Dear Diana,
How does a girl break into the Hollywood scene?
Julianne
Dear Julianne,
I was shocked to see this as part of a Whoopie Pie description: “a filling of raspberries resting on a pillowy layer of freshly whipped cream, lightly sweetened and scented with the brightness of lemon zest.” (Food52.com, posted by Beautiful, Memorable Food).
Whoopie Pie? You know, it’s that chocolate thing like a Drake’s Devil Dog made of lard that you throw into your kid’s lunch pail just before Michelle Obama elbows you with a muscled arm and hisses, “You’re a bad mother!”
Then I got to thinking about this chic version of a lowlife treat. It’s one model for how a young woman can break into the Hollywood scene. She convinces everyone she has a pillowy layer of freshly whipped cream. And she smells like some kind of fruit.
But that’s not how I did it, so that’s not the advice I’m giving you. I went to Hollywood reminding everyone how much a Devil Dog made them drool. Two dense, chocolate cakes sandwiched around vanilla-flavored cream. Lots of sugar. Kosher certified.
Here’s my story. Follow my lead.
I walked into a trendy, new salon on Rodeo Drive to seek employment as a hairdresser right after coming to Beverly Hills. I had been living in my car after leaving my surfer boyfriend who’d become a heroin addict. But that’s another story. The only prior salon experience I’d had was a brief job as a receptionist in Orange County, California. In my naïve mind, I assumed that exposure to skilled stylists was all the training I needed.
My résumé was my signature outfit: the shortest mini skirt and tightest top that were legal on public sidewalks, and four inch ankle boots with small lacy socks peeking out over the top.
When I arrived at the salon, the only person there was a very good looking man with shoulder-length, light brown, wavy hair, sitting at the reception desk. I introduced myself and asked if I could speak with someone about applying for a job. He answered softly with an accent I couldn’t quite place.
“Nice to meet you, Diana. I’m Mark Gordon. I own this salon. Where did you get your cosmetology license?”
“Well, I actually haven’t gone to school yet, but I have cut my friends’ hair. I do color, and I highlight my own hair. If you’d give me a chance, you’ll see that I work really hard, pick things up fast, and¾” I rambled on until he mercifully stopped me and smiled.
“It’s okay Diana. Look, we could use a shampoo girl. The hours are long and the pay isn’t great to start, but I’m sure I’ll be able to find something for you.” Mark also suggested that he could train me on the job when business was slow.
“Really? Thank you so much!” I was so excited and wanted to throw my arms around him but I thought it might be inappropriate to sexually harass my future boss.
I started full-time at the salon a few days later. At the time, I didn’t realize what a huge break this was. It turned out that Mark and his brother Michael were the British-born owners of Bumble and Bumble in Johannesburg, South Africa. Working at their new Beverly Hills location gave me the opportunity to get some expert training from top people in the field.
Even with their help, I knew that to succeed in the long run, I’d need an official credentials. And so, we made a deal: They would teach me everything I needed to know about hairstyling and would arrange to expedite the process for me to get a cosmetology license. In return, I would work for them as an apprentice without having to go through the California State Board. To accomplish this, they had to ignore a few regulations.
They had me sign an affidavit proclaiming I was a South African resident who went to Waverly Girls High School in Johannesburg, completed my cosmetology license there, and worked as a full-time hairdresser at Bumble and Bumble. This way, I could legally transfer my license over to California. I know this sounds fishy, but…hello… is this thing on?
Today, Bumble and Bumble salons and products are among the most highly regarded in the country. I owe my career to them. Even now, if you ask me where I’m from, I’ll say, “I’m an African-American from South Africa. I went to Waverly Girls High School in Johannesburg.”
Despite my good fortune with the Gordons, when I first began learning how to cut hair, the pay was not enough to live on. I had to figure out a way to earn some cash on the side. This was easier said than done because I was working and training in the salon ten hours a day, five days a week. So I would have to find something that I could do on nights or weekends without jeopardizing my salon training.
At the time I had developed an interest in learning to play the piano so I started hanging out at the Whiskey A Go-Go on Sunset Boulevard to watch keyboard players. It was the 80s and, for some reason, rock bands started making keyboards more prominent in their mix. “The Whiskey,” as it’s more commonly called, is where many bands like The Doors, Van Halen and Motley Crüe were discovered.
One night when I was there a sleazy looking guy came up to me and handed me a business card. “How would you like to make $150 bucks for one hour?”
“I usually get a lot more than that!”
“No, I’m serious. We’re looking for beautiful young ladies at the Hollywood Tropicana. And you certainly fit that category.”
Sleazy or not, what woman doesn’t like to hear the word “beautiful” applied to her?
“Thank you. I appreciate the offer but you should know that I’d never want to strip or anything like that.”
“No, no, no…” he smiled. “Not stripping¾mud wrestling.”
This sounded so cliché, like the invitation to have sex in a bathtub of cherry Jell-O, that I couldn’t help but laugh. Mud wrestling? Please, this can’t be real.
“It’s just a bunch of pretty young girls wrestling in a mud pit. It’s actually really fun and remember: It’s $150 an hour! We’re having auditions at the Trop this Thursday night. My name is Bill. My info is on the card. Let me know if you decide to come down.”
He shook my hand and disappeared into the crowd. Considering how desperate I was, I saw no reason not to give it a shot. It seemed like an odd job that I could be very good at. Maybe my career counselor in Lincoln, Nebraska was right after all about taking the path less traveled.
I went down to the Hollywood Tropicana the following Thursday. I was shocked to see how many other girls were there. Gorgeous women of all shapes, colors and sizes: blondes, brunettes, red heads, skinny, chunky, super-chunky, small-breasted, big-breasted and grotesquely large-breasted. I suddenly felt a little out of my league in this lineup. I was only 5’3’, 100 pounds and completely flat-chested, roughly the size of a young Laotian boy. For the audition, they had us dance in a bikini for a few minutes and then wrestle another girl in the same weight class. The only rules were no kicking, biting, or pulling hair; everything else was fair game.
I was never inhibited dancing in front of people, so that part of the audition was easy. The second part was completely strange to me. The closest I’d ever come to wrestling was as a bridesmaid where, during the flower toss, we all dove for the bouquet like pigeons on a French fry. I squared off with a young Latina who was my size. I had no idea what to do so I just stood there, frozen. She charged at me with her head down and ran right into my stomach. Because the mud was so wet and slippery, I went down instantly. My God, it hurt! Though I’m a very mellow person and had never been in a fight before, I was instantly pulsing with rage. I guess all the years of getting stepped on but being too timid to do anything about it had been bottled up and the bottle just broke. Somehow I got back on my feet and beat the crap out of this girl. I was hired on the spot.
My first night at The Trop, Bill handed me a Wonder Women costume. “This is going to be your character when you wrestle.”
I wasn’t sure why Wonder Women was chosen for me, but I could only speculate it was because people would wonder where my breasts were. Given my size, I was thinking something more along the lines of Minnie Mouse, but I didn’t have a choice. I would be a tiny, blonde-haired, mud-wrestling Wonder Woman. At least there would be no nudity except for the occasional peek-a-boo shot of my breasts while pinning down an opponent.
My first bout was underway. Just like in the audition, my opponent and I performed a little sexy dance number and peeled off a few layers of clothing after the emcee introduced us. We brushed up close to the men surrounding the mud pit, performing a pseudo-lap dance, as they tossed dollar bills at us; eager to get a whiff of pretty girls who smelled like synthetic mud. It was creepy.
Once we were down to our bikinis and all the men in the audience were drooling, the fighting began. Since there was ten times more mud than in the audition, it was about ten times harder to keep your balance and get a grip of your opponent to throw her around. We were mostly just able to hold on and roll around on top of each other; something I’m quite sure the promoters knew all along as it was more sensual than barbaric. That said, I still had a competitive nature so I was ready to hammer my opponent and win. Because of my aggression, I was reminded on several occasions that these fights were not real and merely for exhibition. My wrestling was real!
I stayed at The Hollywood Tropicana for a year and a half. Between the base pay and the tips, the money was good; enough for me to live on and still continue my training at the salon. In fact, this odd job actually helped my budding career as a hairdresser because many of our salon clients were so intrigued with my mud wrestling stories, they started showing up to watch me fight. Word of mouth spread and soon I started building up my own audience at The Trop. This eventually led to a feature story including a picture of me on the front of cover of Hollywood Press that hit all the newsstands in Southern California.
The night that the article came out, I was at Madam Wong’s watching my favorite band at the time, The Nu Kats. I had a crush on the lead singer, Freddy Moore, and was a little bummed to find out that he recently married an 18 year old named Demi Guynes. Even though she was underage, I used to see her hanging out at the club all the time. We often talked about the band and how cute we thought Freddy was. I have to admit I was a bit jealous that she wound up marrying him. I could see the attraction though; she was really sweet and absolutely beautiful.
Demi was sitting at the table with me when my friend Lisa came in with a copy of the Hollywood Press with me on the cover and passed it around to everyone at the table. I had no idea the article was even out there and was a bit embarrassed. Demi actually thought it was cool and said she’d like to come see me wrestle at the Tropicana some time. I told her that I could probably get her a job there if she wanted but she politely declined. She was an aspiring actress and wanted to focus on that. She also had just co-written the Nu Kats song “It’s Not a Rumor” with Freddy and was the star of the video that would eventually make it into the rotation on MTV. A few years later, she landed a role on General Hospital, which led to a string of hit movies, and marriage and children with Bruce Willis. I never saw Demi Moore again after that night. I still think she would’ve been a great mud wrestler.
As my popularity and time commitment increased at The Trop, it got to the point that I couldn’t continue leading a double-life so I had to make a decision: mud wrestling or hairdressing. While I was certainly having a blast getting paid to tussle in a mud pit with beautiful young ladies, I knew that a career like that would be last only as long as my twenties would. On the other hand, hairdressing has no age limits, as well as far more security, so after a fun and successful run at the Hollywood Tropicana, I hung up my Wonder Woman cape. My new weapon of choice: scissors instead of my bare hands.
And before I knew it, I had a string of celebrity clients, famous boyfriends, and I was the Devil Dog in Hollywood.