and say, "My, you were wonderful,"
even if you were not. There may even be a local newspaperman
who finds unkind things to say. Certainly the write-ups in the
school newspaper will be supercritical.
Throughout your freshman year, you've seen this happen to
others, which was bit frightening to say the least. What can you do
to avoid that same spot, or shall we say, spotlight.
Ahh, but then it can't happen to you. You're really good. Why
you could outact any of the others with your eyes shut. Then why
the fear? You've read all the classics. You've seen the best movies,
even some foreign movies on the late show on television. And
you've read all the movie magazines.
You walked right in and told that teacher you were good. And
the teacher told you to study harder and harder and harder. You
are finding that acting is not an art easily practiced. Your teacher
says work and show me how good you are! Is this, then, another
glimpse into the future? Isn't acting just getting on stage, or in front
of a camera, and saying your lines, then going out and meeting your
public to sign autographs? Wearing beautiful satins and furs at the
gala openings and premieres that they show in the magazines?
Must one work at acting?
In your second year there are no parts for you, you receive C
grade for class work, and you realize acting is 90 percent work
and study.
Next year you try it and really study harder. More study. More.
Your grades go up. You get the second lead in the first play of the
season, Uncle Vanya, a tough one to do. Your family, some strangers,
even the critics are especially kind. That night at the local sweet
shop, you catch your first glimpse of the great 10 percent of the
business--glad-handing.
And you look ahead to the glorious future beyond, when school
days and school plays are far behind and you are headed for
Hollywood where you will try for a career in front of the magic eye
of the movie camera. You, young lady, (young men visualize your
own packing) will have your suitcases full of your high-school best:
sweaters (including a good, fluffy pink angora that cost plenty),
blouses, skirts, and the frilly formal you wore to the senior prom.
You wonder if these will be good enough for Hollywood as you pack
the old school book bag crammed with movie magazines.
You are going to get off the train at Union Station in downtown
Los Angeles. Having read and reread all your movie magazines you
already know what it looks like. You're going to take a taxi right
to a hotel. You're going to bathe; have a good night's sleep; then
next morning dress in your expensive pink angora sweater and
brown skirt; grab your scrapbook (you've read this is a necessary
item to show producers how good you were); and take the studios
by storm. Here you are in Hollywood. And Hollywood is damned
well going to know it.
Again the taxi comes in handy! "To the nearest studio," you
grandly order. You find yourself at Columbia Pictures on Sunset
Boulevard at Gower Street.
So you go! Columbia Studios!
Not a very impressive sight, it's a gray set of buildings and
barnlike structures. Not very intimidating at all, even the old school
buildings looked better. This will be a snap. All you have to do is
walk into the casting office and wait for the receptionist, a lovely
young lady (you wonder why she isn't in pictures herself) to say,
"Are you represented?"
"Huh?"
"Represented? Do you have representation? An agent?"
"Well, no! I just arrived in Hollywood. I starred in our school
play. I know I'll be a great star if you give me the chance. Here,
look at my scrapbook." (If this receptionist has been with the studio
for a year, she has gone through this same procedure and listened
to the same story over a thousand times. If it's more than a year,
add up the thousands.)
"Would you like to leave a picture?" she asks.
"I don't have one."
"Are you a member of SAG?"
"What's that?"
(And then you've really had it!)
"The Screen Actors Guild," she informs you.
"No!"
"Leave your name and address," she says kindly. "Honey, don't
call us, we'll call you."
And you're on your way out of the studio. So what? After all,
what does Columbia know about real talent, you say to yourself.
You'll show them. The other studios certainly will know real talent
when they see it, and they're bigger studios, too.
But you're tired after Warner Brothers, MGM, 20th Century-Fox,
Paramount, and Universal Pictures, then the television studios
and a rash of independent (both motion picture and television)
producers, have all responded the same way.
What are you to do? Your money is running low! The hotel is
very expensive. Perhaps a little room in a boarding house! Your
money could last another two months that way, but can your feet?
You've long since had to give up taxicabs for shank's-mare (feet)
or a seat on a bus, if the producer you hope to see is absolutely too
far away for walking.
Maybe all you've been told is right after all. You got your head
shots, and they set you back plenty. You've left them everywhere
you've been, but no one has taken a further interest. In fact, you
haven't even seen a producer, or even a bona fide casting director,
only receptionists and secretaries. Perhaps you do need a representative,
or an agent.
So, you leave the hotel. You find a small room for fifteen
dollars a week (no meals), in advance of course. A run-down, two-story
place on Orange Avenue, just south of Sunset Boulevard.
Strange such a dump could cost so much, but still it is better than
the hotel at sixty dollars a week--that is if you can stand the
silverfish in your pillows (they furnish those and possibly a
cockroach or two in the middle of the night at no extra cost), and
no meals. Even at that, your budget wouldn't allow for another
two-month stay.
At a hock shop on Vine street you hock the hundred-dollar
watch Dad gave you for graduation for ten dollars (the going
exchange rate is about 10 percent). Your graduation dress and
beautiful pink angora sweater bring another twenty at a second-hand
ladies clothing store on Sunset Boulevard just west of Western
Avenue. You've nothing left to pawn. Eating a doughnut and coffee
for breakfast, skipping lunch, and having light dinner (you call it
supper, perhaps) except for twice a week, you can make the two
months now--just barely.
Or can you? You've got to stick it out, except a certain
loneliness has set in. More shank's-mare up one side of Sunset,
and down the other. Leave a picture--you're getting low on those
also, and you have no more money to buy more (eight dollars a
hundred, plus your resume on the back for another healthy
chunk). "Don't call us, we'll call you." There are more agents in
Beverly Hills, some of the very big ones. And there are more in
downtown Los Angeles, the lesser ones.
Then it's all over but the phone call home. "Dad, please send
me train fare." And it is really over, watch the skyline of Los
Angeles as the train pulls out of Union Station where you arrived
such a short time ago.
You've left the glamour capitol of the world without ever
seeing a camera, except for the equipment in the windows of the
camera stores on Cahuenga Boulevard.
You haven't even seen a movie star, except in the Santa Claus
parade which moves up Hollywood Boulevard on Thanksgiving
Eve every year (and you just happened, in your few months, to be
here at that particular time).
You came, you didn't see, you didn't act. You went broke, and
you left, having never made the slightest dent in the Hollywood
armor. So? Where did you go wrong?
You weren't really all wrong. You started out right, right up to
your graduation. You suffered the same joys and hurts, thrills and
spills, even when you knew you had to work hard, harder than
anybody else to get your first part in that strong high-school
competition.
You did not fully realize how much stronger the competition
was going to be when you arrived in Hollywood only partly
prepared for it. Ten thousand newcomers a year, just like you, just
as handsome or pretty, and just as talented, come to Hollywood,
and all looking for the same job--yours!
Those foolish enough to come here in the first place should
have enough finances to last six months or a year--prices are high
in Hollywood. Three hundred to four hundred dollars a month is
not unreasonable.
There are such excellent theatrical boarding and rooming
houses, such as the Hollywood Studio Club (for girls only) on 1215
Lodi Place. A safe and sane way to live. Do make arrangements
well in advance.
Don't kid yourself, you must have photographs. They are
expensive. But they should be done by a photographer who knows
his business and, knowing his business, he knows what agents and
producers want to see.
The next step, after pictures, is to type, or print clearly, your
name and experience, including amateur, on the back, along
with your phone number (a twenty-four-hour message service
is best). List your height, weight, bust, waist, and hip measurements,
eye color, all sports, skills, and any unusual things you
can do, and most important, your agent's name, address, and
phone number.
An agent. Unless you are the luckiest of the lucky, in all probability,
you will never get beyond the casting office receptionist without
being represented by an agent. You wasted so much money and
precious time in taxicabs, buses, and on shank's mare, traveling to
studios that would never look at you. Columbia and Paramount are
the only studios actually located in Hollywood (except for some
television organizations). 20th Century-Fox is one block out of
Beverly Hills in West Los Angeles. MGM is in Culver City.
Universal is in the San Fernando valley in Universal City, and
Republic is in North Hollywood.
To acquire an agent is a necessity to break into the movies, even
for the smallest one-line bit. Producers won't hire an actor or actress
without a SAG card. The Screen Actors Guild is a union which
controls all actors and actresses from one-line wonders right up to
the biggest stars in Hollywood. And SAG will not admit you
without your first being signed by a producer for a film part.
Sounds like impossible, doesn't it? No job, no card--no card,
no job. But it's not. Land an agent and convince him you're as good
as you say you are; it'd be up to him to make it work. He'll convince
a producer of your talents--he knows how. It's his business. And if
he convinces the producer, and the producer will request that SAG
make you a member. Remember, this is the only way to become a
member. The initiation fee is two dollars, going up every year,
another price to keep in mind before leaving home.
Sounds like a real problem to stick it out, doesn't it, and
expensive, very expensive. It is. But you can always work nights as
a waiter or waitress (about the only night work out here unless you
want to drive a cab), since you must keep your days open in case of
a studio or agent call.
Yet there is a much easier way: stay home. I don't mean to be
as cruel as it sounds.
There is a way of avoiding the preliminaries of the Hollywood
rat race for the beginner. Your early drama successes do
not make you an actor or actress. Check out an excellent drama
school that it is well recommended near home. But before you
spend your parents' money, realize that you must work hard.
There is more to being an actor or actress than getting on stage
and saying a bunch of meaningless lines. Those lines are your
bread and butter, suffered out by some writer, and you better
understand what they say.
What is acting?
It is to portray with all your ability and sincerity a character, a
person, with all your heart and soul.
Who is this character? Say she is a horse woman! How can you
play a horse woman if you don't know the first thing about horses,
or riding them?
Golf! Swimming! Diving! Tennis!
Your acting teachers can teach you the fundamentals of acting
but you must find the true emotion by doing.
You're a typist--learn to type! You're a laundress--do the
laundry. You're a housewife--be one! You're a nurse or a
doctor--don't become a nurse or a doctor necessarily, but at least
study their work.
You never know what you may be called upon to do. Acting is
a demanding business and every day it becomes more demanding.
It is not all satins and furs, a look at your television set any night
of the week will prove that.
Feel dirt--dirty your face and hands. Hepburn, Colbert, Leigh,
Davis--all your greats have won acclaim, not by being glamour
girls, but by hard, hard work. The so-called glamour queens are
short lived. Where are they now? Take out your old movie
magazines and trace the queens of yesterday. There are a lot of
yesterdays for them but no tomorrows, but then perhaps they enjoy
looking at their scrapbooks. Glamour comes second. Hard work
comes first.
Play baseball. Doris Day had to.
Play football. Linda Darnell had to, god rest her soul.
Fight, yes, I said, fight. Shelly Winters and Marie Windsor had to.
Ski. Claudette Colbert has to.
Learn to ride. Bette Davis had to, as a forerunner to the
hundreds of Westerns being made each year for movies and
television.
Swim! Esther Williams had to, as did another of the glamour
queens gone into the great beyond, Marilyn Monroe.
Dance--all forms from the minuet to the potato masher. The
waltz to the tango. The Charleston to the jitterbug.
Learn the fundamentals of makeup and hairstyling. Many of
today's great personalities design and apply their own makeup
and hairstyling.
Learn everything in your own hometown. Out here in Hollywood,
learning is very expensive, and there are no friends to
comfort you in time of distress. And one does not learn to ride, or
do anything else, over night.
The more you know, the more you're prepared for your art and
the better chance you have. Learn all you can! In the acting
profession you must know something about everything. It's not
easy. Don't expect it to be. But be sensible while you are learning.
Then let's say you think you have mastered your chosen trade.
It is still not time to head for Hollywood. There are others who
have also studied drama, and you'd only be caught up with again.
Too many for too few parts. Realize how many of our young stars
of today have been found in little towns across the country and the
world for that matter, and how few actually are picked from the
ranks of the newcomers on the streets of Hollywood.
What do you do?
Have the pictures taken by your best local photographer, using
one of the hundreds of wonderful photos in movie magazine as a
guide. Have several poses taken in different outfits. Try sweaters, but
the really tight ones went out with the forties. Chose fluffy ones such
as mohairs or angoras, ones that look expensive, even if they're not.
Wear bathing suits. A dress. A suit. Select four poses from your photo
proofs and have them put on a single 8 x 10 composite. Any photographer
can do this for you. An agent or producer likes to see several
poses but does not like to shuffle through a sheaf of photos. Have your
hair set into four different styles to match the clothing worn.
Take your time. You don't have to do all the photographs in
one setting. Time is what makes perfection. Don't smile all the
time. Life and movies aren't like that. If you're going to be an actor
or actress, get serious about it. Smile some day later at the job you've
done, or while you're cashing your check at the bank. Forced smiles
are phony anyway and prove nothing.
When the composite photographs are finished, have copies
made, and print or type the information on the back as directed
earlier in this chapter, with the one change--since you do not yet
have an agent--put your own address.
A tape or record recording of your voice can also be of great
help. I do not recommend a home recording because you will want
top quality. Your voice may sell you. Your pictures are good, so
make the recording of the same excellent quality. At this stage in
your career, you can't handle the classics, so find a simple play.
Study your scene. Study it! Study it! Then study it again! Find out
who you are! Then record with all your heart and soul. If you are
not satisfied with the results, an agent or producer won't be either,
so do it over until you are.
Mail the finished photographs and recordings with an enclosed
self-addressed, stamped envelope to an agent in Hollywood. Also,
enclose a brief resume. Always remember, agents are on the lookout
for new talent--it is their business and their life. But don't expect
miracles overnight. Agents are busy, hardworking people. And if
one agent doesn't give you a tumble, try another, try and try again.
You may just happen to click with one. And if you do, you're
on your way. But in the meantime, you've stayed home, learned
your trade among friends who want to help, and you've felt none
of the hardships of waiting it out and failing as most do in a place
called Hollywood. You haven't come to Hollywood, lost your
finances, face, hopes, dreams, and your faith.
Complete your home study by keeping up with the action.
Everyone in show business reads Variety or the Hollywood
Reporter. Trade papers, we call them, and they keep us informed
as to what the studios and producers are doing, in television as well
as movies. Who! What! Where! When! And the Friday edition
gives a complete list of pictures which are presently in production
and those that are about go into production, along with the names
of the main cast, director, producer, writer, and crew. Prices for
subscription rates may be gotten by writing to Daily Variety, 6404
Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood, California and to The Hollywood
Reporter, 6715 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood, California.
Now, let's be optimistic. You've clicked. You have an agent, a SAG
card, and a producer who is going to give you your first part.
You're in front of the cameras at last. The lights go up. The
assistant director screams, "Quiet on the set!" The director says
softly to the cameraman, "Roll 'em," and the camera purrs as the
film passes through it. The soundman, his tape racing up to the
speed the film is going through the camera, yells, "Speed!" The
director looks to you and again speaks softly, so he doesn't disturb
your mood. "Action." And you are acting.
Only time, then, will tell if the public welcomes you into their
hearts and spends their money at the box office or not, which will
make or break you, the actor or actress, who only a few short months
before studied your script late into the night, got up at five, made
it to the studio and in makeup and hairdressing by six, got a
wardrobe fitting at seven-thirty, and was ready to shoot at eight--day
in and day out! Hard work. Everyday production continued and
the scenes became more complicated. Work and more work.
Endless hours under the hot lights for a few fleeting moments of
glamour at the premiere weeks later. Behind your bright, happy
smile, the strange questions lurk: "How long will I remain a star?"
"Will they like me?" and most of all, "When is my next picture?"
The most crucial concern of every actor and actress, even in the
midst of shooting is "When is my next picture?"
So you want to be an actor or actress?
If you still do, you've got as good a chance as the next one and
as a writer-producer-director who has given many a young actress
her first chance in films, I say, "Good luck to you!"
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