The day before last week's PTA meeting, I received a frantic email from our unit President -- wondering if I could take notes (again) because our new secretary was unable to attend. The reason? Her third-grader had an audition.
There were professional kids around when I was growing up -- a girl in my class was famous at our elementary school because she appeared in "Harum Scarum" with Elvis. But in the entertainment industry was not so all-pervasive in those days. Sure, I knew a kid whose dad worked at Disney. And my dad had been an actor when he was younger and was always running into old friends who were familiar to me from seeing them in character roles on TV. But the most families in my neck of the San Fernando Valley had normal jobs, at places like the Van Nuys GM plant (closed), Lockheed (moved), Rockwell (merged), etc.
It's different today. With the end of the cold war, L.A. really did become more of a "company town." And so even though we live all the way up here in the boonies, we know a lot of people who work on sets. And a lot of families who are pinning their hopes on a big payday for their kids. And who can blame them? The residuals from one national commercial could be a big help in paying for college. A hit sitcom could set up your child for life (look at the Olsen twins. On second thought, don't look at them).
There are at least two little actresses in Megan's class. The teacher I share an office with has a preteen who does movies and voiceover work. (My office mate is fond of dropping famous names like Jamie and Denzel, who once called her to tell her not to bring her daughter to the premiere of the R-rated movie in which she's played his daughter, as it was not appropriate for youngsters.) Conversations with mothers in the park are peppered with phrases like, "I have to get Jake new headshots." It's just the way of life here.
I don't know how it is in other cities, but in Los Angeles, you cannot go to the mall without some stranger claiming to be a talent agent approaching you to tell you how beautiful your child is. They then thrust a card in your face and invite you to bring your child to "casting call" in Beverly Hills, where representatives from networks and studios are looking for new talent. Of course, these are huge scams, where parents are tricked into paying exorbitant amounts of money for headshots -- because they think their kids are going to be stars. These scammers even advertise on Radio Disney, which prompts some children (mine included) into buying into that fantasy - and nagging their parents to "make the call."
For most families - even with legitimate representation - the Hollywood dream doesn't get them anywhere. For every Haley Joel Osment or Lindsay Lohan there are hundreds of kids whose lives in show business are just one steady stream of rejection. I used to think there would be no way I'd subject my daughter to that. Now that my kid is ensconced in an athletic program that requires her to train something like 15 hours a week, I'm not feeling so judgmental towards all the stage moms I know. Megan is driven by her love of gymnastics and she's talented -- I've come to the conclusion that in cases like that, you just have to go for it. I'm just glad it's not acting!
But if it had been, there would be no better role model for me as a stage mom than Roberta.
Roberta doesn't look like a woman who's given birth to seven children. She's slender, petite and not someone you'd believe is expecting her second grandchild. "She's HOT," says my friend Tim, who knew Roberta socially before her youngest daughter became Megan's teammate in gymnastics. She's also really SMART.
Because of Tim, I knew that Roberta was one of the most successful stage moms in the city. Her oldest daughter was a major child star. And when she hit that awkward teenage stage, Roberta negotiated for the rights to a series of books and turned them into a sitcom which ran on one of the networks for several years. Roberta produced the series herself. She lives in a house in Encino that Tim has dubbed "The Four Seasons" because it's big enough to be a hotel.
Roberta doesn't go around boasting about her family and their success - but she does have a habit of dropping the funniest things in conversation. Like when she was talking about a vacation they took in Bora Bora and asked, "Have you been there?" in the most casual way, as if that's a destination everyone goes to all the time.
Last Friday, one of the other girls on the team invited everyone to her house for a pre-meet swim party. Roberta brought Tiffany -- she intended to drop her off, but when she saw how far away Porter Ranch was from Encino, she decided to stay.
For some reason, the conversation turned to 9/11 and how we reacted to it.
"My daughter wasn't home," Roberta said. "She was at a party in the Bahamas with the Backstreet Boys."
(She said this like it was the most normal thing in the world.)
"And she called me and cried that she wanted to come home. But she couldn't because all the planes were grounded. So I had to pay $39,000 to charter a plane to bring her home."
I watched the faces of the other moms, most of whom at this point probably had no idea what Roberta's background was. Their jaws had all dropped.
"Aaron Spelling's kids were also there, so I called him to see if he wanted to share the cost," she continued.
"That would be pocket change to him," I said. "He could pay that himself."
"That's what I was thinking!" Roberta laughed. "But then he called me back and said, 'no, they can stay on the island for a couple more days.' So I ended up paying for the whole thing."
Roberta says that Tiffany has been bugging her famous sister to watch her compete and meet her teammates, and she's promised she will. Just another day in L.A.
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