a jack of all trades, kid,’ my father would say as I performed my latest masterpiece for him, perhaps a tap dance routine along the back patio.
The older I got, the more I disliked being good at many things: I wanted to be great at something. I wanted to leave my mark on the world, and somehow an art history degree earned in stuffy old classrooms in Cambridge didn’t seem like step one. Although they had supported my creativity in little ways as a child, my parents were dead set on shipping me out East the day I had my high school diploma in hand. Both of them worked in Hollywood since as long as I could remember and always talked about how brutal ‘the industry’ could be–they strived to keep me away, far away from it. So, when I announced my newly rediscovered acting career the summer after my sophomore year, the word ‘disappointed’ is an understatement.
I spent weeks trying to make the right connections; I even tried to get back in touch with my old agent over at Gersh, only to find out that she was now retired and living in Santa Barbara with her family.
‘Is there anyone you can refer me to?’ I asked.
‘Feel free to submit a résumé and headshot and if they’re interested someone will be in touch,’ she said, as if reading from a script.
I wasn’t going to give up so easily. Instead of wielding a diverse but mediocre portfolio of skills, I wanted to shine in a more singular way. So, when a man from a generic company called Ultimate Casting responded to an email I had sent him, I was thrilled.
‘I think I’ve got something for ya,’ he said. The tone of his voice revealed too much. He called me a knockout and assured me there was a demand for a ‘redhead’ with ‘soft features’ like mine. I could just picture him: hair combed over his balding scalp, Hawaiian shirt stretched snuggly around his protruding belly, short legs kicked up on top of a beat-up old desk, sitting in a minuscule makeshift office somewhere in the Valley, flipping through a roster of numbers and promising idiots like me that he had their ‘star’ on the Hollywood walk.
‘Here’s the deal…we cast for every major network and every major production company in Los Angeles. We don’t make money until you do. I repeat–we don’t make a dime until you’ve booked your first job through us. When you do start working, our service fee kicks in–$69.95 a month…but really, when you think about it, that’s nothing. You can make up to a hundred dollars a day working on movie sets.’ Was he selling me car insurance?
‘Great, how do I get started?’ I was a sucker, and I knew it, but these were desperate times…and I was desperate. If it got me out of the house two days a week it was better than nothing. At the very least it would prove to my parents that I was on my way.
Shelling out a portion of my ‘allowance,’ a mere $100 a week in exchange for picking up dry cleaning and odd chores around the house, I was relieved when Ultimate Casting booked me a job–and even more relieved to hear that the production was legitimate.
‘It’s a five-day shoot on the Warner Brothers lot,’ said the same supposed frump of a man who had called me the week before. ‘And it’s a period piece, so they want you to sleep in rollers at night. Keep ‘em in until you get to the set the next day. Call time is 7 AM each morning.’
Making it to the Valley from Beverly Hills at the crack of dawn, my head covered in pink sponge curlers, was not quite my cup of tea. The seventy-five-dollar per day fee I was promised didn’t quite average out to a fair amount once it was broken down by the long hours that seemed to drag on forever. My last morning on set, I sat groggily in the makeup chair, waiting to get powdered. The makeup artist who tended to the girl next to me, her brushstrokes creating a completely flawless look in seconds, struck me. She was an artist and hers was a real-life canvas, one that would be seen on film, by millions of people worldwide.
‘I took a SPFX course over the summer a couple years ago–it was kind of cool–we did a lot of horror-movie-type stuff,’ I eagerly told her when it was my turn. I had hoped that would’ve impressed her, but she simply smiled and nodded.
‘I think I would be good at makeup–I’ve always had a knack for it. But…how would I even start?’ I asked.
‘To get the good jobs–to be a professional,’ the woman said, ‘you would need to align yourself with a big company…one that will commission you to travel and to work on events all over the world.’
‘Umm…and how do I do that?’ I asked confused.
‘You’d be invited in for an interview with a makeup line and to do a demonstration for them…but before you could even get an interview you’d have to have a working portfolio and a video reel,’ she sniffed.
‘Wow, okay. I mean, do you need to take classes someplace, or what?’
‘Most lines offer advanced classes for artists who are already considered professionals, there’s nothing for those that are aspiring.’ She stopped for a moment and then raised an eyebrow as if she was about to tell me a secret. ‘Your best bet would be to apprentice for an artist that’s already established. That way you can get your feet wet right away. Look, I don’t have anything right now, but I have a girlfriend who works for a line in Beverly Hills and she gets booked for entertainment and high-fashion jobs all the time. I’m sure she could use some help.’
A week later I accepted an apprenticeship with Sheryl Lane, or as the slogan on her website read, ‘Sheryl Lane, Makeup Artist to the Stars!’ I would be available to Sheryl five days a week, possibly more–starting at 8 AM and working as long as she needed me.
As I walked into the house, the smell of chicken roasting from the kitchen caught me off guard. My mother rarely cooked when I was in high school, and since I’d returned from Boston and settled back into the home I’d grown up in, it had become even more infrequent.
‘Special occasion?’ I asked, throwing my messenger bag clumsily on the floor near the back door. She looked up from the counter where she was preparing green beans to give me a disgusted look.
‘I’m just cleaning up in here, do you really have to leave your mess all over the floor?’
‘My mess?’ I asked before pointing down toward my bag that I left in the same place every day. ‘You mean this?’ Consumed with the green beans once again, she merely nodded. As I was scooping my belongings off of the floor, my father breezed through the back door, looking famished.
‘It’s almost done,’ my mother said seeing the look on his face. ‘Jackie, put out some silverware and get ready to eat.’
We ate in silence for the first few minutes until my father loudly cleared his throat. ‘Since we’re all here, we should probably talk.’
‘About?’ Though I had tried to conceal it in my voice, the aggression with which I forked my food back and forth along my plate hinted at my annoyance.
‘It didn’t sound to me, when we spoke on the phone today, like you are too interested in going back to school,’ my mother said slowly. Too interested? The way she said it made me cringe, as if I had been stringing her along, forcing her to cling on to some sort of hope when in reality I’d been brutally honest with her for months.
‘I’m not,’ I said.
‘So working at that makeup store, which is perfectly fine if that’s what you want, is the plan?’ my father asked, raising an eyebrow.
‘Yeah. For now, anyway.’ I didn’t know if makeup was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life, but it was something I was good at, and something I could even be great at–something that would take me places. I could tell from their frowning faces, however, that this wasn’t the answer they were looking for.
‘Well, if this is going to be your career it’s only fair that you start supporting yourself financially. A girl your age shouldn’t be living rent free,’ my father said. I scowled. I could only imagine what most of the kids I’d grown up with in Beverly Hills were up to. I could just imagine them now, lounging