I OUGHTA BE IN PICTURES
OR
WHAT ACTING TAUGHT ME ABOUT WRITING AND VISA VERSA

(whoever she is)

Okay, here’s the answer to what is usually the first question I get when folks learn that I am a writer. (After I explain about my name, that is.)

Q When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

A Fourth grade. And the story goes ....

So, there I was, minding my own business, sitting in the ‘bunny’ section of class - the cutsey name did not fool me - I knew we bunnies were the dummies, hence the expression dumb bunny. Anyway, this day, which shall live in infamy in my life, was the day the teacher sprang a new, hideous terror upon me.

STORY PROBLEMS!

EXAMPLE: Suzy’s mother wants her to go to the store and get

two apples
a quart of milk
a loaf of bread
and a copy of Cosmopolitan, make that Good Housekeeping

She gives Suzy half a sawbuck. A nickel note, a five-spot, a V, abe’s cabe, a fiver, A five-dollar bill (see info in SLANGMASTER, but I digress) If the price of the items are

apple   10 cents each
milk    59 cents
bread    20 cents
GH    1.20

(Look, it was the 1950’s for cryinoutloud. Things were lots cheaper!)

Then how much change will Suzy bring back home?

ACK! Who cares about the change, thought I. (Drum roll!)

WHAT IF ................................?

WHAT IF: Suzy gets mugged on her way to the store?

WHAT IF: Suzy owes her bookie five bucks?

WHAT IF: Suzy pinches the food and pockets the five bucks?

So, that was a pretty good indicator right there that I was heading towards the creative arts and was possibly the reason why I was demoted from the bunny group to the lowly, don-t-even-bother-putting-your-hand-up donkey group. As you can see by visiting my books page, the STORY PROBLEMS have remained just that - story problems, what ifs. I will add the footnote that I still have a difficult time balancing my checkbook.

What’s that have to do with acting? Oh yes, I was getting to that part. Well, in MY mind, I was little Suzy on the way to the store - fighting off the muggers, outrunning my bookie, shoplifting the goodies - and believe you me, it’s hard to hide a quart of milk in your peddle-pusher’s pockets!

Then along comes television. Actually, we got our first set in 1950, so TV was nothing new to me, but episodic storytelling was... Wagon Train, Have Gun Will Travel, Gunsmoke and of course, the bastion of it all and the one with the cutest stars, Bonanza! So, guess what little Randi Lechner does? She starts writing scripts for these shows, each with a juicy, angst-ridden or goofy tomboy guest star role in it - for, who else?, HER! Perfect, thinks me. If Hollywood ain’t rappin’ on that front door, guess I’ll rap on its. So, I send these hand-scribbled teleplays to the studios, free gratis no charge, and I toss myself into the deal as the guest star.

“Dear Studio Head: No need to worry about next week’s episode wherein Ben Cartwright learns he has a DAUGHTER by still another wife who apparently had slipped his mind all those years. And no need to worry about casting the part, because I will play it, also for free.”

To this day, I am appalled they never called me. So, then I went the novel route. Write a novel, plumb part intact, get it published so they will make it into a movie and that’ll teach Hollywood to mess with me. Now, it’s going to cost them big money!

I still have that novel. I keep it around to remind myself of the journey. I even tried to make a musical out of it - it was set in Biblical times. Gees, I coulda been writing Jesus Christ, Superstar for all I knew. Again, no go. I never finished the book onaccounta I discovered boys right about then.

Okay, back to the drawing board: Guess if I am going to be an actress, I will have to, like, actually, ACT. That meant community theater, junior high plays, high school plays, even college and beyond. Singings, dancing, emoting. Guess what happens NOW? Now I’m ad-libbing and rewriting the dialogue. Now, playwrights do not take kindly to that, as I was constantly reminded by directors. I think I got my walking papers just in enough time to save the general state of American theater.

Then it occurs to me - I wasn’t trying to be an actress all those years - I was trying to be a writer! I would rather write and recite, I would rather create than re-create. So, off the boards and into the depths of creative literary angst goes me.

Fast forward more years than you need to be aware of.

So, there I am, getting new headshots done for PR stuff and website stuff and whatever stuff we writers need ego-boosts for. The photog, Howard Petrella (see the links page) of Seattle Wash, says “Hmmm, you ever think about modeling?”

Once I stopped laughing, he sent some headshots over to Melissa Klein Baldauf at the TCM Agency (another link, if you are curious) and bingo! I’m back into show biz! What an odd circle I have completed. So, I go to auditions and I get gigs and my mug has been shuttered tons of times. No, I am not in episodic television or in a hit play or blockbuster movie, but gees, I am having a blast! So if you need a spokeswoman for anything (and I have auditioned or modeled for just about EVERY ‘middle-age’ product, except incontenence items and I’m sure that’s going to be next!) then contact me or Melissa. And pay me a lot of money. Unlike my formative years, this girl don’t come free anymore.

So, that’s what acting taught me about writing. I even teach a workshop on it and the more I learn, the more I see the connections between the two arts.

Ain’t life intersting?

And yes, there is a moral and it’s in the immoral, I mean, immorTAL words of Marilyn Monroe:

“Have you ever noticed ‘what the hell’ is always the right decision?”