I See You Made an Effort: Compliments, Indignities, and Survival Stories from the Edge of 50 by Annabelle Gurwitch

role on television in the mid-1980s on the soap opera
Guiding Light
, playing a girl gang member, I wore a studded leather motorcycle jacket paired with a leotard and ripped leggings. She lamented, “I can’t believe my grandbaby looks like a prostitute. Couldn’t they put you in a nice twinset?” This would have killed her. I look exactly like my potato-farming ancestors from the Ukraine.
    We are to shoot in the evening on the European street on the back lot of Universal Studios. It’s exciting to pull up to the historic medieval town streets lined with small turreted brick buildings crisscrossed with wooden beams, stained-glass windows, and low tiled roofs, even if they are actually only stucco façades. I intend to maraud like there’s no tomorrow. The entire area is swarming with crew members, cranes and a large cast of extras. A spindly biped with a felt dunce cap precariously balanced on his skull ambles by and tips his hat in my direction. His skeletal frame and impossibly long limbs give him the appearance of a medieval arthropod. I spot a wrinkled and stooped creature who appears to have gone through extensive special effects, with his sallow, sunken cheeks and half-dozen tendrils of greasy hair emerging from his otherwise bald head. I am about tocompliment him when he smiles at me and I see that he has no teeth and is, in fact, heading
into
the makeup trailer. A group of rotund men with ruddy faces and long wispy beards wearing-lederhosen (their own?) are standing in a circle chugging coffee from mugs while leaning on pitchforks. It isn’t their first time at this rodeo; some have brought their own stadium chairs. A gaggle of pink-cheeked plump matrons who look like dumplings in kerchiefs are lolling about the craft services table. The temperature is falling fast, the sun hasn’t even set yet and there isn’t an indoor waiting area for the background actors, just an open tent with a portable heater and metal folding chairs.
    I spot one of the mothers from my son’s school among the background matrons. She and I have worked on PTA events together, and from her obvious mortification at being recognized, I know that she must have her own long and winding road that’s brought her to this evening. I invite her to come and hang out in my trailer, but that’s before I learn that my own accommodations aren’t much of an improvement over the background holding area.
    When you’re the star, you get a big trailer to yourself. It is often tricked out with several seating areas, an eat-in kitchen, and a bathroom with a shower. I’ve enjoyed those trappings. It can make it very easy to show up on set and do your best work when you’ve been comfortably preparing in your plush digs. For a big honking star, the sky’s the limit. I accidentally wandered into Eddie Murphy’s encampment when I worked with him on
Daddy Day Care
. There were several trailers, an outdoor loungecomplete with artificial grass, private gym and basketball hoop. If you’re playing a supporting role, you might be housed in a “double banger”: this is essentially half the size of a star’s trailer, but comfortable nonetheless. For commercials or smaller roles, you can find yourself ensconced in a trailer that’s been divided into a row of narrow airless cubicles called a “honey wagon.” These rooms are typically as luxurious as a prison cell. This particular trailer appears to have last been updated in the late 1980s; the only amenity is a transistor radio with a cassette player. It’s actually little more than a bathroom stall. A padded cushion covers the toilet located at the far end of the five-by-ten-foot compartment. The sickly sweet smell of air freshener hangs in the air.
    There are eight of us principals, and the producers have assigned two of us to each of these pens, which are a tight fit for even one person. None of us has ever been asked to share such a small space as all of us are experienced and accomplished