From The Ventura County Star:
No part too small
many actors and others on the Hollywood sidelines, it's not about Oscar glamour; it's about the craft
By Brett Johnson u
February 27, 2005
Anne Lockhart came on the line one evening about a week ago and recapped how the day of a Hollywood "star" went. She took her two kids to Thousand Oaks-area schools via two carpools, in part because her other car was in the shop and not there for her teenage daughter to drive. She proceeded on to Hollywood and did a pedestrian looping, or voiceover, job at Universal Studios; from there she went to West Hollywood to audition for three commercials. She then fought traffic all the way back home to Thousand Oaks, stopping off to do some grocery shopping. Now, she was putting away the food and preparing to fix dinner for her 13-year-old son -- "you know, movie-star things. Sounds glamorous, huh?" she said.
It was a jumble, she said, "doing the mom thing, the carpool thing and the trying-to-get-a-job-at-acting thing."
Lockhart, the daughter of June Lockhart of "Lassie" and "Lost in Space" fame, has had a long career in acting herself -- but one without notoriety, flying almost under the radar.
"People think movie stars have this exotic lifestyle where they lay around all day, have others peel grapes for them and say things like, 'I'll have my third assistant call you back about that deal,' " Lockhart said. "I don't know any of those people."
Tonight, Hollywood trots out all the glam and glitz and the red carpets for the Academy Awards, or Oscars as they are known to millions of devoted viewers. For many, the Oscars are the creme de la creme of all entertainment awards shows. But for people such as Lockhart, an Oscar is something they have little or no chance of winning.
To them, Hollywood is more of a workaday-yeoman thing, filled with bit parts, voiceovers, commercials and even side jobs for when things get tight during the cold streaks when the phone doesn't ring or when the audition success rate hovers somewhere near the batting average of a weak hitter going up against fireballing Randy Johnson -- something like one or two out of 10.
Lockhart and colleagues Mickey Jones, John Bennett Perry and Paul Tuerpe -- all actors who live in Ventura County -- know this all too well. In many respects, they are part of the core of Hollywood, filling out the long list of credits that roll as the theater lights come up and the audience files out. They do it because they have passion for it, and consider themselves lucky to get what they do get.
Big stars such as Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts and Jim Carrey command $20 million (or more) per film. Jones, a Simi Valley resident who used to drum for Bob Dylan and Kenny Rogers before turning to acting more than 25 years ago, thinks the most he's ever earned for a part was $65,000, for a starring role in "The Fighting Temptations" -- and those kind of paydays are few and far between. Perry, who lives in Ojai, believes his top paying role was $50,000.
"That's understandable," Perry said. "My name doesn't put people in the seats."
The difference between big stars and actors like him, Perry said, is that they get sent scripts while he has to audition for everything. Perry might know; he's the father of "Friends" star Matthew Perry, who gets scripts sent to him.
For the elder Perry, 64, the Oscars aren't in sight. He doesn't get auditions for what he termed "nominate-able" parts and said he likely never will.
"You adjust to that," he said. "There's an expression for people like us: We grind it out."
Perry auditioned two weeks ago for a three-episode arc on the hit show "Desperate Housewives" but doesn't think he got the part -- "probably not," he said, as he hasn't heard back.
Journeymen tales
They call themselves actors for hire, journeymen or working actors. "I go out every day trying to find a job," said Paul Tuerpe, a Simi Valley resident who has been in the business for more than 30 years.
Famous actors get to play some of history's biggest figures. For these working actors, their Internet Movie Data Base credits sometimes don't have names and are listed thusly: "radio dispatcher" (a Lockhart role in "Route 666"), "mountain man" (Jones, in "View from the Swing") or "Secret Service agent" (Perry, in "Independence Day").
Take Tuerpe's roles in all four "Lethal Weapon" movies. They are listed as mercenary, hitman, helicopter co-pilot and "Henchman No. 3."
"They killed me off in all but the last one," he said, chuckling.
Those performances or an appearance as a sheriff in "The Goonies" are probably the pinnacle of recognition for Tuerpe, who said he's had more than 200 parts in his career. Jones, who has several hundred credits, thinks he's best known for playing a brutish biker in a breath mint commercial, a recurring role he had on the TV show "Home Improvement," or as the guy who strums the guitar and sings "Double Bogey Blues" in the Winnebago in the Kevin Costner film "Tin Cup."
"I've never attained the status of Tom Cruise," Jones said in an understatement. "I'm just a guy who's made a pretty good living at it. But you know what? It's OK with me."
Perry said he's most famous -- "unfortunately" -- for a turn as the whistling sailor on an Old Spice commercial from the 1970s.
"I get kidded about that all the time," said Perry, whose acting resume listings also go into triple digits. "But it helped pay for a house."
Lockhart's claim to general public fame is her one-season stint as Lieutenant Sheba on "Battlestar Galactica" in 1978.
For these actors, industry trends can hit harder. They fret about the glut of reality shows and the exportation of filming to countries such as Canada and Australia. And it's not just actors, they noted; it ripples through the Hollywood food chain, to the key grips and other technician jobs, all the way down to the wardrobe cleaners.
Tuerpe said it's getting "harder and harder" all the time.
"I'm glad I'm an older actor, at 56, looking at retirement," he said, "as opposed to someone who is just starting out."
Other interests
They busy themselves with other things. Jones is writing a book. Perry has done occasional stage work at the Rubicon Theatre in Ventura; he also sells real estate (with his wife) at an Ojai office. Lockhart just finished a turn as a nurse in a stage production of "Romeo & Juliet" at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza -- "we do it for grocery money" -- and will twice travel to Texas this year to do her one-woman show.
Lockhart, Tuerpe and Jones all have done "looping," a term for adding voices to shows in post-production. Lockhart does it for all the "Law & Order" shows and "The West Wing," as well as for loads of movies, including "Terms of Endearment." Many times when they shoot scenes, she explained, all the people in the background are merely pantomiming. Voices and noise have to be added in later, after schedules have changed and actors have left to do other things. Hence the need for looping, also known as automated dialogue replacement or ADR.
"Frankly, this has been my secret career for 30 years, and I love it," the 51-year-old Lockhart said.
Tuerpe's also thankful for such work, adding, "if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be here."
Residuals, the money they get for each rerun of their filmed or taped shows, help people such as Jones -- "God bless America for that" -- stay afloat when work slows. But Lockhart said she's learned not to count on her residuals to get her through lean times.
For those farther behind the scenes, it's a similar story.
Longtime costume designer Jean-Pierre Dorleac, who has a home in Ventura, has achieved some award recognition: He was nominated for an Oscar for his work in the 1980 film "Somewhere in Time" and has won Emmys for "Battlestar Galactica" and "The Lot."
But Dorleac said Hollywood "is not at all glamorous in any way, shape or form. To me, it's been a struggle to do what I want to do." He has a couture business and also does private weddings on the side.
Set work, Dorleac added, is long hours of fittings, alterations and being "on your toes constantly," followed by "doing notes at night to make sure everything is right for the next morning's shoot at 6 a.m." For an average-length film, this can go on for 10 to 12 weeks, he said; for epics, six months to a year.
Stunt man and stunt coordinator Matt Taylor of Agoura Hills brings home a lot of bumps and bruises from Hollywood sets. His credits include the movies "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World," "The Ring" and "The Patriot." But his main job is as stunt coordinator for the hit show "24"; Taylor also stands in as a double for star Kiefer Sutherland, who gets all the acclaim.
"We're not in it for the glory; we never have been," Taylor, 34, said last week from the set of a "24" shoot in Redondo Beach. "My job is to make Kiefer look as good as possible -- and as bad-ass as possible."
Sutherland, he added, does many of his own stunts. Taylor, who is Lockhart's brother-in-law, said stunt people are working to get a technical awards category in the Oscars to recognize their craft and thinks they will get it eventually.
Taylor called his job "fun and exciting" but said it is more about hard work and preparation, 14-hour days, and those aches and pains.
He noted that he's third-generation Hollywood; his father was Buck Taylor and his grandfather was Dub Taylor -- both actors.
Ventura County Star - Anne Lockhart
And she was very nice.
