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I have a really stupid story to tell https://twitter.com/seph_lawless/status/1330192380058865669">https://twitter.com/seph_lawl...
It& #39;s 1978. I& #39;m eleven years old, and I read the @latimes voraciously on Sundays. Can& #39;t get enough of the Calendar section. (I want to love the book review at this time, but most of the books they& #39;re writing about are over my head.)
One Sunday there& #39;s a full page ad. Calling all parents of children ages something through something. We& #39;re remaking a Wallace Beery vehicle called "The Champ," we want a kid who& #39;s really a kid, open auditions.
It& #39;s a whole big scene on one of these big L.A. production lots, I& #39;m not sure which one, Wikipedia say the picture was UA, do they have their own lot? I remember the feeling of being in a whole different world than the one I lived in out in Claremont
There were just bunches of kids. All of them in nice clothes. I& #39;m sure I was dressed up a little but iirc the only dress clothes I really have in & #39;78 are my state examiner piano recital clothes, we haven& #39;t been to church since the divorce in & #39;72
(I still do go to church during my summer weeks with my Dad, he& #39;s a Methodist at this point, I don& #39;t know how he would have dressed me though this would have been important to him but I do remember having to get my hair combed intensely, different story)
We park on the lot someplace, it& #39;s me and my Mom navigating this unfamiliar-to-me environment, some of which would have been known by my grandmother who& #39;d been pals with some EARLY L.A. film scene luminaries -- W.C. Fields whom she referred to as "Bill," for example
Anyway I can see in the waiting rooms these kids are from a whole different world than me. It& #39;s just glaringly obvious. I can& #39;t, at that point, say what the difference is, but these are not the kids I go to school with.
The audition/interview happens, we don& #39;t read a script or anything, they do three of us at a time and they ask us to cry.
In my group of three everybody looks nervous. I can& #39;t stand awkward silences (this is still true) so I speak up, I tell them I can& #39;t really cry right now because I& #39;m too happy. (I& #39;m eight years old, give me a break.)
The other two kids copy my answer. They say the exact same thing as me, they look very relieved to have been given an answer, and then we& #39;re all dismissed with thanks and told they& #39;ll be in touch if they need us. I forget about the whole thing.
A year later the press push for the movie starts and the stories all talk about the talent search and the kid who landed the role, and it& #39;s "Ricky" Schroder, whose Mom has been taking him to photo shoots since he was three months old.
Three months old.
By the time he& #39;s six he& #39;s been in 60 advertisements. He does not come from money, don& #39;t get me wrong, his family and the little kid they believed could be a star evidently from the moment of his birth surely worked their asses off to get him there.
But by the time "The Champ" has auditions, he& #39;s a vet compared to all the people from the outlying towns who drove their kids into L.A. to see if they can& #39;t catch a sweet studio contract.
My stepfather was a lot of things, but one of the good things he was was an acutely class conscious guy. He saw the news about this kid getting the part & explained that the fix was in, the whole thing had been for publicity and probably tax write-offs, and he was surely right
I forget if we went to see the movie though I do remember seeing it at some point and noting that the dude put in his work, he cried his ass off in that last scene
but
I, after years of being a severe disappointment at best to many people who believed in me, ended up being a guy who tries to do his best and who thinks police shouldn& #39;t murder people and that people have the right to protest without being shot at
whereas the guy who beat me for the part turns out to be a complete asshole who digs nazis
so while Ricky Schroder beat me for that part and has, I& #39;m sure, has more money than me
I& #39;m still notching the W in 2020 and you& #39;re stewing in your own juices wondering why you& #39;re mad all the time
lol @ you, guy who can cry on cue
/thread.
