THE MOVIE STAR

when i read paula's comment about my daughter's picture when she was 3, i had to laugh. no, not AT you paula, but AT what you said, lol. you said she looked like a movie star, well, she was, lol..........actually, still is. she played john lithgow's daughter in "traveling man", a made-for-hbo movie. the picture that i put on my journal is one of her "contact" shots. she and i both did a lot of extra work back then. i was in a movie with peter coyote and my daughter sat next to me during the whole shoot, playing with her dolls and behaving, even though she wasn't supposed to even be in the movie. i was just someone in the courtroom while a trial was going on. my daughter behaved so well she was asked by tess harper, one of the main actresses, to come to her dressing room, where she gave her a cookie, some coke, and an autograph. funny, my daughter doesn't even have a clue who tess harper is, today.

i was in several commercials as an extra, as well as a mick jagger movie shot at atlanta motor speedway. easy work, good catered food and good pay........but sometimes long hours. the courtroom shot took 8.5 hours to shoot and it lasted only 4 minutes in the movie.........but heck, i got $75 and some great food.

two days before i was supposed to be evicted from my home i got a call from our agent to be in another movie, but i was too wrapped up in trying to get my stuff moved out to be able to go. i would have actually had a speaking part, as an older italian woman in the apartment next to where a murder took place. sigh..........my big chance......gone........poof...........lol.

my daughter had lots of little friends too, that were actresses. one of them did a grass seed/fertilizer commercial that paid her residuals on up till she went to college. a couple of her older friends, teenagers, were in the locally shot tv show, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT. i had copies of all their work and hers, but i have no idea where it is now. i hope it is still in my storage unit where so much of my belongings still reside.

the most embarrassing thing that ever happened, though, was when she was in TRAVELING MAN. when we met john lithgow before the shoot, i asked him if he would let my daughter sit in his lap and take a picture of them. he said it was fine. well, my husband and i had taught her to never sit in a stranger's lap, especially a man's lap, so when i tried to get her to sit there, she screamed bloody murder. i kept apologizing to mr. lithgow, and he said he understood, since he had children of his own.

it wasn't a glamorous life, but it was fun while it lasted. it all started when my daughter won the title of "little miss georgia" at age 3. one of the prizes was a year's modeling/acting contract with a local agency. they kept us really busy for that year, and even for half the next year. then, it was all over..............sigh.

so, we had our 15 minutes of fame............yeah.........right, lol.

http://shopping.msn.com/specs/traveling-man/itemid1833856/?itemtext=itemname:traveling-man&fulldesc=1

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