The Lowest Rung On the Hollywood Ladder, Part 2

The Tale of The Magical Disappearing Bikini Top

"Ok, ladies. I need a favor. I'm looking for a blonde girl with curves! I mean, I'm talking 36-24-36! No skinny girls calling, please. Call Sasha at..."

I think I just about lost my jaw at that point from all the dropping. Not only did they need curvy girls, but it was my good friend Sasha doing the casting! The "No Skinny Girls" admonition was so rare as to be a joke. But I'm 5'2", 125 lbs (or was back then... now I'm closer to 135) 36-28-39. I'm built like a pear. And that kept me from getting jobs, sometimes.

I call the line, and get told that it's a music video shoot, two nights in a row, in about three days time. It would be entirely under the table. No taxes, paid in cash at the end of the shoot. $200 a night. I would be their... wait for it... Marilyn Monroe look alike. HAHAHAAHAHA. OMG YEAH RIGHT YOU FUCKING WISH!

But... $200 a night? Under the table? Spank my ass and call me Marilyn, I'm there.

Except then I got the flu.

And I went anyway.

So picture this: It's 7:00 PM on the Little Europe sets at Universal. (Little Europe is the area you see right before you go into Earthquake.) It's the end of October, and it's freezing ass cold. I am hopped up on coffee and Dayquil so I can feel relatively human and not like a festering ball of snot.

You know the feeling you get when you're hopped up on over the counter speed. Your head is over there someplace, and your legs feel like week old pudding and your arms feel like they're made out of lead. Now you have the proper background for my state of mind.

I get into wardrobe, thinking, in my wonderfully doped up state, that I'll be in that white dress that Marilyn wore in the 7 Year Itch, or something like that.

No. No no. It was a fucking GIGET BIKINI.

You've all seen or heard of Giget, right? The one with Sally Fields as a sweet young surfer girl with the pigtails and the bikinis that look like doughy blobs of cake frosting slathered on her?

It was one of those. With BRIGHT PINK FRINGE along the bottom. I suddenly felt really sorry for my mother, who actually went to the beach dressed like this when she was my age. Not even being made up to look like Marilyn, mole and all, was enough to alleviate the embarrassment of this costume.

Well, I should mention I had a choice in bikinis. It was either the Giget bikini, or a silver thong a size and a half too small. So, no choice, really.

So I bundle myself up in my trench coat, feeling more and more like a pervert flasher every second. The FuckMe heels I was wearing with the bikini weren't helping matters. I wandered over to holding to see about getting a 6th cup of coffee when I was discovered by the Drag Queens. There were about six of them, and they all said, near simultaneously, "OOOOOOH GIRLFRIEND YOU LOOK SSSSSSO HOT!" It sounded like steam escaping. The Drag Queens were there to add to the atmosphere. We were filming a Carnival In Rio type video; it turned out, for the band Matchbox 20.

After I modeled my Marilyn look for the drag queens, we all sat down and discussed make up and musical theater and boys and a cracking good time was had by all.

The evening progressed, and I stupidly popped another two Dayquil liquigels to quell the rising nausea and effluvia. So I'm higher than a fucking 747 when it finally comes time to shoot my BIG SCENE.

I'm being shot by the Second Unit director, and he's giving me some really bizarre direction ("ANGST! I WANNA SEE THE ANGST! POUT BABY POUT YEAH THAT'S IT!") when the actual director of the video wanders over to see what's going on.

He takes one look at the scene, and pronounces words that I'd thought I'd never hear in my life, being the chubby nerd girl that I am:

"Take the bikini top off her. It'll look better."

What. WHAT. OH HELL NO!