In Retrospect
The television industry was booming in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1994. My husband had just gotten dual citizenship through his Canadian mother, so he thought it would be a great idea for us to go up that summer for acting work, since neither of us were getting acting jobs in Los Angeles. We would drive up and stay at his parent’s home in Bellingham, Washington, while we searched for an apartment. I was not looking forward to spending time with his over-bearing mother, but I agreed to go.
Not long after we settled in Canada, he started getting tons of acting jobs on T.V. Shows like the X-files, The Commish, and several other shows you might not have heard of. Meanwhile, as a U.S. citizen, I wasn’t getting booked for anything.
I’d been making a minimum of $200.00 an hour back in Los Angeles as a Marilyn Monroe impersonator, but I was happy to take a break from that. I was hoping to get legitimate T.V. and film work that Summer. But, within a few weeks, while my dual-citizen huband worked non-stop, all I got was jealous and depressed.
In an effort to boost me up, he said, “Don’t worry that you’re not going to make it as an ingenue. Look at that woman who just got a role in ' The Titanic’ movie! She’s been struggling all these years, and finally got a break, and she’s in her 80s. It can still happen for you when you’re older!” He didn’t realize that Gloria Stuart had been a star in her 20’s long before the Titanic movie.
That comment became a tipping point. I started wallowing in my despair about approaching 40, and the possibility that I might not work as an actress again until I was 80. If he hadn’t made that comment, I might not have started looking for something else to fill my time while we were in Canada. I wouldn’t have spent time reading the classifieds in the Vancouver Sun newspaper, and I never would’ve seen the ad for a female lead singer in a country band.
I had never sung country songs before. I didn’t even listen to country radio. But, I was an actress, and I figured, if I could pull off impersonating Marilyn Monroe, I could probably act my way through the only country song I knew: “Crazy” by Patsy Cline. At my audition, in a ramshackle house outside of the city, I claimed that I had sung in bands all over Los Angeles, a fact I greatly exaggerated. For my final audition, I had to learn 30 songs in 4 days and show up at a VFW hall to sing with the band. I was very good at memorizing scripts, so I learned the songs and I got the gig. But, I never would’ve accepted any job in Los Angeles that only paid $50 for four hours a night singing in VFW halls, smoky dive-bars, and Senior Citizen Homes.
My in-laws came up to Vancouver for my debut at the VFW hall. My father-in-law was a veteran, and he was so excited about me becoming a country singer that he bought me a pair of cowboy boots, which I still own. He was a sweet man. How he stayed married to the mother-in-law was beyond me, but I digress.
My favorite memory with the band was the night I was belting out Michelle Wright’s ballad, “I’m Looking for a New Kind of Love,” to an audience of four drunks in an otherwise empty smoky dive-bar. When all four of them broke into a fight, yanking up their chairs and hitting each other over the head with them. I didn’t know what to do, so I just kept singing. Singing with the band started to help me through my depression, and best of all, since I was working weekends, we didn’t have to go visit his mother as often.
If I had never gotten hired to sing with that rinky-dink 3 person country band, with me as the lead singer, a guitarist, a bass player, and a drum machine, I never would’ve discovered the creative expression of writing songs.
I never would’ve been hanging out on a break at 1:00 a.m. in a seedy bar outside of Vancouver in the middle of Nowhere, Canada, reading an article by Pam Tillis in which she talked about “writing from title.” I never would’ve had the impetuous thought on the long drive back to our apartment, that instead of driving off the cliff, maybe I could write a torturous country song instead. I started thinking up titles while I drove and came up with my first country song called “Ten Times a Day.” Nothing ever became of that song. I was convinced I could write songs though, because all of the 30 songs I’d recently learned seemed so simplistic that I thought anyone could write them. (I was wrong, of course, I had no clue how hard it was to write a good country song).
If I hadn’t started spending the rest of the summer writing heart-wrenching country songs, I never would’ve gone back to L.A. with the hair-brained idea that I could become the next great Country Star. I never would’ve checked out the book from the library: “Get Hot or Go Home” about the making of Trisha Yearwood. I never would’ve had the thought, “it would be so cool to go to Nashville, but I can’t because I’m married.” I never would’ve signed up for a class called, “Getting into the Country Music Business,” and I never would’ve met my future mentor, my songwriting coach, who stressed that if any of his students wanted to get into the music business, we’d need to at least visit Nashville.
In retrospect, if I hadn’t checked out that Trisha Yearwood book from the library, and if I hadn’t forgotten to take it back on time, my husband never would’ve flown into a tirade, accusing me of being a “chaotic mess.” He never would’ve screamed, “I’m sick of you, I want a divorce!” {yep, my over due library book, that cost me a fine of $1.49, was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back}
It was while I was going through my divorce that I signed up for a creative writing class, and decided that my soon-to-be-ex’s infamous line, “ I’m sick of you, I want a divorce,” could become the impetus for the first chapter of a book. I tried writing the chapter in that class, but it would take me another 22 years to actually write my first novel, based on that line.
I never would’ve imagined that newly-single at 40 years of age, while on a visit to Nashville, I’d audition for a Marilyn Monroe gig that would lead me to packing up my honda with my miniature pincher and anything else I could fit into my car, to drive across country for a three month hiatus to check out the songwriting scene while performing in a show as Marilyn Monroe. The gig was a perfect escape from L.A., my failure as an actress, and my failure as a wife.
But I never dreamed that after three months when the Marilyn gig ended, I would decide to stay longer and that the time would fly into 28 years.
I often asked myself over my first few years in Nashville : “What am I doing here? Why am I still here?”
I didn’t become a successful songwriter, though I did have one top 40 country song on the radio. But, I created a new life here, one which has included a well-rounded relationship without a controlling mother-in-law in the mix, plenty of friends, lots of travel, and becoming an author! And by the way, I’m not 80 yet, but a few weeks ago, I finally acted in my first network television show in over 25 years!
Whenever I dredge up the past and look at the trajectory of my life, I still remember how horrible it was when I was going through my divorce. But, I also marvel at the order of events that took place. It’s only in retrospect that I can see how everything unfolded so perfectly.
I can see that the right things always arrived at the right time, and as I look at my current life, I can see that it could be no other way. Everything turned out just right.
Not long after we settled in Canada, he started getting tons of acting jobs on T.V. Shows like the X-files, The Commish, and several other shows you might not have heard of. Meanwhile, as a U.S. citizen, I wasn’t getting booked for anything.
I’d been making a minimum of $200.00 an hour back in Los Angeles as a Marilyn Monroe impersonator, but I was happy to take a break from that. I was hoping to get legitimate T.V. and film work that Summer. But, within a few weeks, while my dual-citizen huband worked non-stop, all I got was jealous and depressed.
In an effort to boost me up, he said, “Don’t worry that you’re not going to make it as an ingenue. Look at that woman who just got a role in ' The Titanic’ movie! She’s been struggling all these years, and finally got a break, and she’s in her 80s. It can still happen for you when you’re older!” He didn’t realize that Gloria Stuart had been a star in her 20’s long before the Titanic movie.
That comment became a tipping point. I started wallowing in my despair about approaching 40, and the possibility that I might not work as an actress again until I was 80. If he hadn’t made that comment, I might not have started looking for something else to fill my time while we were in Canada. I wouldn’t have spent time reading the classifieds in the Vancouver Sun newspaper, and I never would’ve seen the ad for a female lead singer in a country band.
I had never sung country songs before. I didn’t even listen to country radio. But, I was an actress, and I figured, if I could pull off impersonating Marilyn Monroe, I could probably act my way through the only country song I knew: “Crazy” by Patsy Cline. At my audition, in a ramshackle house outside of the city, I claimed that I had sung in bands all over Los Angeles, a fact I greatly exaggerated. For my final audition, I had to learn 30 songs in 4 days and show up at a VFW hall to sing with the band. I was very good at memorizing scripts, so I learned the songs and I got the gig. But, I never would’ve accepted any job in Los Angeles that only paid $50 for four hours a night singing in VFW halls, smoky dive-bars, and Senior Citizen Homes.
My in-laws came up to Vancouver for my debut at the VFW hall. My father-in-law was a veteran, and he was so excited about me becoming a country singer that he bought me a pair of cowboy boots, which I still own. He was a sweet man. How he stayed married to the mother-in-law was beyond me, but I digress.
My favorite memory with the band was the night I was belting out Michelle Wright’s ballad, “I’m Looking for a New Kind of Love,” to an audience of four drunks in an otherwise empty smoky dive-bar. When all four of them broke into a fight, yanking up their chairs and hitting each other over the head with them. I didn’t know what to do, so I just kept singing. Singing with the band started to help me through my depression, and best of all, since I was working weekends, we didn’t have to go visit his mother as often.
If I had never gotten hired to sing with that rinky-dink 3 person country band, with me as the lead singer, a guitarist, a bass player, and a drum machine, I never would’ve discovered the creative expression of writing songs.
I never would’ve been hanging out on a break at 1:00 a.m. in a seedy bar outside of Vancouver in the middle of Nowhere, Canada, reading an article by Pam Tillis in which she talked about “writing from title.” I never would’ve had the impetuous thought on the long drive back to our apartment, that instead of driving off the cliff, maybe I could write a torturous country song instead. I started thinking up titles while I drove and came up with my first country song called “Ten Times a Day.” Nothing ever became of that song. I was convinced I could write songs though, because all of the 30 songs I’d recently learned seemed so simplistic that I thought anyone could write them. (I was wrong, of course, I had no clue how hard it was to write a good country song).
If I hadn’t started spending the rest of the summer writing heart-wrenching country songs, I never would’ve gone back to L.A. with the hair-brained idea that I could become the next great Country Star. I never would’ve checked out the book from the library: “Get Hot or Go Home” about the making of Trisha Yearwood. I never would’ve had the thought, “it would be so cool to go to Nashville, but I can’t because I’m married.” I never would’ve signed up for a class called, “Getting into the Country Music Business,” and I never would’ve met my future mentor, my songwriting coach, who stressed that if any of his students wanted to get into the music business, we’d need to at least visit Nashville.
In retrospect, if I hadn’t checked out that Trisha Yearwood book from the library, and if I hadn’t forgotten to take it back on time, my husband never would’ve flown into a tirade, accusing me of being a “chaotic mess.” He never would’ve screamed, “I’m sick of you, I want a divorce!” {yep, my over due library book, that cost me a fine of $1.49, was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back}
It was while I was going through my divorce that I signed up for a creative writing class, and decided that my soon-to-be-ex’s infamous line, “ I’m sick of you, I want a divorce,” could become the impetus for the first chapter of a book. I tried writing the chapter in that class, but it would take me another 22 years to actually write my first novel, based on that line.
I never would’ve imagined that newly-single at 40 years of age, while on a visit to Nashville, I’d audition for a Marilyn Monroe gig that would lead me to packing up my honda with my miniature pincher and anything else I could fit into my car, to drive across country for a three month hiatus to check out the songwriting scene while performing in a show as Marilyn Monroe. The gig was a perfect escape from L.A., my failure as an actress, and my failure as a wife.
But I never dreamed that after three months when the Marilyn gig ended, I would decide to stay longer and that the time would fly into 28 years.
I often asked myself over my first few years in Nashville : “What am I doing here? Why am I still here?”
I didn’t become a successful songwriter, though I did have one top 40 country song on the radio. But, I created a new life here, one which has included a well-rounded relationship without a controlling mother-in-law in the mix, plenty of friends, lots of travel, and becoming an author! And by the way, I’m not 80 yet, but a few weeks ago, I finally acted in my first network television show in over 25 years!
Whenever I dredge up the past and look at the trajectory of my life, I still remember how horrible it was when I was going through my divorce. But, I also marvel at the order of events that took place. It’s only in retrospect that I can see how everything unfolded so perfectly.
I can see that the right things always arrived at the right time, and as I look at my current life, I can see that it could be no other way. Everything turned out just right.
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