{"id":148,"date":"2015-04-22T21:35:26","date_gmt":"2015-04-23T01:35:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=148"},"modified":"2015-04-22T23:01:41","modified_gmt":"2015-04-23T03:01:41","slug":"no-business-like-show-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=148","title":{"rendered":"NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0My latest book, HALLEY, has just been released by NewSouth Books:\u00a0www.newsouthbooks.com\/halley<\/span><\/p>\n

My acting career seemed to go by in a flash.\u00a0 Maybe that\u2019s because the part in front of the camera only lasted one very long day.<\/span><\/p>\n

My husband and I heard they wanted to hire \u201cextras\u201d for crowd scenes in BIG FISH, and we said why not?\u00a0 They were shooting the funeral scene at the little church behind our house and the pay scale wasn\u2019t bad.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

First came wardrobe approval.\u00a0 I took my favorite skirt, blouse, and (since the weather was cool) a warm jacket to be approved at the assigned place in the Cloverdale area of Montgomery, Alabama.\u00a0 Everything passed.\u00a0 The day of the funeral scene shoot, we reported at dawn to the Pine Flat Presbyterian Church Cemetery only to find that they had changed my wardrobe.\u00a0 I had to wear a skirt well above my knees and a light weight jacket too thin for March.\u00a0 Furthermore, they decided that my husband did not look right for me, so I was matched with a college professor a head shorter than me.\u00a0 My husband was several tombstones away with a good-looking blond. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We rehearsed walking toward the point where the camera was set up.\u00a0 Assistant directors mounted ladders to observe, and then shuffled us extras around.\u00a0 They even broke couples up and repartnered them.\u00a0 But I was left with the \u201chusband\u201d I\u2019d been assigned and Benjamin remained with the blond.\u00a0 Again we marched, and again we were shuffled.\u00a0 Benjamin and the blond got further and further away.\u00a0 My back began to ache. My feet were numb with cold.<\/span><\/p>\n

It had warmed a little when the stars appeared–Jessica Lange, Danny DeVito, and so on.\u00a0 We had been warned not to approach or speak to them.\u00a0 I really didn\u2019t want to, except maybe to get close enough to hear DeVito.\u00a0 Whatever he was saying was convulsing the crowd around him.<\/span><\/p>\n

We extras kept on standing.\u00a0 Then a murmur ran through the crowd.\u00a0 \u201cThe director!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Tim<\/span> Burton<\/span> had arrived, and he was every bit as weird looking as he appeared in the gossip magazines.\u00a0 He took his place behind the camera.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFinally!\u00a0 The man next to me said.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re going to get started.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Dream on! Tim Burton left the camera and consulted with assistants.\u00a0 \u201cExtras back to starting positions!\u201d one of them ordered.\u00a0 We marched.\u00a0 We marched again.\u00a0 We stood.\u00a0 My legs were numb, but my feet were screaming.\u00a0 Across the cemetery, I saw Benjamin gallantly helping the blond to a tombstone just high enough to serve as a seat.<\/span><\/p>\n

Good idea, I thought and looked around.\u00a0 I found a very thin marker just behind me and plopped down–just behind the marker! My skirt fell down around my rear end and since the bend of my knee was supported by the stone, there was no dignified way of getting up. My pretend husband looked at me and then looked quickly away. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBenjamin!\u201d I yelled.\u00a0 \u201cHelp me.\u201d\u00a0 He came running.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHope they captured this on film,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

After that, I stood, I marched, and I stood some more.\u00a0 Except for a lunch break that is how the entire day went.\u00a0 When the sun was going down an assistant asked who would like to work the next day.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNot me,\u201d I said, thereby dooming a promising show business career. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now when I watch BIG FISH, I have to slow it down to a creep and get really close to catch a glimpse of me in that minute or so of funeral footage. But in my closet hangs the leather coat I bought with my pay.\u00a0 Too bad I couldn\u2019t wear it at the funeral!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0My latest book, HALLEY, has just been released by NewSouth Books:\u00a0www.newsouthbooks.com\/halley My acting career seemed to go by in a flash.\u00a0 Maybe that\u2019s because the part in front of the camera only lasted one very long day. My husband and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions\/150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}