ROAR

In the 1970's and 1980's in Hollywood and, truth be told, everywhere else, a woman could hardly enter the work force without some horny bastard trying to game the system, abuse his power to hire to try to touch women he could never otherwise touch.

In the 1970's and early 1980's I hid in a tiny desert town like a coward. I'd had a short story published by a REDBOOK editor, Judy Bucher, but not in REDBOOK. Judy published it in THE COLORADO WOMAN'S DIGEST. It was called TEN POUNDS OF RAGE, a story about being ten pounds overweight and fretting about that instead of the elephant in the room. Judy said I had writing talent and that I should move to a big city but that she was worried a big city would eat me alive.

I wanted to be a writer. I was working at a newspaper called the Antelope Valley Ledger-Gazette. I set type and proof read. I dreamed of being a writer. My boss was Les Steinburg. 

I decided to create this blog today after reading tweets by Patricia Arquette on twitter this morning where she mentioned bringing her boyfriend with her when Oliver Stone invited her to a screening of NATURAL BORN KILLERS.

I didn't have a boyfriend to bring with me when I answered a newspaper want ad for a job in the movie business. 

I had given my notice at THE LEDGER-GAZETTE six months in advance.  Then I hitchhiked across the USA and back to 'find myself", get tough and become a "real writer". I am probably the only person who did that without getting into any significant trouble. I lost my purse in Gila Bend, Arizona. It had in it a letter from Anais Nin in it telling me to "Stay spontaneous and free." 

After my uneventful travels, I went back to see my former boss, Les Steinburg to ask him a favor. Even after my big adventure, I was still afraid of people. All I had done was prove it was possible to travel across the USA and back without getting noticed, to see without being seen.

REDBOOK MAGAZINE editor, Judy Bucher was right. As a writer I needed the stimulation of a big city like New York or Los Angeles, but as an emancipated minor with no family to look after me, I was afraid of the big cities. I didn't know how to do anything about trouble except run away from it. Judy Bucher was concerned that in a big city, especially New York, I would not be successful in running away from trouble.  I stayed away from New York. I saw the USA but didn't let it see me. I cut my hair short and dressed in baggy clothes. I marveled at the beauty of this country but managed to return to the Antelope Valley as naive as the day I left it.

Somehow I managed to convince my former employer to drive with me from Lancaster, California to Hollywood, California for emotional support so I could apply for what I believed would be the most important job interview of my life. Maybe it was. Maybe my response defined who I was in this life.

I was being considered for the job of being producer Noel Marshall's "right hand man" (woman actually, but he said: "right hand man"). Les Steinburg went with me to my first interview with producer Noel Marshall. He insisted on waiting outside in the car and promised to come inside to rescue me if I did not return within a reasonable time. I was terrified but marched inside alone, knowing Mr. Steinburg was parked outside, ready to rescue me.

Noel Marshall was making a movie called ROAR.

Noel Marshall was Tippi Hedren's husband. I did not know this at the time. I soon found out.