Secrets of a Soap Opera Diva (16 page)

“Bitch.”

“Double bi’aaatch.”

“Phillip, you’re in the zone right now. Can we get back to work before your tears dry up? I hate when you use that damn menthol contraption for artificial crying,” said Julius.

Exasperation washed over Phillip’s crimson face, a face that conspicuously had too much M-A-C makeup layered on it.

“You know the deal,” placated the director over the loudspeaker. “It’s for the fans that missed yesterday’s episode.”

Smiling to myself, I watched a furious Phillip prance back to his mark, a miniature sandbag with a pink “X” embroidered on it compliments of the Pattern Cutter.

“Let’s pick it up,” commanded the stage manager. “Five, four, three, two,
go
!”

“For crissakes, Calysta, don’t say that,” Phillip fumed, breaking the imaginary fourth wall.

“Don’t say what?”

“That line about jumping brooms and
partying
,” he hissed. “It isn’t in the script and mucks up my timing.”

“Here we go again with the
acting police
. Why are you such a nitpicking
yawn
? Just say the words so we can move on.”

“
Cut
!” Julius yelled. “Now what?”

“Said somethin’ that’s not in the script. Phillip’s having another meltdown.”

“Be right there,” an unraveling Julius said.

“It’s called
improvising,
Phillip
, embellishing, gilding the lily
? Adds
flayvah
and it’s what makes a scene sing and Ruby Stargazer who she is,
real
. You might try it sometime instead of obsessively goin’ by every
if, and,
and
but
in your pretentious script binder. This ain’t Shakespeare, pal.
”

“Who the hell do you think you are?”

Method acting could be such a good thing but bubblers like Phillip McQueen gave it a bad reputation. He had no problem suspending reality when it came to being
Mahstah
of fictitious Fink Manor, which consisted of two interchangeable 15 x 15 rooms boasting mirrors and beaux art appointments, faux-painted plywood walls, a stairway to nowhere, an oversize chandelier, a
huge
bucolic estate backdrop dotted with grazing horses in the distance, and of course a loyal maid named Queenie. The pompous actor had everything he needed to go back, say, four hundred years.

Equally as alarming was how excited Jade and Ethan got over the occasional scene written for them in the Fink
big house.

“Calysta, did you hear the news? Our wedding is going to be at Fink Manor!” Ethan had exclaimed, nearly wetting himself, as if it were Versailles.

I had looked at the Uncle Tom and thought,
When is he going to wake up?

Perhaps I was hypersensitive to the display, hailing from Mississippi, but that couldn’t be a bad thing.

“Listen you cross-eyed yokel, I know exactly who
I
am and who you’re
not
and that’s a few things. If I were you, I’d force quit now before I give
Daytime Confidential
the exclusive they’ve been sniffin’ around for.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, so now your incendiary ass is deaf?”

“Okay, okay, guys, we have guests on the set. Cool it,” Julius warned, joining us.

“She keeps changing the lines,” Phillip complained. “I’m just trying to get some artistic clarity here.”

“McQueen is being anal
as usual
.”

“Calysta, would you please not change what’s written? You know how sensitive Phillip is about the script and tag lines. You also know the rules, if you don’t get your changes in before five o’clock you’re SOL. Now let’s finish this damn scene. The soap is on an ultratight budget, we have a boatload of work to do before lunch, and the producers don’t have time for friggin’ bickering!”

“
Fine,
” I retorted. “Next time, King Lear should find a few minutes to rehearse this poetic magic instead of posturing in the mirror with a can of hair spray and a mascara wand.”

Phillip had selectively forgotten that I’d pitched him to my actress-turned-prime-time-casting-director friend Boston Ferrar, years earlier when things were placid on
R&R.
Don’t get me wrong, I definitely had my reservations from the get-go, but everyone faked the funk. Boston was under the gun and needed to quickly recast an actor who’d come down with a nasty case of adult chicken pox. She was in search of a leading man on a popular David Kelley series for six episodes.

Stupidity being the voice of reason, agentless McQueen telephoned casting, saying, “The role is simply too small.” That was the last time I ever recommended an actor for anything. McQueen was aiming high after all, he liked being a big minnow in a small pond and he got his wish, Top Frog.

From my first day on the
R&R
set, Augustus had encouraged me to flesh out the soul of Ruby Stargazer over many a dinner and gin and tonic. His instincts were razor sharp and our hard work was validated when fan mail and reviews poured in from all over the country and around the world. Fans thanked
The Rich and the Ruthless
creator for finally putting a relatable crossover character of color
on
his show and
in
a meaty role.

Conversely, I still couldn’t smash through the glass sudser ceiling. And the second Augustus relinquished control, Edith and her crew, including a paid-off reporter with a bad attitude, worked overtime, chipping away.

I reminded myself,
Twenty-four hours, and then I’m scot-free like Celie in
Purple,
just one more freakin’ day.

W
ith soft harp music playing in the background, Maeve Fielding, the salty tough-as-nails octogenarian who played matriarch Lady Leslie Lovekin on
The Rich and the Ruthless,
said, “I hate these goddamn all-day weddings.”

Barely able to blink from her homemade face-lift, Maeve, along with the rest of the cast, was seated on the Wedding of the Century set, waiting for Ruby Stargazer to make her appearance, descending the enormous sweeping staircase and gliding down the rose-petal-lined aisle in the Fink Manor living room.

Maeve turned the hands of time back three decades, recalling Alison in her first, now infamous scene on
The Rich and the Ruthless,
so popular to this day it’s a top-rated clip on YouTube. Maeve’s character tried to reason with her rebellious teenage daughter Rory Lovekin, played by
Alison Fairchild Roberts, attempting to talk her out of her harebrained scheme to trap Barrett Fink into marriage with another spawn.

Following take after take, Maeve—who’d been kicked out of Old St. Vincent’s convent in Girardeau, Missouri, a gazillion years ago for beating up another nun, had run off to join Hollywood’s nostalgic Golden Age, and had married three times (rumored to have murdered her last two husbands)—had had enough of the ingénue’s snot hanging from her nose.

Unscripted, she’d grabbed Alison by her ponytail, cussing her out, “Listen, you little bitch, you have the acting skills of a lobotomized chihuahua,” before storming off the set. All caught on tape. Hating each other ever since, the thespians never showed it in public.

“So Maeve, did you hear—”

“No, I didn’t hear and I don’t care.”

“Randall and I may be going to Cannes this year. And I’m auditioning for
Dancing with the Stars
next week.” Alison gloated, seated next to her in a Madras dress, digging out her blush and compact from a makeup kit.

“I haven’t watched that show since those boobs picked Cloris Leachman over me. How dare they? I used to be a hoofer and I coulda’ danced circles around that broad.”

“I could just faint, I’ve been dieting all week for my audition,” Alison continued.

“I can’t wait to faint in this goddamned wedding scene so I can crawl the hell back to my dressing room, take off this freakin’ suit, and beeline it to the airport.” The legendary soap star was scheduled to appear the next day on
Celebrity Poker
in Las Vegas.

“Oh, Maeve, stop complaining, it’s a mystery that Felicia still insists on writing for your character after that pathetic on-camera gastro-bypass storyline fiasco. That was really desperate.”

“No more desperate than your last extreme acid peel, which kept you out of work for two weeks.”

“In case you didn’t know, our target demo is women eighteen to forty-nine, not seventy-five to a hundred and two . . . and since no one else will tell you, you’ve got
grandma
caked in the corners of your mouth.”

“She-devil,” Maeve hissed.

“That’s quite enough from both of you,” boomed Wolfe Hudson, the dashing, sophisticated Danish-born leading man, seated behind them next to his new love interest Dr. Justine Lashaway, played by the sexy, much younger Shannen Lassiter. “These are Calysta’s last scenes and you boobs are already making it difficult enough for her. And take off those hideous slippers and put your heels on, Alison, so that ve can shoot this shit. I have an important meeting with James Cameron tonight.”

“Figures you would defend that lunatic,” she shot back.

“Hey, Alison, keep your opinion to yourself,” Shannen exclaimed. “Calysta’s my friend.”