I’m proud of my short, aborted Hollywood career. I don’t want to brag but I made a little money back then, you know, it was cool. Added up it was probably like $1000 in earnings, but we’re talking 1981 dollars; and, adjusted for inflation I’d probably be sittin’ pretty if it was now! In my day I got to rub elbows with luminaries like Michael Hershewe, who parlayed a guest starring performance on a Charlie’s Angels episode in 1980 into a starring role playing a kid named Todd on a sitcom called “American Dream” that was cancelled after 4 episodes. But I simply knew him as Mike from 8th Grade cooking class.
Yeah, I guess you’d say there were celebrities galore at LeConte Jr. High. Eventually it occurred to me, “Why shouldn’t I get a piece of the action?” I mean really.
There was another kid from LeConte who was in a movie with my TV hero, Tom Selleck; that news was announced one day during a special assembly. I wasn’t competitive by nature but I knew right then I had to do my part, and yeah, eventually I did a few things. I’d like to add that I also did a few things I’m not that proud of but frankly my body of work is not large enough to encompass all of those swings of fate. For like Greta Garbo (and Billy Joel) I said goodbye to Hollywood.
But the stuff’s out there, from the DVDs in the bargain bin at Planet Earth’s last known Blockbuster to the dusty dark storehouses of some corporate entity out in so-and-so Kentucky. Other artists are a little more visible nowadays, like Michael (whose career was also pretty short) to the kid in the Tom Selleck movie. And why, just because they talked on screen and I didn’t? Blah blah blah.
I found them all on the Internet, the Internet Movie Database, to be more specific. Seeing all these entries, I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t it would be cool if one day I could……” followed by “Nah, never mind.” After all, I’d reflect, I really shot myself in the foot that long ago day at Paramount Studios (but I don’t want to reveal too much), I did this all to myself. Maybe I just didn’t deserve it. If so I would never have recognition for all those hard hours I toiled away in Hollywood.
Well, I’m proud to announce I’ve finally done it; I have arrived. All it took was 34 years, the advent of social media, and an offhand suggestion from my sister-in-law.
“Hey, why don’t you submit your acting credit(s) to IMDb; I mean, you have nothing to lose, right? Why not?”
So I did. I wondered if they’d look me up and laugh, but what I really hoped was that they’d look me up and say, “You know, I always wondered what happened to that fucking guy!” The truth is the reaction was probably somewhere in the middle (but more toward the first thing). I got up the next day and checked the site and well……..behold!
There it is. I exist in some form as a Hollywood player. The past is, in some way, the present now. I was going to tell you about my career details but now you can just read about it! It’s got me to thinking, and call me crazy, but I’ve been considering picking up those old masks of Thalia and Melpomene and taking another crack at it, if for anything than just to see my credits jump from 1981 to 2015. I could add on my bio that I was in prison. I have a beachhead on IMDb, it’s my job to make it grow. And to repeat the phrase my sister and law coined, “Why not?”
Anyway, I hear they’re looking for things like zombies for “The Walking Dead.” Maybe it’s time to tap in and show them what I can do. In today’s money I could quit my day job! But until then, if anyone has an IMDb Pro membership, let me know; I need to submit my head shot.
