Mark Westbrook's Top 10 Tips for actors

Mark Westbrook recently posted these 10 tips online. I thought they were worth passing on.  Good stuff!

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Whatever Happened to Darlene Parks?

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I love watching old movies and television shows and every now and then I see an actor or actress that is such a standout I wonder what other roles they did and where their career went. Actress Darlene Parks This happened last night as I was watching a two-part episode of the old Barney Miller series titled "Wojo's Girl," with Darlene Parks in the title role. Parks was a willowy blonde who was pretty bordering on gorgeous. She had great comic timing (you can see a touch of Judy Holliday ) and her chemistry with Max Gail (who is still acting at 74) was perfect. (Watch her face in Part 2 when Gail asks her why she "started hooking.") Most important, she had a face that had that special something that makes a star; she was not interchangeable, she was memorable. But Darlene Parks, after this wonderful episode, had just one more role, and then she disappeared. What happened? Did she die tragically? Did she get discouraged and quit? Did she change her name and cont...
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Actor story #1: Early in the filming of Stanley Kubrick's 1980 horror classic The Shining , Kubrick stops star Jack Nicholson in the middle of a scene, saying "No, this isn't working." "What do you mean?" says Nicholson. "You said you wanted it to be realistic." "Well...yes. But it isn't interesting." Nicholson made it interesting! Actor story #2: From Alan Arkin's  wonderful autobiography An Improvised Life . Arkin relates how early his acting career he hit a wall. Nothing was working. He gets an offer out of the blue to join Second City in Chicago and decides to go, feeling he'd failed as an actor. Two years later he's back in New York and again submitting for roles. Only this time he thinks to himself, To heck with this! I'm tired of trying to figure out what casting wants. I'm just going to give them the most interesting version of me. Take it or leave it. And he starts booking roles. I've been thinkin...
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So....Tell Me About Yourself!

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