Does This Youth Hostel Offer a Senior Discount? From Beverly Hills to a Chicken Bus, A Tale of a Hollywood Talent Agent Turned Third World Volunteer

DOES THIS YOUTH HOSTEL

OFFER A SENIOR DISCOUNT?

From Beverly Hills to a Chicken Bus,

A Tale of a Hollywood Talent Agent Turned Third World Volunteer

By

GINGER LAWRENCE

Copyright © 2016 by Ginger Lawrence

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PART ONE, LOS ANGELES

PART TWO, GUATEMALA

PART THREE, LOS ANGELES

PART FOUR, ECUADOR

PART FIVE, LOS ANGELES

PART SIX, NICARAGUA

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

EPILOGUE

DEDICATION

To my greatest achievements – my children.

I made two really good people.

Who can ask for anything more?

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to my sister Kathy and Alom and, of course, Daniel.

PART ONE

LOS ANGELES

My former husband Jack told me, If I lined up 100 people who would go to a Third World country to help impoverished people in the city garbage dump, you wouldn’t even be in the line.

I’m not an adventurous person. That’s what makes what I did so curious. I led the pampered life of a Hollywood talent agent, mother, grandmother, homeowner, and 65-year-old prima donna. How did I chuck all of that to teach English to children living in dire poverty next to the Guatemala City garbage dump?

Why did I trade my meticulously furnished three-bedroom home for a rented cubbyhole in a home stay with a native family?

After years spent relishing my independence from men, why did I wait anxiously on a dusty doorstep in Granada for my always-at-least-three-hours-late 32-year old Nicaraguan lover?

How did I go from carefully planned seclusion, living alone for many years, to sharing hostel accommodations in Ecuador with the boisterous partying Brits?

Why did I leave the security of lifelong college friends to desperately hope some random German 22-year-old girl I’d met five minutes before would invite me to join her for dinner?

How did I, an uptight stickler for on-time performance, learn to relax and accept the así es la vida free-and-easy attitude of Latin America?

No crystal ball could have predicted this.

Perhaps I should explain:

I never found the description She’s set in her ways derogatory. My ways were just fine. Before the improbable U-turn in my life, I was cautious, stingy, reclusive, cranky, single-minded, and inflexible. But when you live alone, those are not bad habits.

Twelve years ago, after our children grew up and moved out, and Jack and I separated, I was the titleholder of organizing and multitasking; there was no one left in my house to nab my ruler or neglect to return my Scotch tape dispenser. I didn’t have to reload the dishwasher after Jack placed his cereal bowl on the bottom rack instead of where it obviously belonged on the top rack. I didn’t have to remake the bed, just because he put the middle size pillow in front of the small pillow. There were standards…and then there were Ginger Standards. OCD worked for me. My pulse raced at the sight of a P-Touch Label Maker. Multicolored file folders from The Container Store made me smile. My spices were alphabetized. My appliance manuals and warranties were carefully filed. My clothes were stacked on shelves according to color and sleeve length. I was a creature of habit. I’d as soon digress from a schedule or a to-do list as plunge my hand in a saucepan of boiling chicken fat. Was there any greater satisfaction than lining up Contact shelf paper to fit a dresser drawer perfectly? The only place I relaxed with a chart-topping page-turner was a hotel room—because, even to me, it seemed senseless to tidy the Marriott’s closets.

I could run a small country. As long as I didn’t have to talk to other people. I was ill at ease in new situations. I had been known to leave a party immediately after arriving if I didn’t recognize anyone. Unfortunately, my profession as a theatrical agent--making calls to sell actor clients to television and motion picture casting directors--never came easy for me. While my dad was a born salesman and I tried to emulate him, I had to steel myself to make every sales call. Couldn’t I just catalogue some documents?

Bashful people don’t often travel alone. Between my two marriages in my 20s, when my friends were either married or chained to work schedules, I traveled solo to Europe. I convinced myself I could do it. In Paris I booked myself into a meant-to-be charming-but-funky Left Bank inn. However, overlooking the alley’s trashcans from my spartan room wasn’t as amusing as it would have been if I’d had a friend to share my distress. I managed to last two lonely days before escaping to the refuge of the ultra-American Paris Hilton Hotel where English was the lobby language. I forced my introverted self out of my London hotel room for the must-see Changing of the Guards. During that trip I envied girls my age, Eurorail Passes in their hands, scrambling companionless up train steps, while I cowered in hotel vestibules hoping to spot American accents.

Since my marriage ended, I’d become the opposite of a people person. Jack was the outgoing one, cramming our calendar with festivities. Now, left to my own devices and reveling in my reclusive tendencies, I was more than happy to put socializing behind me. Compared to me, J.D. Salinger was a party boy.

A corporate workplace was my haven. I liked dressing in professional business attire to spend the day in my executive office. I liked my desk drawers and my file cabinets and my postage machine. I liked my paper clip holder. Growing up, when the neighborhood kids played doctor, I was the receptionist.

But wait--am I coming across as too downbeat? I had many positive qualities. I was reliable, trustworthy, and responsible. You couldn’t find a better friend than me. I beat Lassie in the loyalty department. Swans and bald eagles mate for life; I friended for life. I never forgot a birthday or an anniversary. I never lost touch with high school buddies. If Susan scheduled a week’s trip to Chicago, I’d worry that if I didn’t call her to wish her a good time, she might not have one. If Sandye’s plane landed at LAX after midnight, she didn’t have to hail a taxi; I’d be there to meet her flight.

I wasn’t a woe is me person. (Anyway, it’s woe is I.) I enjoyed a well-ordered tidy predictable life. Except for my career, I had no interest in social activities. I didn’t play volleyball, I didn’t raft, I didn’t climb. Camping held no allure for me. What’s the point of roughing it? I parasailed once in Mazatlan; my first thought aloft was I’m a mother; what the hell am I doing up here? I thought reading a bestseller on a chaise lounge by the pool was an outdoor sport.

I wanted my tombstone epitaph to read, She Got It All Done. None of my idiosyncrasies equipped me for my volunteer life-to-be. One would have thought that someone with my distinctive kinks would stay put rather than, as my mother would have said, gallivanting around the world.

So how did it happen?

In college my friends were all education majors, planning to marry and eventually substitute teach when their children reached school age. A career never seriously occurred to me. That was the 50s; I had no working women role models. I expectantly perused the University of Southern California book of possible coursework but, when I reached the tail end of the alphabet, my only remaining options were Telecommunications or Zoology.

Okay--easy choice. I was already obsessed with celebrities.

The preteen star-struck me actually snipped photos of famous personalities from Modern Screen, Photoplay, and other movie magazines, pasting them into my massive scrapbook collection. Natalie Wood and Rock Hudson were endlessly fascinating. A natural extension of my interests, a career in the entertainment industry made total sense. I loved movies; I adored theater. What better than to earn a paycheck for my hobbies? Upon graduation from USC’s respected Telecommunications Department, I easily found a job at a television network.

David and I were college sweethearts. In 1965, there was no living together. We didn’t know what we wanted (oh, we knew we wanted sex), so we did what all of our peers were doing: We got married. We were too young--and we were too stupid. One day, following a heated argument, I angrily retorted, If you don’t like it, why don’t you leave?

He left. End of marriage. We should have tried harder.

I floated around the entertainment industry for years, freelancing as an assistant or production coordinator for everyone from Orson Welles to Bing Crosby to a Muppet or two. I met Jack Riley on the set of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. I was the producer’s assistant. Jack, a character actor in his 30s, was cast initially in comedy sketches portraying a way-too-young Lyndon Jackson. Jack was kind and funny and attractive. He trumped all the insurance salesmen and stockbrokers on my date card. I was sure I’d found the love of my life. Time slipped away and we lived together for seven and a half years before we focused on making a more serious commitment. Jack hadn’t moved out of his devout Catholic parents’ home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (except for a couple of tours of duty in the army) until he was 29 years old, so he was obviously not a man of action. I followed his lead, putting off parenthood. First I wanted children and he didn’t, then he wanted children and I wasn’t sure I did; then he wanted children…you get the picture.

Jack appeared for six years as a series regular on The Bob Newhart Show. Jack lived his life by committee. During rehearsals Jack would ask the other cast members, Do you think Ginger and I should move in together? He would ask the crew, Do you think we should get married? He would ask the producers, Do you think we should have children? He finally stopped tallying the votes of the actors, the production assistants, and the stage manager. We got married and started a family.

Jack and I had twenty years together and two wonderful children but, despite many happy times, I couldn’t make a go of that marriage either. What happened? Twenty years happened. We grew apart. He went to jazz concerts with his friends. I attended my clients‘ plays on my own. Other than a shared preference for front rows in movie theatres, we had little in common. He would always be an important part of my life, but I obviously wasn’t good at marriage; living with someone who wasn’t me was impossible.

My friend Pam and I identified a need in the entertainment industry and filled it with Good People, a personnel agency specializing in motion picture, television, recording, talent agency, and public relations positions. We never intended to be in the employment agency business as a full-time venture, as we both had thriving production careers, but Good People quickly gathered steam and supplanted our plans. Ten years in, Pam was ordered on bed rest for four months due to a risky pregnancy. Good People was more about Pam’s and my friendship than our partnership; we took her doctor’s command as our impetus to get out of something we never planned to be in.

My career representing actors for feature films, television, and theatre began at Agents for Artists, the firm handling Jack’s acting career. Although I had worked in many arms of the entertainment industry, I had zero experience as a talent agent. The owners were social friends who decided to give me a shot. Agents for Artists had no training program. I had no idea what I was doing. I hate not knowing what I’m doing. During the drive home from work each day, I blubbered over my steering wheel, conjuring up face-saving ways to resign: I would have welcomed a just-to-help-me-out-of-my-predicament pregnancy or perhaps a serious-but-not-so-fatal illness. Unfortunately, quitting is never in my option book, so I dug in my heels and suffered through six miserable months as an agent until I finally figured how to be one.

I was married to a funny man. All of our social friends were actors and comedians. Actors topped my list of the most entertaining and interesting people in any room. When Jack and I hosted a dinner party, hijinks and hilarity were on the menu. I felt a special bond with actors; being married to Jack, I could fake being almost one of them.

I spent ten mostly satisfying, yet often frustrating, years at Agents for Artists. By chance one day, I ran into Denny, one of the other agents, at the shopping mall next door to our office building. Over a cup of coffee, we unloaded on each other.

Flabbergasted, Denny said, You’re considering leaving Agents for Artists? Me too. Let’s talk.

Denny and I had a similar take on the agency business--a way of interfacing with our actors that was decidedly different from our employers. During my tenure, many clients terminated representation with Agents for Artists, protesting as they stopped by my office on their speedy exit to the front door, It’s not about you; Marvin isn’t returning my calls or Ira doesn’t listen to my ideas about my career.

But I was a listener and I returned every call. I loved actors. I was certain Denny and I could do the agency business better! Clear sailing, huh? My ex-partner Pam joined Denny and me in our new venture, and The House of Representatives was born. Now, however, when a client left, it was, indeed, about me.

The House of Representatives was a boutique talent agency. Our agency didn’t represent stars. Tom Cruise was not cooling his heels in our office lobby. Our client list was made up of good solid working performers, some fledgling beginners, and actors who had notable roles in series or features in the past but were no longer being hotly pursued by the major agencies. Our clients were not usually cast as the lead characters; they got parts as the snarky coworker, the nerdy buddy, the chunky girlfriend, and the disgruntled boss. The House of Representatives struggled daily to compete with the formidable established agencies. We walked a financial tightrope, optimistically building a business from the ground up on a shoestring budget.

It was scary, exciting, and fun. Every day was unpredictable. Actors are compelling people. Raconteurs all, they have a steady supply of fascinating tales. When a client dropped by the office, we agents dropped what we were doing to catch up on amusing stories. Sheila, an award-winning actress in her 80s, dished about a recently knighted British actor who demanded that his fellow actors, crew, and staff on the casual set of a low-budget television production address him as Sir. Lolly shared an anecdote about a superstar who burst into tears at the sight of the smaller-than-expected television set in her dressing room.

Denny, Pam, and I counted several of the clients among our social friends. We tried to provide a more personal approach than the larger agencies: We encouraged our clients to call, we urged them to drop by to visit, we put the emphasis on relationships. We perched a bellhop counter bell on the front desk to clang our elation when a client booked a role on a series.

We gave it our all. All made no difference.

After The House of Representatives launched a client on a successful career path, it was an absolute given that the actor would eventually bolt for a large powerhouse agency. During a development period, he or she rarely earned enough to contribute to the office Post-It bill. Then the actor landed a career-changing feature film or NBC series and, spurred by fantasies of stardom, would wave farewell on his way to another agency.

The clients declared, It’s just business, nothing personal.

Of course it was personal. I was there in the office until 8:30 p.m. each night, trying to land auditions for our clients. I was at the office on Saturdays; I was there on Sundays. Actors phoned me after business hours at home. I was in the audience at every one of their plays (and when you have upwards of 300 clients, there were immeasurable one-step-above-a-high-school-Romeo and Juliet productions). I attended their weddings, I baby-gifted their newborns, I sent them sympathy cards, get-well cards, birthday cards. I supported them through affairs, breakups, marriages, and divorces. How was that not personal?

We indulged our clients’ needs, doing our best to keep them happy. But seemingly loyal long-term clients thought nothing of offhandedly firing us, at times by letters addressed To Whom It May Concern from unknown attorneys. Our now ex-clients swore, It’s just business, nothing personal.

We were thrilled when our client Risa Sage booked The House of Representative’s first television pilot. We were not so thrilled when she discouraged us from visiting her on the set, saying, It would make me too nervous to have my agents on the set while I’m shooting.

And we were definitely not thrilled when Risa signed with an agent from a heavyweight agency whom she met on the set while she was shooting. One client’s departure may not have affected our balance sheet but The House of Representatives wasn’t merely a business to us.

When Denny, Pam, and I opened The House of Representatives, I seriously envisioned agency commissions providing a not-too-distant future of lazing on a yacht in the south of France, piña colada in hand. But the entertainment industry pulled a fast one on me.

Unforeseen changes were afoot. Hollywood used to be in Hollywood. Gradually movie and television shows moved their shoots to Shreveport, to Duluth, to Orlando . . . to Detroit, for crissakes! I came from Detroit to work in show business! Rival states’ and countries’ monetary incentives chipped away at California’s movie and television industry. Runaway production put thousands of people in Los Angeles out of work: the set decorators, the make-up artists, the stage managers, the wardrobe people, and certainly the actors. Films shot out of state hired their key lead actors in Los Angeles but the remainder of the parts (likely roles for The House of Representative’s clients) were cast on location.

Reality television? Why don’t they just call it Cheap TV? Networks and cable channels schedule reality shows because they’re much less expensive than scripted programming. But reality shows don’t hire actors. Every hour of The Real Housewives of New Jersey puts dozens of actors out of work.

During my years at Agents for Artists, agents were able to raise their established actors’ daily or weekly or movie rate (called their quote) on some subsequent projects (a raise, if you will), but producers got wise. They realized, Why are we paying actors a decent wage? Actors will work for nothing! And they would, were it not for the Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA, the unions that are there to protect actors from themselves. So, increasingly, except for stars, actors received what’s known as scale, the union minimum payment. And were happy to get it. State law regulated talent agencies; agency commission was set at 10%. As actors’ salaries fell, so did agency revenues. Excuse me, producers, that was my mortgage payment!

Many productions listed their actor specifications in character breakdowns as Star Name Only, meaning unless your agency represented Jennifer Aniston, the prospect of booking your client was dim. There used to be a grand divide between actors who did television and actors who appeared in movies and actors who were cast in theatre. Lines were not crossed. It was considered slumming for Dustin Hoffman to do television. Well, suddenly those lines were blurred. I phoned a casting office to suggest our client Hannah Kemper for a one-shot guest role on a situation comedy and was told, We’re booking Madonna. Oh, please . . . Madonna? Hannah and I competing with Madonna?

Pam, Denny, and I shared a special friendship. We had such fun together. Our partnership was more harmonious and congenial than either of my marriages. Representing our clients was another matter.

Our client Don Pastor had triumphed through four grueling auditions for a highly sought-after hour-long detective pilot. The buzz on the street was that he was on a very short list for the lead. (Yippee! With my share of the office’s commission, I would be able to replace my frayed living room couch and chairs.) Don aced his network audition, the last and most critical. Denny, Pam, and I held our breath waiting for the congratulatory call from the show’s casting director. Not so fast. She informed Denny, Your client was our first choice. But we went with our second choice.

In what universe does that make sense?

Bill Eichler had a very important audition for big budget feature film. He was spot-on for the role. Bill reported back to me that, after he nervously flubbed a couple of lines, he asked the casting director Jeff Bradley, May I try it again? I can do it better.

Jeff waved him off dismissively, If you could’ve, you would’ve.

Actors are egocentric. Of course they are--how else could they possibly face daily rejection? So, in the actor’s head, he’s always #1. Understandable. Nevertheless, it took endless patience for an agent to be responsible for dozens of underwhelming careers.

Here’s a day in the life of a talent agent: Client Stephen Arnold requested a meeting with our office to discuss his career direction. Stephen was a six-foot-four incredibly striking James Dean look-alike, whom Denny and I represented for years at Agents for Artists before he joined us at The House of Representatives. He was not long on brains and less on talent, but definitely drop-dead. Denny, Pam, and I knew exactly what we were selling. We gathered in the conference room, where Stephen seriously complained, I need to change, to explore other avenues. I don’t want to audition for ‘handsome’ roles anymore. I think of myself as a character actor. Mouths agape, we just stared at each other. The word clueless must have been coined specifically for Stephen. Denny stuttered, Sure, of course.

My assistant buzzed me, Can you talk to Sebastian Klumder on line six?

Puzzled, I asked, Sebastian, aren’t you working on location today?

Sebastian grumbled, Well, yeah, but you need to get in touch with the production office to get reimbursement for my car antenna. A production assistant told the actors to park in a dirt lot and a tree lopped it off. They need to pay me back for the aerial. I wasn’t sure exactly how his poor parking skills were the fault of the film company nor why this became my responsibility?

Patrick Donner, a wannabe actor hungry for agency representation, sent me his photo and resume, imploring, Just meet with me. If you’re not absolutely convinced that I’d be an asset to your client list, I’ll buy you lunch. Really? If agents filled their days with every actor who mailed off a picture, they’d have no time to represent their actual clients.

My office mates and I were speechless when a rookie actress from Kalamazoo, Michigan who had decided to grace Los Angeles with her presence claimed, I’m told I look just like Renée Zellweger but I have an edge she doesn’t. Perhaps Renée should just give up and go back to Texas!

Taffy Mills, without a trace of make-up, dripping with post-gym sweat in scruffy workout clothes, strolled into the office. Taffy cajoled, "Can you get me an audition for the co-lead in the Gwyneth Paltrow Victoria’s Secret film?"

The character description was Vogue model gorgeous. My imagination’s not that good. Denny murmured, Remind me why we signed her.

I spent a half hour negotiating the fine points of Babs Block’s nude scene for the feature film Cancun Spring Break Wet T-Shirt Contest: The Movie. The business affairs lawyer and I had to clarify contractually exactly how much of Babs’s rear could be exposed on screen.

An unknown actor’s cover letter accompanying his picture and resume said, I want an agency that’s as excited about my career as I am. Why would I be as excited about your career as you? I’m not your mother.

Our actors were supposed to keep us supplied with an array of appropriate photos for submission to casting offices. These photos were our sales tools. Adam Patrick knew we’d been promoting him for genial soccer dad roles; in the pictures Adam gave us, he resembled a Tijuana crack dealer. Our endearing ingénue client Rose hoped to audition for the role of a social worker. In Rose’s 8x10s, displaying a mountain range of cleavage and cakey-looking foundation (probably applied by a house painter), she looked like Morticia’s younger sister.

I deserved the weeklong hiatus from business headaches during my family’s Hawaiian vacation. But adorable Jennifer Forman, who had been a series regular on several half-hour situation comedies, was now in the enviable position of being strongly considered for a lead in one of the hot television pilots of the season. Usually several actors are tested (the final audition) for the role but I had the inside scoop from the executive producer that Jennifer was his personal choice. After a day of back and forth telephone calls in my hotel room, negotiating a contract with the studio attorney, while missing an expensive prepaid luau on the beach with my children, Jennifer called me.

I’ve decided to pass on the project.

Incredulous, I replied, Jennifer, most Hollywood actresses would gladly swallow sewer water for your golden opportunity. Why would you turn down an incredible role like this?

Jennifer whined, There are always nightly rewrites on sitcoms. That means I’ll have to learn new lines every day.

Gee, Jennifer, isn’t that part of your job description?

I should have been sharing a pupu platter with my family. I saw my commission sink deep into the ocean off Maui. I had just read a Time magazine article about women in Africa who walk for hours in the desert heat to fetch water for their children. These women, no doubt, would be happy to study lines.

I’d always loved show business, but after years of niggling doubts about my priorities, Tessa Hunt was my last straw. Pam, Denny, and I felt we’d done a bang-up job for Tessa. The twelve-year old was half Middle Eastern, so she wasn’t a particularly easy sell; there weren’t many Middle Eastern families featured on series television. But we’d managed to secure numerous auditions for her and she bagged several sizable guest star parts. We saw a future for her. We thought we had a solid base with Tessa and her mom: They were frequent visitors to our office, they greeted us with effusive hugs, and they gifted us with holiday baskets. But there was secret trouble in paradise. Upset at being dragged to the staff meeting her mother had arranged, Tessa fidgeted at our office conference table, tears running down her twelve-year-old cheeks as her mother frostily fired our agency. My partners and I unsuccessfully marshaled forces to convince the preteen’s mother she was making a colossal mistake.

Pam protested, I have the numbers in the computer to show you how many auditions we’ve gotten for Tessa.

I found myself arguing, The negotiation you’re talking about was botched by Tessa’s management firm, not us.

Her mother’s abrupt dismissal of our agency came as a total shock to us. I guess I can’t blame a twelve-year old for my decision to throw in the show business towel, but the confrontation left me with serious questions about my livelihood. Surely there was something more important than courting unappreciative mothers.

A couple of weeks after Tessa’s departure, I happened on a possible alternative. I attended a showcase (a group of actors seeking representation by performing short scenes for agents and managers). After the performance, Sharlene Bryor, the program’s organizer, entreated us all to watch a video of her work in Uganda.

Sharlene explained, For several years I’ve been donating money to a charity to help support two Ugandan children. Similar to Save the Children. Their families and my family exchanged letters, pictures, and Christmas cards through the organization. But recently I started to think it could be a scam. Maybe they send photos of the same kids to anyone who makes a contribution.

Sharlene arranged a flight to Uganda and then a bus to a small village, where she was greeted by one of her adoptees, who escorted her to his parents’ hut. Sharlene was overjoyed to see that her family’s Christmas card from Encino, California was displayed prominently on a support post in a Ugandan lean-to. While visiting the town, she realized the use of bicycles could facilitate food distribution to the desperately hungry populace. When humanitarian Sharlene returned to the United States, she hosted a fund-raising bike party in her upscale neighborhood, raising enough money to buy bicycles for her adopted children’s village. Then she devised a strategy to export bike parts from the United States, enabling selected Ugandan villagers to assemble the bikes themselves. Eventually she created a thriving local industry. This unassuming generous suburban mom had a lasting affect on so many people in Uganda.

Sharlene’s inspiring story triggered my resolution. I’d always been the one who