Black Dwarf

Twenty years. A quarter of a lifetime since little Laura Leeds, nobody daughter to a taxidermist in Mellowbrook, Utah, stepped off the bus in Hollywood and became a legend.

That was my first role. It wasn't a very good part. Laura was afraid all the time. Afraid of leaving home. Afraid of missing her big chance. Afraid that her dreams of becoming a successful actress would never pan out. Afraid that she was destined to wait tables until her legs gave out. Afraid, afraid, afraid.

Catherine Fontaine would have taken such a girl and slapped her silly. For two decades, she squeezed Mill Valley under an iron grip. She connived her way to the top, cheating and using people as disposable rungs on the ladder up her corporate empire. When I die, I will die as Catherine Fontaine. If Hell decides to claim my soul, it will become a new empire for me to conquer.

Laura made friends with the other actors when One Day Before Yesterday started airing in daytime syndication. Over time, they all fell by the wayside in the wake of Catherine's relentless pursuit of power and prestige. Her strength and determination became mine. Her empowered, can-do attitude replaced the doubts and fears that Laura whispered in my ear for almost my entire life. 

When I learned they were pulling the plug on One Day after almost thirty years, I begged the writers and producers to kill off Catherine's character. A true death would have been preferable to simply drifting into limbo as queen of the big nothing. Instead, the cast and crew held a party. I wished everyone well on whatever it was that they intended to do, now that the world stopped spinning.

For me, California froze overnight. Even my phone started giving me the cold shoulder.

I read once that acting is nothing short of the reconstitution of self by sheer force of will. Catherine shaped my will for so long that the fading of her voice now cast me adrift. I felt afraid, doubting myself for the first time in ages. Laura responded to my distress like a shark detecting blood.

My old agent, Barry Emmelson, retired five years ago. I recall there being letters. I stopped reading my mail long before that. There's too many crazies. Catherine kept getting death threats from her devoted fans.

I visited Ron Jacobson, the agent who took over his clients. His agency seemed surprised to see me. I think they expected all of Barry's clients to be polishing a seat in a rest home somewhere. His secretary tried to force me to make an appointment, as if I were a panhandler wandering in off the street. I had to subdue Catherine. She wanted to staple her eyelids to her forehead.

I grabbed Ron as he wrapped up a meeting with a fresh-faced blonde actress named Nikki Ash. The girl exuberantly garnished him with praise for landing her a prime role in a new TV series. My interruption of her gush-fest earned me a dirty look on her way out. I didn't care. She at least had a paying job awaiting her outside.

I liked Ron straight away. He was one of the few realists in Hollywood. He laid my chances for a comeback on the table, sparing me the song and dance. As I figured, my situation was grim.

Unlike the budding young starlet prancing out the door moments before, Hollywood's options for a woman facing the ass end of forty wasn't so rosy. "The grinder likes fresh faces," he told me. I vocally broached the surgical option. He shot that bird down as soon as it took wing. In his opinion, there wasn't anything wrong with my face. It was just stale.

Like moldy bread, I thought.

We ended the meeting with his promise to "shake a few trees and see what falls". I left with my heart in my shoes. Laura's discouraging whispers became an anxiety-inducing avalanche.

I expected never to hear from him again. He surprised me by calling a few days later. Over the next few months, he directed me to one casting call after another. Commercials, bit parts in second-rate TV shows, even a couple of webisodes (whatever in Hell they are). Nothing panned out. I was either too old or too young for the parts.