Ed Wood - Hollywood Rat Race

This book made available by the Internet Archive.

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011

http://www.archive.org/details/hollywoodratraceOOwood

CHAPTER ONE

Hollywood and You

You became a typist for an insurance company!

You became a clerk in a department store!

You tried your hand in one of the many laundries!

You had to take a waitress job at a drive-in!

You failed as an actor or actress in Hollywood!

Some of you started in grade school or even as early as kindergarten. Perhaps it was only to dress up in Mother's clothes or put on Dad's pants, hat, and vest, but in actuality you were playing a part. It is natural in the very young to play act, to make believe.

Then later, other desires and ambitions take over. The drama teacher may have a hard time finding enough exhibitionists for the annual plays, but you are not shy. Not you! You knew you wanted to be an actor or actress more than anything else in the whole wide world. Haven't you been reading every movie magazine you could get your hands on since the time when you could only understand the pictures? Aren't you always the first to volunteer? Aren't you

readily acceptable? At the outset, you get only the smaller parts a gingerbread girl or boy in the yearly Hansel and Gretel or one of the group in the just as yearly Alice in Wonderland.

Then the following year you'd made it. You played a wicked stepfather or mother in Hansel and Gretel, followed by a fine job as the mean old Mad Hatter or Queen in Alice in Wonderland

So sad! It seemed, even early in your career, you were destined to be the old, wretched ones. Where are the fine clothes of the lovely ladies? But all that changed the following year when you got the lead.

You've arrived. You're just wonderful. Your mom, your dad, and all your friends say so. Even your teacher, she's given you an A. (It probably should have been an E for effort.) Nothing can stand in your path now. You even played the lead in your middle-school graduation pageant.

The long summer. You read all the movie magazinesend on end of movie magazines. The stars wear those pretty clothes ... the men are so handsome... the bright, wonderful smiles (courtesy of their dentists)... not a care in the world.

With a glow to your cheeks, with a gleam in your eyes, you proceed to high school! Now it's just a bit harder to get a part in a play, even a walk-on. You find this very difficult to figure out. You were in great demand in elementary school, why not here?

And so you ponder it until you talk to other aspiring young talents. Then you face the facts. High school is the melting pot of many grade schools and their drama classes. Your competition stronger. You must work harder and harder, even the plays are stronger and even the one-line or one-speech bits have become more difficult, as have the teachers. Then comes Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and The Merchant of Venice. But still you cling to your ever present movie magazine.

HOLLYWOOD AND YOU /

The glamour, the lights, the great silver screen of Hollywood. You must act! You must! You must! You must! But how? The competition has become so strong in high school that you want to cry in the hopelessness of the situation. The lines, much more difficult to learn. The teachings and direction, more demanding. It had been so easy back in grade school. Miss Ipswitch had never been this tough. And she liked you. She was a good drama teachershe knew real talent when she saw it. But that high school drama teacher... what's with her? She wouldn't know talent if it jumped out of a bush and bit her.

Is this, then, a first look at what the art of acting is going to be like? More than you can possibly realize.

Acting is an art not easily practiced. Certainly it seemed like all fun (and no work) in the beginning. It was amusement for your friends, parents, and classmates. Now the friends, parents, and classmates are joined by outsiderspeople you have never seen before, nor they you. Besides they are a paying audience and paying audiences want a little more than just you, unless you can really cut the mustard. Now mixed with friends and relatives are those who do not pat you on the head and say, "My, you were wonderful," even if you were not. There may even be a local newspaperman who finds unkind things to say. Certainly the write-ups in the school newspaper will be supercritical.

Throughout your freshman year, you've seen this happen to others, which was bit frightening to say the least. What can you do to avoid that same spot, or shall we say, spotlight.

Ahh, but then it can't happen to you. You're really good. Why you could outact any of the others with your eyes shut. Then why the fear? You've read all the classics. You've seen the best movies, even some foreign movies on the late show on television. And you've read all the movie magazines.

1 on walked right in and told that teacher you were good. And the teacher told you to study harder and harder and harder. You are finding that acting is not an art easily practiced. Your teacher says work and show me how good you are! Is this, then, another glimpse into the future? Isn't acting just getting on stage, or in front of a camera, and saying your lines, then going out and meeting your public to sign autographs? Wearing beautiful satins and furs at the gala openings and premieres that they show in the magazines? Must one work at acting?

In your second year there are no parts for you, you receive C grade for class work, and you realize acting is 90 percent work and study.

Next year you try it and really study harder. More study. More. Your grades go up. You get the second lead in the first play of the season, Uncle Vanya, a tough one to do. Your family, some strangers, even the critics are especially kind. That night at the local sweet shop, you catch your first glimpse of the great 10 percent of the businessglad-handing.

And you look ahead to the glorious future beyond, when school days and school plays are far behind and you are headed for Hollywood where you will try for a career in front of the magic eye of the movie camera. You, young lady, (young men visualize your own packing) will have your suitcases full of your high-school best: sweaters (including a good, fluffy pink angora that cost plenty), blouses, skirts, and the frilly formal you wore to the senior prom. You wonder if these will be good enough for Hollywood as you pack the old school book bag crammed with movie magazines.

You are going to get off the train at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. Having read and reread all your movie magazines you already know what it looks like. You're going to take a taxi right

HOLLYWOOD AND YOU / 5

to a hotel. You're going to bathe; have a good night's sleep; then next morning dress in your expensive pink angora sweater and brown skirt; grab your scrapbook (you've read this is a necessary item to show producers how good you were); and take the studios by storm. Here you are in Hollywood. And Hollywood is damned well going to know it.

Again the taxi comes in handy! "To the nearest studio," you grandly order. You find yourself at Columbia Pictures on Sunset Boulevard at Gower Street.