Hollywood Is Calling

I don’t know why, but I worry about all the has-beens of show business, the child stars who grew up and weren’t cute any more, the actors who almost made it big, the stars who did make it big and then faded. What happens to them? How do they figure out a life for themselves post-fame? How do they keep from feeling like failures in a world that worships fame?

Wait–I do know why I wonder about these things. I had a mild brush with fame myself as a radio newscaster. I actually worked my way to the top of my profession in only four years. Suddenly, I was getting respect from people who wouldn’t have said hello in my waitress days. I had money to burn–and I might has well have burned it because it disappeared as fast as I cashed my checks. And then, as quick as it came, my fame was gone. I managed to get a few radio jobs on the way down, and then I couldn’t even get an interview. My last radio job was working as a $10/hour part-time traffic reporter in 1999. They wouldn’t even hire me full-time.

It was sad, really. The industry had changed and I hadn’t kept up. Or maybe I was overqualified. Or maybe I was just too old. Yeah, that was it. Now what? I didn’t know.

I remembered a story that another young waitress told me as we waited for customers at Langer’s Deli in Los Angeles, back in 1975. Her cousin had played Pete on the hit 60s TV series Mod Squad. When the show was cancelled, she said, her cousin was hit hard. His calls weren’t returned. He couldn’t get a job. He became very depressed and turned to booze. Since then, Michael Cole has made a remarkable personal and professional comeback, not so much regaining his fame as his self-respect.

That’s what interests me–how fame–specifically the loss of it–affects people, how it changes them. And how our culture of fame affects all of us.

I feel a book coming on. Oy.