Hollywood comes to town

Mom had an almost self-righteous disdain for celebrity worship, and I picked up her tendency to mentally dethrone superstars of any kind. Some of my girlfriends were enamored with the likes of Donny Osmond and the Beatles, but I shrank from their silly swooning.
 
I got up close and personal with Hollywood movie stars two times. The first happened randomly when a movie was being filmed across the street from El Centro, my elementary school. Cloris Leachman, a star in the show, wandered over to the walls of our playground where my friends started clamoring for her autograph. Swept up in the frenzy but with nothing for her to sign, I handed her my dirty, blue tennis shoe, an awkward act of fandom that still makes me cringe.
 
The second time was in junior high when I actually made it to the silver screen myself. Filmmakers often came to my hometown, where they found wide streets and cool, old houses (like Tanner Manor), and rumor had it our city offered inexpensive film permits. In addition, South Pasadena sits less than 15 miles from Hollywood. So, I don’t know whether it was the period homes, the price, or the proximity that drew famous people to our neck of the woods, but I do know that when Hollywood came to town in the spring of 1976, it changed lives, including mine.

​The producers of the original Freaky Friday movie needed to film a hockey scene. They chose to use our junior high school, where they found a robust sports program, plentiful equipment, and several dozen 13-year-old girls anxious to be extras. Because the director knew nothing about field hockey, he had to learn the game from a bunch of eighth-grade girls. To show him, we lined up on the field as if we were about to start a game, and my friends encouraged me to stand in the center forward position, where I almost always played. That placement eventually turned me into “the bully” who faced off against Jodie Foster, the child star of the picture.
 
I should have been star-struck; instead, the experience pulled back the curtain on any modicum of glitz or glamour I might have previously imagined. We spent three full days in the hot sun filming seven minutes of actual footage. Between takes, we extras waited for hours outside under awnings where we would eat catered lunches and ice cream bars, try to focus on homework, and gossip about the people we’d met. Jodie Foster was downright snobby. She ignored us as much as possible; instead, she spoke French (fluently) to her personal tutor, knowing we couldn’t understand. Occasionally, she said a few words in English to other adults on the set, but I don’t recall hearing her say anything of consequence. Although the other actresses seemed like fairly normal teenagers, we didn’t have much off-screen interaction with them either since they spent their downtime inside air-conditioned trailers.
 
I have to admit, watching the movie premiere a year later with my friends was very exciting. My short-lived moments on the silver screen still stand as my unknown claim to fame, a life event I often use as a bet-you-don’t-know-me fact in icebreaker games. Better than becoming “famous,” though, was getting paid for “acting.” Outside of babysitting and doing odd jobs, I had never earned real wages that required I have a Social Security Number. I recall earning about $50 a day—a tidy sum for a 13-year-old—but my net pay was only about $100. Taxing a young girl felt criminal! Not only did my brief acting career mark the birth of a one-time movie star, but it also marked the birth of a lifelong fiscal conservative.