Secrets from Behind the Silver Screen

Chapter One
From Birth to Hollywood: The First 10 Minutes of the Movie

I’m going to go ahead and be honest with you, my agent told me to write this book. He said it was a great stage in my career to release an autobiography. See, what he means by that is right now my sales are slow and this would be a great way for him to take ten percent of different profits. I’ll also go ahead and mention that my agent is not the reading type. If it isn’t a contract he won’t even skim it. Thus, my chances of him preventing any of this from being published are rater low. It’s the prisoner’s dilemma, basically.

Anyway. So since you thought my life would be interesting enough to read about I suppose I should attempt to make sure you stay entertained. I’m an actress…my whole purpose in life is to keep the masses entertained, so this shouldn’t be terribly difficult.

Luckily, the story (autobiography…whatever) begins at a somewhat intriguing point. Like any Lifetime movie worth its salt it starts with a girl born into a bad family situation. Girl gets abused. Girl leaves, vowing revenge and famous lifestyle. Girl moves to Hollywood. So it goes.

My mother was certainly no one’s heroine, least of all my own. She was always the homely, plain sort. I’ve seen pictures, so I know. My parents were one of those couples who you see and wonder “why is he with her?” My father was the football star in high school and…well, that about ends his achievement list, come to think of it.

Normal story, he was supposed to play football in college, got hurt towards the end of his senior year, and wasn’t smart enough to go to college minus football talent.

My mother was fair from being the head cheerleader. Pretty much everyone was dazed when he married her. I bet you are guessing that she was pregnant. That was a popular guess from what I’m told. The more romantic might believe that he was in love with her, looks none withstanding. The more practical will recall that I just stated I was born into an abusive family.

He wasn’t in love with her. I don’t think he has ever been in love with anyone. And she wasn’t pregnant. Even if she had been, my father isn’t exactly the honorable type.

So anyway, my father isn’t the honorable type, but he is definitely the controlling type. And when his cheerleader girlfriend wouldn’t put up with the controlling rage when it came without the quarterback status he saw that my mother was what you would call easy prey.

I’ve had a lot of time to reason it out and here is what I believe to have happened: His ego was more or less hurt by falling from fame and being dumped and he needed someone who would follow him blindly and take orders. Someone to be at his beck and call. Personally, I think he should have bought a dog. But I digress.

So they married. By the way, I have also discovered that he abused my mother before they were married. So the little fool bound herself to someone who she knew would abuse her because she was amazed that someone so handsome would want to be with her. I’m sure a few of you will feel some sort of sympathy for her. Well don’t. She has never once regretted her decision. My father is still handsome and she is still plain and as long as she can go out in public and receive envious stares from other women then she is more than satisfied with her life. I figure the regrets will start when they both reach late fifties.

I could sit here and tell you every gross detail about my punishments. I could describe each bruise and share exactly how a breaking bone sounds. But if you want a book that tells you all of that—some book that will bring lots of tears—then go join Oprah’s book club or something.

I’ll just go straight to the interesting years—the ones where I made the typical immoral decisions of a Hollywood starlet. You know that’s really why you are reading this. It’s the same reason you always find yourself drawn to the covers of tabloids. Maybe you don’t buy them…but we all know you still look.

After all, if this were a movie it is a universal truth the “childhood” time in a biography is done with in about ten minutes. Good for background, but not for sheer entertainment.

So the “interesting” part begins when I ran away. I figured I would go to one of the biggest cities in the country so that I wouldn’t be found. I narrowed it down to Washington D.C., New York City, and Los Angeles. Since I was in North Dakota the easiest place to hitchhike to was L.A.

So there you go—no grand romantic design about conquering Hollywood. Sure, I wanted fame and fortune just to get petty revenge…but it didn’t really matter to me how I achieved it.

I started acting because, honestly, who else is going to hire a sixteen-year-old high school dropout? Even McDonalds requires a work permit or something for those who are under eighteen.

I got my first job on this Indie film about teenage kids who drink, have sex with each other, and kill this old man.

I was extra number six. I bribed some homeless guy to sign off as my guardian.

It seems to me that people think that Hollywood stars just drop out of the sky or something. Beautiful and talented people who get “discovered” in some coffee shop or something equally cliché. The truth is that half the people you gush over at the Oscars were just lowly extras who found someone with power willing to exchange sexual favors for roles.

Don’t worry; I never slept with anyone for a role.

But I could have.

Alright, fine. So I slept with one casting director. But the role I got was pretty much just a bonus…he was an extremely good looking man.

That’s later, though. I promised that I would begin this tale with the interesting years so that would start at the role after the Indie film (which does have a title, by the way, but my performance wasn’t what you would call breakthrough and I’m not anxious for anyone to go rent it).

We begin where all screwed-up Hollywood tales begin—with Walt Disney.

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A/N—Well? I am aware that I’m neglecting Reality Bites horribly but I’m…restructuring. The story isn’t turning out the way I wanted and I don’t want to just give you guys crap so until I can figure it out all chapters will stay tucked away in files on Microsoft Word. I think I’ve written about five chapters now…lol, none are good.

Anyway, enough about that story. I wrote this at my work and am in love with it for some reason. It just kind of wrote itself…and I think this girl is kind of fun.

She has a name. But if you want to know what it is you have to stick around for the next chapter, ha-ha.

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