Beingactor

 I began my career as an actor as a storyteller to all my younger sisters and brothers. Being the oldest in a family with seven children meant entertaining them with stories; and they would ask even beg for one or two of my stories. As a babysitter I made .50 cents an hour! And for that 50 cents I would act out stories or films I might have seen recently.
Also,being an Army brat helped shape my career choice. I grew up around the world. At the age of six we moved to Germany and there was no television it was the '60s. In Pattonsville, yes, Pattonsville the street's name Normandy Drive of course.( Hey,these were Army living quarters)   The movie theatre was always packed every Saturday and Sunday afternoon. All the kids in Pattonsville were in that theatre, which meant the movie house was packed! And the tickets sold for ten cents and we were given a quarter- so going both days was common, even if it a was the same film.
Across from the movie theatre was a apple orchard- which during the warmer months, became our stage.  Sitting in the lap of an apple tree retelling the each scene from the film was magical to me and my friend Ramona. We were Peter Pan, pirates, angels, dancers, Swiss Family, Elvis, oh yeah!- whatever the movie it was just the sling  that shot us out into space of our imaginations.

One week we had a graveyard for deceased insects. A very serious undertaking (ha-ha).  Finding the dear dead we would roll them up in toilet paper like the mummies and the make a cross, dig the hole and bury them. Solemn prayers were said over our insect dead.  Amen.  I am not sure which film inspired this.
Another film that inspired me was "Robin Hood", I fancied myself as a pirate and I am not sure why I thought at age 8 that Robin Hood was kinda like a pirate, but I did.  Trying to jump from tree to tree, or swing around a lamp post, or trying to climb a lamp post.  Oh and I had a bandana on my head.  I tried to have an accent like Errol Flynn, yup.  And during one of my stunts, a dog started chasing me; I climbed very quickly up the lamp post.  And then ran home, upset that a dog didn't like my character!
At night the movie theatre ran current films.  And one day as we were goofing off in the lobby; the poster for the film, "Romeo and Juliet".  Yeah, the one with Olivia Hussey laying on her tummy and the only clothes was her really long hair.  Ramona and I talked about this for a minute. But, Shakespeare entered my life that very moment.
I have preformed two stage productions of "R &J" but not as Juliet,no, no, the Nurse.  Love her!  I hope to visit that role again someday.  I see the Nurse as almost the only female role that has a 3-D character.  You see her humor, caring, her fears, anger, hopelessness, sadness, her joy, her sensual side. She is real.
Early on in my career, like when I was five; I was an angel in a Christmas parade in Ironton, Ohio. I was the best angel ever.  My grandmother, who I was staying at the time walked behind the float and she would tell many times throughout the next 40 years that I never shut up.  I talked the entire time of that Christmas parade! I have no idea what I said.  What I remember about this event, was my friend's mom was changing the family's bird cage and lining cage with newspaper( and yes, I was featured in the local newspaper,) and my face appeared and said, "Stop, its me!  So, no bird poo on this angelic face. But, I am sure there were many other small pet cages in Ironton that my face was featured in, oh well.
Telling stories is the life of an actor.  The appoarch is vaired, from the formal stage production to an abstract video performance art, to traveling throughout the country in a van with some other actors, going school to school performing a children's play.
The beginning of my career started tucked in bed and my little sister asking to hear the story about "Buttercup".  The Adventures of Buttercup .  I think there is a story book of Buttercup,  but my Buttercup was based on my sister's life.  I tailored my storytelling to fit my audiance; even at the young age of six or seven or eight or nine or ten.