Fame. Cuz I’m Gonna Live Forever. Right?
I was supposed to be famous by now. At least as was indicated by a 5th grade classmate who turned to me in choir and said “You sing real good. You’re probably going to be famous someday.” Her hedge with the “probably” went unnoticed in the destiny-rush of her larger pronouncement. I was delighted. At last. 
A Life Plan I could work with, as solid as they get, and one that informed my journey from that moment until just a few short years ago when I finally realized I was not gonna live forever or learn how to fly. Neither did I feel it coming together and, clearly, to switch clichés, there was more than one mountain plenty high enough to keep me from gettin’ to all sorts of stuff (I’d already found the low-enough valley, thank you). I was stunned. What kind of Life Plan was this? I mean, really; take a look at me in my choir-singing, fluffy-sleeved, stage-favorite, flouncy red dress and tell me if you don’t see a star there? Come on.
Fame is seductive and for most artists it’s part of the lure that pulls us through the gauntlet we experience in our quest for success. As I advanced in my own artist’s life, however, I also found a need to confirm that my intentions were as noble as my calling; concerned that – while Fame was essential to the goal – it must be coveted for all the right reasons: not ego, not attention, not money, not perqs. It needed to have a higher purpose or it was simply too shallow a pursuit (I was a ponderer from way back).
So in the dark of night I examined my own intent and authentically came to this: Fame meant being able to continue. Continue with work you love, continue to create; continue to get jobs and enough attention that others continued to want to give you those jobs, gigs, shows, films, etc. Fame offered a pulpit, a place from which to espouse worthy ideas and artful craft; wisdom, reason, inspiration. Frankly, especially pre-Internet/blog/Facebook/etc., without Fame there were typically not all that many people listening, watching, reading or being inspired by much of anything you could say or do. With it, the audience was exponentially larger. All good points. Satisfied with my appropriate enough reasons to covet Fame and relieved to have integrity squarely situated in my Life Plan, I moved forward unburdened, ready to embrace my destiny.
It was all so enticing, so plausible and assuring. So many opportunities along the way, real moments when the Lure of Fame seemed to brush right over me and say, “Almost…here it comes…hang in there.” Soaps on the Road, a touring rock n’ roll extravaganza with big soap stars of the day: I sang with Richard Dean Anderson, David Hasselhoff and Wings Hauser…just one breath away when you’re actually gigging with celebs, right? 
Richard was famous, David was famous, Wings was famous at the time. Me? Who the hell is that girl singing with Rick and David and Wings? I know, but they gave me the spotlight, I got to feel like a rock star singing in big venues with screaming fans and we did cause quite a ruckus in Arizona at some point. All the stuff famous people do. Proof I was gettin’ close.
My own bands got me closer. Those chapters are chockful of worthy anecdotes and near misses and best saved for their own entries to come but, suffice it to say, I could smell Fame’s breath in those years many more times than one.
Then there was To Cross the Rubicon. Look at this picture. 
Who do you see? That’s me on the right, eye-mooning with famed singer/songwriter, J.D. Souther, who was slumming with us indie filmmakers at a time when he was intent on an acting career. He’d done a stint on “thirtysomething,” he was hot, and when the woman on the left, Patricia Royce, and I co-wrote this script and The Lensman Company, her film company with partner Barry Caillier, decided to produce it, J.D. was quite the “get.” He was handsome. He was famous. He still is. And he’s still making beautiful music: (http://www.jdsouther.net/). Yep, I know, closer still…in fact, when I got engaged to Pete Wilke (the The Lensman Company attorney at the time) while we were shooting the film, J.D. actually said to me one night, “Why would you want to get married right before you’re gonna get famous?” I dunno. Still married. Not famous. Go figure.
Look at the fellow up there on the left. At the time he was just a “little leather thing” (as we so amusingly stereotyped him in our script), an up and coming rocker/actor who Pat and Barry had cast in an earlier film of theirs, Daredreamer. Billy Burke. Think you know him? You do. He’s made a gazillion TV shows and films and he’s now Bella’s father in the Twilight series. He’s got a new series coming out (“Rizzoli & Isles”), and his latest CD is going viral (http://www.billyburke.net/). He’s famous. Damn famous. (The guy in front, Wade Madsen, so prominently featured on this one-sheet and yet I’m not sure he ever even wanted to be famous, was a talented Seattle dancer and a great guy.) Other people who had cameos in this little, teeny, tiny film? David Crosby, really famous, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, gooey famous now after dying on Grey’s Anatomy and Weeds. You know him, I promise. What an amazing company of artists we employed…we couldn’t miss! Right?
Me and Patricia and Barry, we who wrote, performed in, directed, produced and worked this film for years? We’re not famous. Should we be? I don’t know. You’d kinda think. And though you do know something of me at this point, consider this about Pat: beyond her role as the filmmaker – along with Barry – of several award-winning films (including To Cross the Rubicon), she is a talented fine-artist who has shown in well-established galleries in the Florida Keys and has an amazing collection, much of which can be perused at her site: (http://www.90milestocuba.com/). She is also deeply involved as a director, director of photography, editor and general all-around producer of a fascinating and very popular web series called Capturing Carmine (www.capturingcarmine.net). She’s a powerhouse. And Barry Caillier, the Still Not Famous guy who directed our little film? He flies around the world producing mega-industrial shows, is working on a script and is currently meeting with investors on a fascinating historical film, Shoot, Minnie, Shoot: (http://www.shootminnieshoot.com/).
He’s also working as a development partner with Penny Perry and Gene Davis of Gabriel Pictures (http://www.gabrielentertainmentgroup.com/) on a slate of film projects, including one of mine called The Theory of Almost Everything (click “Gabriel Pictures” on the home page and scroll down to Films in Development). Suffice it to say, Fame or No Fame, these two are both extraordinary and you should know them if you don’t.
Which compels me, at this point in the story, to inject the intended take-away: remember that creaky adage, “the cream always rises to the top”? Well, that hard little pearl led many of us young artists to believe that IF you were good enough, IF you were talented enough, IF you were deserving enough, you couldn’t help but rise to those creamy heights and the inevitable Success, Stardom and Fame that would follow. Conversely, IF for some reason you didn’t, well, then, somehow you just weren’t creamy enough. Now in our wizened and life-battered maturity, we know this to be one of those hateful little fairy tales like the ones that said blindness follows self-pleasure or inopportune crack-stepping cripples mothers or anybody can achieve anything if they just put their mind to it. Sometimes that just ain’t true. My vision is fine, my Mom is still walking and I know too many unbelievably talented artists who put their minds to it all over the damn place and still ended up selling real estate or having to reinvent a career when they least expected to. There’s a lot of randomness and whimsy in how all this plays out. That’s important to remember. While many of the people who do rise to Fame are deserving (see above), many of the Truly Talented don’t get there for reasons that remain inexplicable: slipped through the cracks, missed opportunities, didn’t know the right people or get to the right places; fate, destiny, karma, I don’t know. What I do know is that Fame alone is not the arbiter or proof of talent, particularly when we are forced to accept cranky chefs, psychotic housewives, slutty bachelors and bachelorettes, shameless wife swappers and tone-deaf pop stars as our New Celebrities. With the dawn of digital technology and Reality TV and its many subsequent “stars,” Fame lost much of its panache, its value, and like plummeting currency, is no longer worth quite what it was when talent, accomplishment and great achievement were prerequisites. But still…its Lure remains strong, doesn’t it? And there are still so many who deserve just a bit more of it than they got:
Tina Romanus. She’s mentioned in a previous entry. She’s that kind of memorable. She even inspired a few of the songs I’ve written. A tremendous friend, a talented actress and a brilliant singer who broke out in the ’60′s with The Bitter End Singers, the namesake band of that famous New York club,
and was about to be launched into her solo career when the choice to move west interrupted the rise. In her hey-day, Tina appeared with countless stars of the day on that vaunted stage, sang for Lyndon Johnson at the White House, made records and traveled the world performing. Earl Wilson of the New York Post wrote about her as the Next Big Thing. She shoulda been. She had the goods. She remains one of those electric people with a wicked smart mind and wry sense of humor. And though she doesn’t sing much anymore, she will if someone makes her and when she does, she can still bring a tear.
Gigi Bermingham: I first saw Gigi in a brilliant production of The House of Blue Leaves,
beautifully directed by Nancy Locke Capers at the Alliance Repertory Company in Burbank, CA. Gigi was playing Bunny and she blew my mind. Gut-clutching funny, clever as a whip, gorgeous, yet filled with so much character she could play almost any part. And she did. Her tour de force came in her one-woman show, Non-Vital Organs, which was the single most brilliant piece of theater I may have ever seen. Not your typical one-woman-standing-on-stage-changing-costumes-and-accents-and-telling-a-story kind of one-woman show, this was a mind-bending full-on play with a spectrum of characters of varying ages, backgrounds, and, yes, accents; all of whom somehow miraculously related to one another as individuals, seamlessly and without special effects, in a piece that should have flown straight from equity-waver LA to Broadway. Really. That brilliant. I believe it won an Ovation. It should have won a Tony. I became Gigi’s biggest fan (though I’m surely in a legion of many) and would follow her to whatever show she was doing that I could make. If there is anyone who should be world-famous, this chick is it. She appears often at The Anteaus Theater and if you can, go see her. In anything. (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0083654/). 
And Nancy Locke Capers, the talented director of The House of Blue Leaves? She’s an accomplished teacher, writer and actor in her own right, but several years back facilitated a major life change to become a successful family therapist in La Jolla. An all around supporter of her artist friends, she has posted on her site an interview she did with me about my just-finished novel, The Pros and Cons of Neighbors…she’s that kind of person: http://www.nancycapers.com/
.
And not to short shrift the male gender, meet Steve Brackenbury, a studied musician and writer who hails originally from Utah where he taught music, wrote symphonies and discovered his true self, an epiphany which led him to California. He’s shy, humble and welcoming, one of those people you can’t help but fall in love with, and his support of friends, community and art in its many forms is enthusiastic and unlimited. He currently lives in sunny Fortuna, a quaint burg in gorgeous Humboldt County, where he’s become a poet laureate of sorts, writing pieces that so evocatively depict the people and places of that enigmatic region that publishers continually put his work into print. His way with words even inspired talented local artist, Susan Cooper, (http://susandillcooper.com/) to name a piece for him and his poem “Observation” was just published: (http://www.northcoastjournal.com/arts/2010/07/15/observation/). Steve is a lovely Not Famous man who works in a particular genre, poetry, in which it is profoundly difficult to wrangle Fame. See that smile on his face? It’s always there anyway.
Louise Amandes is a relatively new filmmaker but a veteran artist. Starting in architecture, continuing in music, moving into web design, completing a degree in motion graphics and recently immersing herself in filmmaking, Louise is a true Renaissance woman. After exhibiting her first film short, Hula Zoo, on the web, her next film, Making Noise, a documentary short on “noise music” made with her filmmaking partner, Ron Austin, was invited to premiere at the Seattle True Independent Film Festival in June, where it was met with enthusiastic response from both audiences and fellow filmmakers. To view: http://www.imdb.com/video/wab/vi2173371417/.
She and Ron have just begun photography on their next film. I’ve known Louise all her life…she’s my sister, one of my 10 siblings, and a person who shows such support and unconditional friendship to the people she cares about (including me!), that she naturally engenders the kind of applause and encouragement reserved for artists who can truly look outside themselves, something she does as a matter of course. A woman of many talents, she is also an extraordinary massage therapist (ask for her at The Hothouse Spa – http://hothousespa.com/ – you’ll get the best massage you’ve probably ever had and, yes, she did design the website!). There aren’t too many people I know who have been as dedicated, indefatigable and authentically driven by their Creative Muse as Louise. Her work has played a part in the careers of many people (she designed my original website and the artwork for my CD cover) and she is relentless in her pursuit of a life filled with artistic expression. Famous, no; One of A Kind, definitely.
There are plenty of others to write about; my list of Not Famous People You Should Know could go on and on and it will. I will return with other notable candidates in the near future, this is a good start. If nothing else, I hope to inspire some curiosity in the brilliant, unlimited trove of talent and creativity that can be found just beyond the wall of Fame. If you dig not all that deep, in a bookstore, a small gallery, a local theater, the many obscure artists’ sites that are so ubiquitous on the web, I guarantee you will find gems that need only the light of appreciation to shine as brightly as some of what’s already illuminated. I’m not sure what makes people live forever, but it ain’t Fame. More likely it’s the quiet legacy of Creation left by those who passionately create, however small their audience. These are just a few lifers. Enjoy them.
[As for our "little film," To Cross the Rubicon, if you'd like to read a bit about it you can check out reviews, etc., on this page on my website, (http://www.lorrainedevonwilke.com/ldwfilms.html). I believe you can still find it on Netflix...it's dated, sometimes clumsy, and not always compelling but it has heart, a few laughs, and songs by the Now Famous Billy Burke and the Not Famous me, including one of my personal favorites: I Surrender (by Lorraine Devon Wilke & David Resnik)...click for a listen!]
Photo credits:
Richard Dean Anderson, Wings Hauser & Lorraine Devon, Soaps On the Road @ www.lorrainedevonwilke.com
To Cross the Rubicon @ www.imdb.com
Patricia Royce painting @ www.90MilesToCuba.com
Shoot, Minnie Shoot poster @ www.shootminnieshoot.com
All other photos by permission of parties.
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