I promise you a happy ending
Like the ones that you see on the screen
So if you had a bad beginning
You will come out winning in the closing scene
~ from Broadway’s Mack & Mabel
(which, ironically, did NOT have a happy ending)
For those of you following the Epic Saga of my show biz career, the most recent score was Hollywood 1, Eileen Faxas 0.
After experiencing the triumphal moment of getting my first Network TV role – and announcing it to the world (or approximately 11,000 people, give or take 200) – I suffered a Tragic Twist Of Fate worthy of a 1980’s Molly Ringwald movie when – as my world of 11,000 watched – my part was Cut. From. The. Show. Hollywood with the knock out punch.
Cue the Francis Ford Coppola-inspired slow-motion sequence accompanied by highly dramatic symphonic music as I lunge for carbohydrates with crazy eyes…
I had the crazy eyes, not the carbohydrates.
Actually, my bipolar reaction ping-ponged between mortification/disappointment and a Hollywood blasé “Meh! These things happen…”
So it’s now one week later, and I’m on a subway heading home when a text bursts onto my screen practically screaming: “I just saw you!!!!!! You were ON!”
“Mother? WHERE did you just see me?!?!” Before I can press ‘send’, she’s calling, breathless & semi-muffled, but because I speak mother, I understand that she is saying she just saw me on THE FOLLOWING!
I am now racing home with racing mind, wondering if I even recorded this episode (I had!) and if I’d even get to see myself (I did!) and all the while in utter utter shock that I was experiencing YET ANOTHER TWIST in this saga that actually gives me…ME…a Happy Ending! And I distinctly remember thinking: This doesn’t happen to me. And I remember immediately follow-up thinking: Why NOT? Why NOT a happy ending for you? YES a happy ending for you!“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.” ~Orson Welles
And there it was, buried somewhere in my psyche, that lil’ nugget of defeatism. Like a dirty little secret rearing its ugly alien head.
In my defense, you’ve got to understand that the old adage “you win some, you lose some” in show biz is more like “you mostly lose some, but win just enough to keep you going plus good wine helps”.
But on THIS page in THIS chapter of this lifetime saga, I get My Happy Ending.
I am onscreen on primetime.
I lay claim to my TV Network Debut.
I am Molly Ringwald with a surprise birthday party finalé because everyone really DID remember her 16th birthday. (Kids: Refer to Wikipedia “16 Candles”)
I am Me with the Happy Ending.
My lil’ negative nugget says “for now”.
I’m shutting that thing up with wine and a carbohydrate.
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You can enjoy Eileen’s novella of an artist’s life by stopping by anytime, or by subscribing to her highly irregular/irrepressible blog. Like a box of chocolates, you just never know what you’re going to get. Or when you’re going to get it. No matter how much you want it.
