debor009

One of the things I’ve been bumping up against in the past year, with great frustration, is being called to audition for a role that seems the polar opposite of the roles I’m usually cast to play (i.e. senator, judge, executive, strong women). Blue-haired granny is the one I see most frequently – small, plump, caring, no strong identity, sometimes comical. It's like when you get older you become a ghost; just the faintest impression of a person. The only apparent fit for these roles is the age range. I’m not plump. I don’t have gray hair. I'm 5 ft. 8 inches tall. Nothing in my posted head shots or reels gives me any clue as to what the casting director might have been thinking of in asking me to audition. Blue-haired Granny? Nah. I’ve discussed this with actor friends and the responses have ranged from the limited vision of American film and TV (if you’re a certain age, you’re a blue-haired granny) to the possibility that I’m “above market” in the southeast, where many of these...

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...

You have to have a touch of the wanderlust in you to be an actor - travel is frequently part of the job, after all - but if as part of your travels you happen to wander into an old film location, so much the better. I often seek them out: the LA river bed where the giant ants hole up in Them! , the old train depot in New Jersey where they filmed The Station Agent . The Caribbean island of Dominica Last week my dear husband and I went farther afield to Dominica (pronounced Doh-meh-nee'-kah), the volcanic island near Barbados where many of the scenes from the Pirates of the Caribbean films are shot. What an unbelievably gorgeous island. It rises from its black sand beaches more than 4,000 feet, all tropical rainforest with streams and waterfalls at every turn. Breathtaking. The next in the Pirates series - Dead Men Tell No Tales - is now in preproduction. Lucky the actors who get to leave gray skies and brown trees and work there. The beach is indeed black

I'm a great fan of old radio shows (the acting is wonderful!) and sometimes I hear someone who's so good it makes me think "Whatever happened to......?" Such was actress Patricia Bright, who I heard for the second time yesterday on a January 12, 1941 broadcast of a show called Behind the Mike . She was only 19 at the time, and an up-and-coming actress with stars in her eyes. The bit for the show was an audition for two well-known talent scouts. She presented a dramatic monologue and then did a very funny routine demonstrating how to play ladies of different nationalities, using the appropriate accents – English Cockney, Scottish, Russian, etc. She was terrific and, not surprisingly, the talent scouts praised her performance and said they would have no problem submitting her for work. Patricia Bright's "Oscar" I always wondered what happened to her. She was so talented. But there is little beyond her IMDb listing of a few roles in early TV (and a couple ...