P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

MAKING IT IN HOLLYWOOD

It was a wet, rainy day in L.A., and Dillon was in a blue funk. He hadn’t had a call-back in three weeks and the rent was due. He and Grady lived on the fringe of the Hollywood scene, the epitome of the expression “starving actors.” Grady had gotten a bit piece in a TV commercial for some dot.com venture, but Dillon’s last work had been just as a walk-through-the-set extra on an episode of CBC’s Everybody Loves Raymond. A few bucks and a free trip through their buffet line before the Tuesday evening shoot. It was a daily grind: hustle, hustle, pass out cards, call your agent, scour the Internet, read Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.

And it was in one of the industry job sheets that Dillon saw the ad: “Thirty actors needed, age 25-35, medium build, all ethnicities. White pants, black T shirt, bring head shot, resumé.” There was a phone number to call, and also the time and place. Lot B, S&G Associates, which Dillon recognized as a film company in the Warner Brothers family. They had a reputation around town for being a bit quirky, but very solid. Good pay. Getting your foot in the door at S&G was rumored to be a quick ticket to HBO or Showtime movies and even feature films. So Dillon circled the ad and looked with a bemused grimace in his Palm Pilot. Yes, of course, next Tuesday was open. It was wide open. The whole stupid week was wide open. And he said to himself, “If I don’t get something, I swear, by the end of the month, I’m going back to Kansas, Dorothy.”

Grady dragged himself in around eight, toting a half a carton of pizza he’d scored at the restaurant he was part-timing at. “A guy at Touchstone told me there was a Lifetime pilot we might get on,” he announced. “He was going to put in a good word for us with the A.D.”

“That’d be good.” Dillon took a piece of the pizza and showed his roommate the ad in Variety. “Huh,” Grady said, scanning it. “White pants, black T shirt. Bring your own wardrobe, looks like.”

“Yeah, well . . . beggars can’t be choosers. And S&G is right up there with the big boys.”

Grady nodded. “Can’t hurt to try. It beats getting evicted from this Beverly Hills mansion.”

Next Tuesday afternoon the two guys drove down to Burbank and gave the security guy at the gate their names. They parked the car and got out with their resumés and head shot in a folder. “Well, wish us luck,” Grady said, looking up at the sky. Dillon scanned the lot. “Looks like it’s clear over there. Studio seven.”

As they made their way across the parking lot, they spotted a black Camry with its hood up. A large woman wearing the ill-fitting uniform of a Warner “go-fer,” a studio flunkee, was peering in frustration at the engine.

“What’s up, sister?” Dillon, always the Type A extrovert, walked over to her.

She sighed. “I think I left the lights on.”

“All day?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. I was running late ‘cause there was a shoot starting at seven, and they needed me to help with the studio audience. And I guess I just ran in and didn’t think.”

“Well, I’ve got jumper cables,” Dillon offered.

Grady glanced at his watch. “You sure we got time, man? The call’s in, like, ten minutes.”

Dillon gave a shrug. “Well, we can’t just leave her. Come on, only take a sec.” He sprinted back to his own car and quickly drove up, parking next to the Toyota, hood to hood. Efficiently doing the attachments, he directed the studio lady: “Okay, fire her up.” The Toyota engine sputtered to life and she gave it a grateful burst of throttle.

“Sounds like it’s okay.”

“All right,” Grady said. “Be sure to keep it running for 20 minutes or so.”

“That’s no problem,” she said. “My sister and I live clear out in Pasadena.”

“That’ll do it,” the taller actor said. “But now we better hustle.”

The two young men gunned back to their original parking spot, then jogged anxiously to the studio. Scattered around the lobby were a good 50 guys – all wearing the white pants, the black T shirt, the tense look, the head shot.

Right at 4:00 a nervous-looking man wearing the same Warner Brothers company jacket came into the room with a clipboard. “Excuse me,” he said to the black-and-white crowd. “S&G’s running a bit behind. I was told to shoo you all over to the cafeteria, and you can grab a quick snack. They’ll page us when they’re ready.”

“Free food!” someone in the back shouted, and the men all laughed. Starving artists took that bonus every chance they could.

Dillon and Grady each piled a plate high with sandwiches, gourmet chips, and all the macadamia nut cookies their pride would permit.

Right then a waitress for the cafeteria, carrying a big bowl of spaghetti, tripped on somebody’s backpack. There was a huge, sloppy crash! as the marinara sauce splashed all over, making a slippery red puddle on the floor. The actors gave the typical mock cheer. “Good shot!” “Splish splash, time to take a bath!” The girl, a thin woman with stringy hair, choked back a sob of embarrassment and began to dab at the mess with a towel.

Grady hesitated. “White pants, black T shirt,” the ad had said. Fifty other actors were impeccably attired, ready to wow the studio executives with their acting, their singing, their dancing, their spiked hair and Ben Affleck chiseled looks. And on the sticky floor, this young girl was trying to mop up the marinara. A moment later he and Dillon came over to her. “Need a hand?” Dillon asked gently.

She looked up in surprise. “Sure. That’d be great. But . . .” The woman looked around at the crowd. “You’ll mess up your clothes and all.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Grady responded. “Is there a mop anyplace?”

She pointed to a small closet next to the buffet line. “In there, I think.” Moments later the two artists were helping corral the tomato sauce and pasta into a plastic Glad bag. Even though they were careful, both men soon had little scarlet flecks all over their white pants. In the men’s room, they washed their hands and tried to scrub out the worst of the stains, but it was a losing cause.

“Oh well,” Dillon muttered. “Kansas is pretty this time of year.”

The balding guy with the clipboard herded the 50 actors into a room with a large stage and a bank of lights. “Okay,” he announced. “I want you to meet Elaine Townsend, executive producer in charge of Standing On My Right, the new S&G film for CBS.”

Grady squinted in confusion as a woman wearing a $600 business suit strode to the microphone. Without hesitation she scanned the crowd and then pointed right at him. “You,” she said. “And you.” She gestured at Dillon.

“What in the world . . .”

Dillon gave a sudden start. “This is wild,” he said. “Grady, that’s the lady in the parking lot. The one with the dead battery.”

The taller actor suddenly couldn’t get his feet to move. “You’re right,” he whispered. “What’s going on?” Fifty pairs of eyes followed the two men with the stained white pants as they went up onto the platform.

Ms. Townsend shook Dillon’s hand, then Grady’s. “Gentlemen, Standing On My Right is a very special movie, a spiritual story. We wanted a certain kind of person. And I regret to tell you that there are really just two openings for this film. These actors have filled the slots, and the audition is closed.” She gestured to the side of the stage where a second woman was walking toward the mike. “And here’s our director for Standing On My Right, Shelly Black.” The slender executive, also immaculately dressed and with her hair now styled, nodded to the disappointed actors in their seats who were gathering up their things. It was the waitress who had spilled the sauce, of course, and she cleared her throat to explain.

“Earlier today, out in the parking lot, a tired go-fer from Warner Brothers had a dead battery. A good number of you just trotted on by, because you were busy. You had an interview to get to, and that’s all right. But these two men right here — and I still don’t know their names — stopped to help Elaine get her car going. She wasn’t really going anywhere, of course – it was just an act because she lives in Beverly Hills, not Pasadena — but you two men passed the test. Then when I had my little spaghetti spill, the rest of you wannabe actors cheered and laughed and enjoyed the moment, but these same two actors here, with marinara sauce still on their white pants, stopped to help a minimum-wage waitress. Or at least that’s what they thought I was. Now they’re going to have the co-starring lead roles in a six million dollar television film for CBS.”

“But we didn’t know!” An angry actor with a goatee stepped out from the crowd. “I’d have helped if I’d known it was you.”

“These two actors didn’t know us either,” the powerful Hollywood director chided. “They just thought I was a dumb Warner Brothers chick who spilled the spaghetti. Well, let me tell you something. If an actor in white pants helps a waitress here at Warner Brothers, he’s really helping me. That’s how I look at it.” She smiled. “And the whole country’s going to be looking at” — she glanced at their resumés — “Dillon and Grady this coming Thanksgiving weekend as the starring lead actors in Standing On My Right.”

The 50 other actors slowly filed out of Warner Brothers and into the evening traffic of downtown Burbank, where there was weeping and gnashing of teeth.