Dear Cary - Dyan Cannon [34]
So I wound up in Los Angeles more or less by accident, though I’m not sure there really are any accidents. I hadn’t consciously set out to make it in Hollywood, but it’s hard not to believe that some powerful underground currents were pulling me in that direction. You could call it karma, or you could call it serendipity . . . or whatever.
Anyone who’d spent any time in Hollywood had heard the “discovery” stories. Lana Turner, the story went, was “discovered” when she was sitting at the counter at Schwab’s Pharmacy having a soda (she later dismissed the story as a fable). A bicycle messenger nearly collides with a big talent agent, and next thing you know he’s signed. And so on. Maybe it happened, maybe not. Everybody seemed to know somebody who knew somebody who got discovered just by hanging out at the right place, but you never met the person who actually got discovered.
Crazy as it sounds—and it sounds crazier to me than it probably does to anybody else—I actually “got discovered.” It happened one afternoon when I was having lunch at Frascati, a casual and popular hangout on Sunset Boulevard, with two of my roommates, Jackie and Alice. Schwab’s was conveniently located diagonally across the intersection, in case you wanted to run over and mug for the mirror behind the soda fountain. As it happened, though, I didn’t have to leave Frascati. Our orders had just arrived when a well-dressed, middle-aged man approached me.
“Are you an actress?” he asked.
“Well, yes I am.”
“I knew it,” he said. Jackie giggled and elbowed me under the table.
“Are you a fortune-teller?” I asked. Alice snorted iced tea through her nose. We were all about to blow up from the giggles.
“No,” he said, unfazed by our skepticism. “I’m a talent agent. And you’ve got star quality.”
The table went silent. We three girls all looked at each other, trying to contain our disbelief. And then broke out laughing harder than ever.
“What have you done?” he asked.
I promptly recited the name of every play I could think of off the top of my head. He looked at me, amused, and said, “You’re too young to have done that many plays.”
“I’m fast,” I said, laughing. I was just having fun with him. I never thought I’d see him again.
“I think you should meet Jerry Wald,” he said.
At this, we all kind of straightened up. It wasn’t that the man had said “Jerry Wald.” It was the way he said it. There was no bluster behind it. He seemed dead serious. Jerry Wald was big-time. He produced Key Largo, The Man Who Came to Dinner, Peyton Place . . . he was, to use one of those horribly overused words, legendary as a producer.
I got a grip on myself and said, “I’m Diane Friesen.”
“Hi, Diane. I’m Jack Hopkins. Will you give me your number, Diane?”
“Jack, excuse me for being cautious—”
“Diane, believe me, it’s only good sense and I understand. Here’s my card. You can call my office and ask anybody in town about me. I’m legit, and I want you to meet Jerry Wald.”
And he was legit. I called his office and several other agencies to check on him. He was a real agent, all right. Wow! A real agent was interested in me.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Discovered
“Oscar, I’m going to have to give you my resignation,” I told my wonderful boss.
“What’s up, Diane?”
“I’ve met a talent agent. Oscar, I’m going to meet Jerry Wald on Wednesday! I’ve been discovered!”
Oscar smiled and patted me on the shoulder. “Take a breath, my dear. Don’t quit just yet. You can have Wednesday off, and hey, if you get the part, we’ll celebrate