Homework Assignment

Oh, this is a fun assignment.  Boy, growing up in the late 50's early 60's what a time it was...especially with the music...you had such a litany of teen actors...Sandra Dee, Carol Lynley, Tuesday Weld, Connie Stevens, Annette, Ricky Nelson, James Darren, Tab Hunter, Fabian, Sal Mineo and lord above ELVIS!

I drove my parents nuts!  I had to have the latest 45, the latest movie rag out and had to go see my favorite movies over & over.

I had huge albums (the type you could put a whole newspaper in) and faithfully gathered any & all pictures of the ones I loved..I wish I still had that album!  Errr...Mom, I know you ditched it as soon as I put my foot out the door.  Oh, well....I think my favorite one was Sal Mineo...first of all he was a New York boy, born in Brooklyn not too far from where I was in Queens. I felt a connection.

He was about 5 years older than me...but I did the teenage thing and fantasized about him all the time.  His part in Rebel Without A Cause was so good, his acting was over the top...he should of gotten an award but got passed over - I think because of his age, the older actors felt he had time and would further improve..it wasn't fair.

I never got to see him in person, I would of loved to...but I did get to sit on a couch where he had sat and been photographed.

How?  Well, even in grade school I loved acting, I had made up my mind that I wanted to act, so I joined drama..  I was in plays, I took acting lessons outside.   In one of my movie magazines a famous acting coach ran an article on breaking into acting....I wrote to her.  My letter impressed her and she interviewed me..it turned out that she was the coach that was going to go to Israel to coach Sal Mineo & others for the film Exodus.

So I found myself sitting in a white living room, white rug, white couch...everything tone on tone white - for the life of me now I cannot remember her name..but she was very gracious to this 16 year old girl.   She said she would be willing to coach me, she thought that I did have "something".  However, she was going to be out of the country for several months because of the film and I still had almost one year left before I could graduate...so she suggested that I come back after school was over and we'd talk then.   I do believe that I "floated" all the way back to Queens from the city.

Unfortunately, the plans of mice & men - you know the way it goes.....life is full of surprises and sometimes it twists. When I graduated I had to go to work...my dreams were left behind.

Well, almost all of the ones that I went ga-ga over are gone..passed from this mortal coil....although there is that rumor about Elvis???