Long Legs and Tall Tales: A Showgirl's Wacky, Sexy Journey to the Playboy Mansion and the Radio City Rockettes (19 page)

Step #2: Update my photos. A new showbiz friend of mine recommended a good, local photographer for professional, theatrical headshots.

Step #3: Get an agent. Isn’t that what entertainers do? It would sound so cool to say, “My agent this and my agent that.” But where would I find an agent? I grabbed the Yellow Pages, located one of the few legitimate talent agencies in San Diego, and bravely called the number.

Surprising to me, joining the agency was a piece of cake—no audition, no rigorous resume examination, no screening for super model status. They didn’t seem particularly selective; I think they took anyone with professional photos. I just had to bring in a healthy supply of headshots for them to add to the towering stacks covering the floors of their cramped, tiny rooms. I really didn’t know what to expect of an agent, but what did I have to lose? Apparently, about 15% a gig, that’s what. They gave me agency address labels to stick on my headshots in place of my personal address. I now had “representation!”

My first agency job was serving as an “extra” in the movie
Mr. Jones
starring none other than the incredibly debonair Richard Gere and alluring Lena Olin. I was eager to find out what it was like to be on a movie set. How were the scenes filmed? How did the director work with the actors? Did acting look like something I was capable of doing? More importantly, what did a sexy superstar look like in person?

Lucky for me, the movie industry was filming more and more movies in San Diego as they were saturating L.A. locations. I also heard that the Los Angelenos were sick and tired of being regularly inconvenienced by movie studios and their recurring demands to close off streets for filming. As a result, this particular scene was being filmed in front of the San Diego County Courthouse. My agent instructed me to dress like a lawyer, meaning to wear a skirt suit and high heels.

As did all the other extras, I spent the day outside in the sun with the “Second A.D.” (assistant director) and “Third A.D.”—a young man and woman who wore headsets and shuffled us around like cattle herders. “Okay, when I cue you, you four walk across the sidewalk to the other side of the building and wait there,” the Second A.D. said. We’d hear the “snap” of the clapboard and the “Take 10!” Then it was “Back to one!” which meant back to our starting position. The harried A.D.s were constantly running to shove real pedestrians, as opposed to the hired movie extra pedestrians, out of the way or to stop traffic or stop something that was going to ruin the shot. As a consequence, sometimes we had to repeat the same moves over and over and over again: “Take 11! Back to one!” “Take 12! Back to one!” “Take 13! Back to one!” It was like a real-life version of pressing rewind on your DVD remote and then pressing play…rewind…play….rewind…play.

As extras, we were treated more like props than people. I felt subservient and powerless, but I actually had the ability to spoil the shot, thereby wasting time, thereby costing the movie copious amounts of money. Feeling rebellious after hours of slave labor, I was tempted to do cartwheels instead of my quick-paced lawyer stride but decided I wasn’t ready to give up showbiz just yet.

Most of the time, I stood way out in the boondocks waiting for something to happen. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. I kept watching for Richard Gere but was so far from the action that I needed binoculars to see the stars for any positive identification. At one point I got close enough to see the directors and “their people.” They actually sat on directors’ chairs labeled with their names, just like in the movies. Cool. Later in the day, the extras were all abuzz exclaiming, “There’s Richard Gere!” I turned in time to gaze upon his famous pepper-gray hair. He was extremely handsome. I craned my neck to hear what was going on in the scene and to decipher the directions given by the director, but, alas, I couldn’t hear much. While certainly fascinating to witness the workings of a movie set, it was also a long day, which got boring quickly. Especially since we did a whole lot more standing around waiting than we did acting. By definition, we were extra. What did I expect?

As luck would have it, I got called a second time to film for
Mr. Jones
, this time in Mission Beach at a casual, little restaurant not far from the ocean. My big acting assignment was to be a restaurant patron who would stir some fake coffee at a table and try not to attract attention. “Pretend you are conversing or eating or drinking but don’t stand out and pull focus away from the stars,” ordered one of the A.D.s. This was a little more fun, because I was right in the heart of the scene and could watch the action. But did I really think my lot in life was to feign beverage mixing while remaining unnoticeable?

The best part of the job was, by far, the free food. A food trailer that the actors and crew referred to as “craft services” provided a selection of drinks, fruit, yogurt, bagels, muffins, and more as well as an extensive, short-order, hot menu. I wasn’t getting real acting experience, but I certainly was well fed.

*******

The following spring when auditions came around again for Starlight Bowl’s Summer Series, I was poised, ready, and waiting with a year of voice lessons under my belt and a new song prepared. Happily, Don and Bonnie Ward were at the helm again. “Your work on your singing has paid off. You’ve improved a lot,” they announced after my vocal audition, like proud parents giving their nod of approval. Between my audition and my work on
The Wizard of Oz
the previous year, I must have done something right, because this time I was cast in all five shows for the summer stock season. They even cast me in
Camelot
, which everyone knew was a singer show not a dancer show. I was on cloud nine, my feet barely touching the ground. I was going to be performing and only performing—no more teaching aerobics or selling art—for the whole summer! Being one of only three gals and three guys cast for the entire season, I felt like I had won the lottery.

Summer stock—a series of plays performed over the course of the summer, mostly outdoors—served as an intensive musical theatre immersion course for me. Once the first show was up and running, we’d started rehearsing the next show during the day while performing the current one at night. Talk about a way to learn the ropes lickety-split. My salary—$200 a week per musical—didn’t get me far, but with paychecks from working two musicals at a time overlapping, I could get by. It was enough dough that I could afford to move into my own studio apartment in a two-story, eight-unit building in Hillcrest—a fashionably funky neighborhood in San Diego close to where I’d be performing. Hillcrest was a charming town chock full of cute shops, swanky restaurants, and flocks of gay men. Hence the charm, cute shops, and swanky restaurants! I adored it.

Every morning I’d cheerfully make coffee and put on my leotard, aerobics shorts, and terry cloth head band, channeling Olivia Newton John from her 1981 hit, “Physical.” I’d juice some apples, carrots, and celery in my juicer—a healthy California practice I had adopted—to take along with my sack lunch. I’d load up my large duffel bag with every type of dance shoe I owned plus a book, magazine, small tape recorder, pencil, notebook, and water bottle and joyfully head out to WORK at the rehearsal hall. I was happy to get up in the morning, to be able to dance and sing and hang out with outrageously fun people. I felt so alive!

Our first show of the season,
Gypsy
, was performed at the San Diego Civic Theatre where I’d done
The Wizard of Oz. Gypsy
is the true story of a famous stripper named “Gypsy Rose Lee” and is based on her memoirs from 1957. It tells the tale of the obnoxious stage mother, Rose, who pushes her two daughters to become famous vaudeville performers during the depression.

One daughter, Louise, is very shy and always takes a backseat to her outgoing sister, June, who is the highlight of the act in which they sing “Let Me Entertain You.” Eventually, June has enough of Mama Rose’s demands and runs off with a boy. Now all of Rose’s dreams of stardom fall upon poor Louise. Pathetically, Mama Rose sings “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” to convince herself and Louise that they’ll be okay without June.

Everything comes up more thorns than roses, as vaudeville venues fade away, until Louise’s act ends up at a burlesque house and she is introduced to the seduction of stripping. When one of the main strippers is arrested, Rose makes one last, desperate attempt to turn Louise into a star by making her fill the vacant stripper spot. It works, and Louise, who takes the stage name “Gypsy Rose Lee,” becomes famous for baring her body.

In an uncanny similarity to my real-life situation, I got cast as one of the Hollywood blonds—an entourage of peroxide blonds attempting to become starlets in Hollywood. In one dance number, I was asked if I could hold my leg over my head and jump around in a circle. “Are you kidding? That’s my specialty!” I replied, this being the very move that had garnered me adulation as a kid in the dance recital at Josie’s. Unfortunately, this time my costume consisted of pajamas and a hideous hairpiece rolled up in curlers—not exactly the glamour-do I would have preferred.

Unfairly, I also got cast in every other embarrassing part in the show. At rehearsal, our choreographer Toni Kaye called over to Dana (the gal with whom I’d flapped around as a big bird in
The Wizard of Oz
) and me. “What have we done?” I wondered. “I want you two to be Dainty June’s cow, Caroline, for the farm boy number,” Toni announced. “Dana, you will be the head and Kristi will be…” “The cow’s behind?” I blurted out in horror. My excitement about the show suddenly took a dump. I had to bend over and hold onto Dana’s waist, my head resting inches from her rear end, underneath a cow costume, and do a dance number with June. I could see the entire cast snickering, the cow and butt jokes formulating in their brains, and the relieved looks on their faces that they were not chosen to be bovine buttocks.

Staying crouched beneath a sweltering cowhide, into and out of which we had to be snapped by wardrobe, was extremely uncomfortable. My part was certainly easier—Dana had the tricky job of maneuvering the animal’s mouth and blinking eyes while dancing—but far more dangerous being in such a precarious face-to-fanny position.

Toni was apologetic and tried to ease the pain by promising to never make us be animals again. In spite of her asinine assignment, she became one of my favorite choreographers of all time. She was talented, kind, and respectful. I was thoroughly spoiled with my bosses. The funny thing is, being the cow’s caboose was the highlight of my show in the end. The part garnered us so much attention from the rest of the cast that it became a wonderful ice breaker. Cast members gave me cow-related gifts including a cow magnet for my fridge, and, in return, I made everyone cow-shaped cookies for opening night.

As if being the udder half of a cow wasn’t bad enough, Dana and I were also chosen to be Roman gladiators. Set in a burlesque house, we were no ordinary gladiators, however. We were strippers dressed loosely as gladiators, wearing little more than a feather-bedecked helmet and knee-high lace-up heels. As does any warrior worth her weight in gold, we carried a shield and spear for protection. Other than that, we were fairly vulnerable and exposed to the elements.

When the wardrobe mistress handed us our costumes, I butted in, “Where is the rest of it?” The top was a shrunken, pseudo bikini top with clear plastic straps, so we would appear nude behind the shield. For the bottom, we were to wear a gold G-string, which consisted of a one-half-inch strip of fabric that went around the hips, embellished with a few, minuscule, dangling sequined decorations, connected by another half-inch strip that went under the crotch and butted up against a tiny triangle of fabric concealing the front. I’m no astronomer, but I’d say this was about as close to a full moon as one should ever get. During the show, we walked across stage safely hidden behind our shields until we turned around to exit, at which point the audience caught a view of our bare backsides. Great. Once again, I was the butt of jokes. Why me? Why was it always me? Shouldn’t the degrading bits have been doled out more fairly? It was amazing how many crew members managed to show up in time to see us strut across stage every night. We fought them off left and right.

I was mortified at having to prance around half naked while being leered at, but eventually I learned to make the most fun out of an embarrassing situation as possible. Everyone else was having a good laugh at our expense; we might as well join them and throw it back at them. Herbie—the lead male and Mama Rose’s love interest—had to wait in the wings for his cue at the same time we were there for our gladiator cross, so he always got an eye full. He was a sweet, sexy, blond guy close to fifty who had done soap operas and TV shows. I thought, “Wow! Here is a real star!” To counteract our embarrassment, Dana and I would try to embarrass him instead. One night we drew heart tattoos on our heinies with black eyeliner and red lipstick that read “Herbie, TLA (true love always).”

In addition to the cringe-worthy roles, the directors were kind enough to offer me several tasty bit parts including that of Gypsy Rose Lee’s French maid. Although I had only one line, which consisted of two words, “Oui, Madame,” I agonized over how to say it. Should I use a French accent? Should I put the emphasis on the ”Ma” or the ”dame”? Should I use Method acting and dig deep into my previous travels in Paris, recalling all my conversations with Parisians? When I was fifteen and visiting a McDonald’s fast food joint in Paris while on vacation, I tried ordering dinner for my family in French, being the most proficient speaker of the bunch with two years of middle school français under my belt. My request for “
deux Big Macs et un cheeseburger
” received the response, “That will be 75 francs,” spoken in perfect English by the French cashier. I felt incredibly stupid. The real question is, what on earth were we doing eating McDonald’s while in one of the greatest culinary cities in the world?