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  WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT

  LIGHTS! CAMERA! DISSATISFACTION…

  Kim Cayer is a natural story-teller with a gift for satire and a beautifully-developed sense of humour that beams from every page.

  Lights! Camera! Dissatisfaction… follows the adventures and misadventures of Alice Kumplunkem, as she develops from wannabe actress to the beginnings of a new career out of the limelight. Cayer makes excellent use of the first person to keep the narrative both personal and lively.

  This wryly funny book, unabashedly Canadian, shines a glaring light on the behind-the-scenes workings of “show biz” in many of its tawdry forms, involving the underpaid extra, barely-paid stage actress, bunny-costumed performer in a children’s play, embarrassed swimsuit model, and much more. The writing reveals deftly-drawn characters – from her sceptical mother, to uncaring directors and self-serving agents, right down to her mongrel cat “Lunchpail”. The dialogue is pitch-perfect. The style is engaging and refreshingly unpretentious.

  The tale ends happily, of course – but we finish it hoping that Alice will have a whole book of future obstacles and successes to tell us about!

  John Ambury, Writers and Editors Network

  Why couldn’t this have been a film script I was asked to read!?

  In a straight read-through, I laughed aloud every few minutes. Though not all the book is set in the film business, the portions that are hit right on the mark.

  Ridiculous episodes, unusual characters and odd scenarios abound, but as one who has worked on film sets my entire adult life, I’m here to say that this IS the film biz and Lights! Camera! Dissatisfaction… captures it with two thumbs up!

  Bruce Pittman, Worthwhile Movies Limited, Award-winning director of films such as Where the Spirit Lives, Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron and The La

  Lights! Camera! Dissatisfaction… by Kim Cayer is a relentless rollercoaster of a read, where the first person narrative sucks us inexorably into the word of a brash, expletive-spewing, yet oddly endearing character, who – if we but dare to admit it – skates perilously close to our own reality in her daredevil reactions to what life throws at her. Cayer’s prose is effortless. This is fiction with the believability of a biography.

  Cheryl Antao-Xavier, In Our Own Words Inc., author and publisher

  First published by Roundfire Books, 2014

  Roundfire Books is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd., Laurel House, Station Approach,

  Alresford, Hants, SO24 9JH, UK

  [email protected]

  www.johnhuntpublishing.com

  www.roundfire-books.com

  For distributor details and how to order please visit the ‘Ordering’ section on our website.

  Text copyright: Kim Cayer 2013

  ISBN: 978 1 78279 568 1

  All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publishers.

  The rights of Kim Cayer as author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Design: Stuart Davies

  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  We operate a distinctive and ethical publishing philosophy in all areas of our business, from our global network of authors to production and worldwide distribution.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Look, Paul, I need a line!”

  No, I’m not a coke-head. I’m an actor. Name’s Alice. I had just come from my latest job as an “extra” in the film business. My stomach was backfiring from too much coffee and edible oil products. Besides that, my hair was breaking off in chunks due to the massive amount of gel, mousse and hairspray I was required to use to maintain the towering bouffant befitting a Bride of Frankenstein. If you ever catch The Many Brides of Frankenstein, look for me. I was Bride #18, the last wife he tied the knot with. But no line. Not even the traditional “I do.”

  I was, to put it elegantly, fed up. Paul tried to appease me. “So this job wasn’t the best. But remember March 25th? Doesn’t that day make you proud of your profession?”

  March 25th? Oh, yes…the day I got meet my idol, Sheila Holt, in person. I should have been just happy seeing her, but no…I had to try and meet her.

  When I read in the newspaper that Dame Holt was coming to Toronto to shoot a film, I pestered Paul for weeks to get me a part. Paul is my agent, the owner and manager of “Paul’s People”. I joined his agency because I knew he didn’t have anyone else like me. He mainly handles midgets and magic acts. I’m his only brunette female. And in his way, Paul came through for me. I was hired as an extra in the elevator scene.

  There were eight of us crammed into an elevator, but I was in seventh heaven. Sheila Holt stood directly in from of me! Unfortunately, she didn’t have any lines. I was dying to hear her speak in that velvety voice I’d heard in so many late-night movies. “Take your hands off me, sailor,” she moaned in Too Many Nights. “I’m your woman, cowpoke,” she’d gushed in Last Dance. After a couple of takes, knowing the scene would soon be completed, I got up the nerve to speak to Her Holtness.

  “It sure is hot in here. Aren’t you hot?” I asked.

  Sheila looked at me imperiously, gave a slight nod and looked away.

  I pressed on. “I can smell.”

  Dame Holt swirled her head back in my direction, her eyes blazing. I was mortified. I had meant to say “I can tell,” because I could see beads of perspiration on her brow. But the truth was, I could also smell those beads. But I didn’t mean to say it! Believe me!

  Sheila began shrieking in a most unvelvetine voice. “WHO is this GIRL?? I want her OUT of my sight NOW! NOW, I said!”

  One of the assistant directors ran over to me. “What’s your name?” he demanded.

  “A…Alice Kumplunkem,” I stammered.

  “I NEVER want to see her on one of MY sets EVER again!” that dame hollered. She was in full swing now. The other extras acted as if they weren’t there; eyes staring dead-ahead, bodies motionless. Best acting I’d seen all day, Sheila Holt included.

  “I’m afraid you’re fired, Miss Kumpluckem,” the assistant director officially said.

  The elevator suddenly became quite claustrophobic. “‘Scuse me, ‘scuse me,” I mumbled as I squeezed my way past the crew and my fellow extras, who I could tell were grateful I was the one in shit and not them.

  I didn’t have the heart to tell Paul that I hated Sheila Holt’s guts now. Or that I wouldn’t be getting paid for that job. “Paul, my best friend’s shooting a film in the Bahamas, my boyfriend is in Africa for the next three months, and I get to ride an overcrowded bus forty-five miles out of the city for a four-hour call? Somehow my life doesn’t seem as fulfilling as everyone else’s.”

  I was bitter. Bitter, bitter, bitter. But Paul, as usual, didn’t seem to take notice. I desperately needed to make him understand that I was unhappy with the direction my career was going.

  “Sure, you know best,” Paul flippantly tossed off, his mind already moving on to another subject. “You did that western shoot yesterday, didn’t you?”

  Boy, did I. I played a dead saloon girl, sprawled halfway across the bar and halfway out of my corset, it seemed. My stomach muscles were aching because of the angle in which I’d hung off the bar. And for lunch, I swear that was the worst egg-salad sandwich I’ve eaten in my life.

  I gave Paul a bored nod. “Well,” he began, “the word’s out that they’re in big legal trouble. Film’s shut down, no one’s getting paid. Seems like quite a few people ended up with food poiso
ning.”

  My stomach gave a lurch to remind me I was there. “I had an egg-salad sandwich and some salmon and a bit of some cold macaroni something. Maybe I have poisoning, too.” Now I was worried.

  “Well, if you’re not dead by tomorrow, you’ll live,” Paul reassured me, before changing the subject again. “Hey, I have some bucks for you. From Monster Mash. Shame they had to cut your scene.”

  They did? Now that made me seethe. The make-up gal dolled me all up to look just like Jamie Lee Curtis. I thought the scene where I got choked with a shower curtain would be my claim to fame. My poor mother, sick with undiagnosable pains and getting gruffer by the minute, had yet to see me in anything. She was suspicious of this “showbiz stuff” and half-suspected I was walking streets for a living. The other half suspected I was dancing in dark smoke-filled taverns. She doesn’t even tell her cronies what dear daughter Alice does for a living. Who knows what kind of films the people in Oak Paw, Saskatchewan watch? Not that I do those kind of films, mind you. But Mrs. Kumplunkem will talk endlessly about darling daughter Louise and her five children, and how much they’re soaking Welfare for, and the eight puppies Fido had on the couch of their trailer home.

  I wanted Mom to be proud of me for SOMETHING, and Monster Mash sounded like a film she’d rent for the grandkids. “Paul, I’m getting out of this business. I’m not making it. I made just under ten grand last year. My dental bill alone cost me a thousand bucks. I’m not getting ahead.”

  Paul gave me a ‘how-dare-you-knock-your-dental-bill’ look. “That wisdom tooth removal was the best thing that ever happened to your career, I’ll have you remember.”

  He was right. I had just come from the dentist after having my wisdom teeth removed. I crawled into bed and was settling down to cry for a couple days when Paul called. He had an extra job for me. I had to take it. As I said, the dental bill was $1100, rent was due, as was the phone, gas, cable, water, electricity, etc., etc. Paul told me I had to be on set in an hour. What Paul neglected to tell me was what the job entailed.

  I was rushed into wardrobe when I arrived and told to put my costume on. Everything was made of wool, including the booties. I wasn’t even finished dressing when an assistant director barged in. “You’re needed on set NOW,” he informed me.

  My mouth was aching and I wanted to take one of the painkillers that my doctor had given me. “I’ll be right there,” I said, amazed at how so few words could feel so painful.

  “NOW,” the assistant director repeated.

  Don’t be a druggie, Alice, I thought. Fight the pain with your mind. I followed the A.D. onto the set.

  The studio was painted to look as if sand dunes went on for miles, and there was enough real stuff on the floor to cover a couple beaches. I looked at all the other hired extras – a regular crowd scene. I couldn’t figure out what I was playing. A pioneer? A Depression-era victim? An Oak Paw resident? The sand felt comforting beneath my wool slippers.

  “Everyone here?” the director asked. Someone yelled in the affirmative. “Then let’s start up the special effects.”

  An enormous fan slowly started up, sending a gentle breeze my way. A light mist began to fall from a sprinkler system suspended above. Aahh, that feels so good on my swollen face, I thought. As soon as I completed the thought though, it began to get rather gusty. I caught a grain of sand in one eye and a huge drop of water in the other.

  “I want more!” the director commanded.

  “How’s this?” the special-effects master shouted back. Suddenly we were enveloped in a combination windstorm/ rainstorm. I could barely retain my balance and was buffeting around the other extras.

  “Great! Ready to roll?” the director asked.

  A man on a scaffold yelled down. “This light has to be readjusted!”

  Two young men immediately began climbing the scaffold. I swerved over to where the assistant director was standing. My head was now starting to join my mouth in wedded agony and I decided I wanted my pill after all. Fighting the wind zone was making me dizzy and I almost wiped out when I entered the calm zone. I approached the granter-of-all-wishes. “Please, sir, may I…”

  “We’re gonna shoot any minute,” he prophesized. “Get back on set.”

  I turned around and got the film crew’s point of view. Two hundred extras, all trying to maintain their balance and failing miserably. Pitiful sight. I walked back to the edge of the wind zone and dove in.

  Thirty minutes later I risked a quick glance up. Every time I did so, my cheeks were pelted with stinging sand. The electricians were still fixing something. An extra was blown into me. “Watch where you’re going!” I snarled. He gave me a surprised look, as I’d blown into him minutes earlier. I knew the pain was making me miserable, not to mention the rain, wind, sand and my wet, itchy clothes. I made another pilgrimage to the edge of the wind. I was about to step into the peaceful world where I could see assorted film crew members sitting on canvas chairs, eating melon, doing crossword puzzles.

  “Lights are ready!” the key grip announced. I turned around and rushed back to my place, losing a bootie in the process. I reached my position, grateful that no one noticed my absence. Five minutes later, we still hadn’t shot anything.

  “Where’s the director?” someone important asked.

  “In the can,” the assistant director solemnly replied.

  “Oohhh…” Mr. Important said, as if he were informed the director was meeting with the Pope at that instant.

  A few moments later, the director returned and was told the lighting problem had been fixed.

  “OK, everybody!” the director yelled at the extras. “Your motive is to get to the other side of the studio.” He turned to the camera man. “I want a long, sweeping shot.”

  “How long?” the camera man asked.

  “At least three minutes,” the director replied.

  “We don’t have enough film. I’ll have to change reels.”

  “Camera reload!” the director announced, and went to pour himself a coffee. Now’s my chance, I thought, and tried to work with the wind as I swayed over to my assistant director. He was very busy chatting up the attractive make-up artist. I was leery of letting her look at me as we were strictly instructed not to wear any cosmetics and as usual, I tried to sneak a little mascara. A girl’s gotta have something, doesn’t she?

  “Do I have time to run to my purse?” I imploringly asked.

  “Are you wearing mascara?” the make-up girl asked in a whine.

  “No,” I lied.

  “Then what’s that all over your face?” she asked. So much for sneaking mascara to look a BIT attractive.

  “We’ll be ready in a sec,” the A.D. informed me.

  “Yeah, hurry up and wait,” I said and stormed off. I could see they were not impressed with my attitude but I was starting to not give a royal damn one way or the other. I got back to my spot and decided to have a little cry. By the time the camera was ready to roll, my eyes had swollen shut from the massive bawl I’d granted myself.

  After the director had satisfied himself with fourteen takes of his long, sweeping shot, he decided he wanted some close-ups. By this time I looked a mess. My hair was plastered to my head, my lips were chapped and my face looked like I had been holding my breath for 40 minutes. For the first-time ever in the acting world, an actor (namely me) tried their best NOT to get a close-up. I was very unprofessional. I sputtered curses at the film crew and felt very Garbo-ish, crying, “Leave me alone!” The camera, for one day in my life, loved me.

  When the movie came out, there were six close-up shots of either me or the Elephant Man, but I don’t recall him being on set that day. I even got billing in the film as ‘The Ugly Girl’. Paul, for a while, had a lot of casting directors calling him and asking for “that ugly girl.” But by the time I got the chance to see them, my face had long lost its swollen look, and no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t seem to look as ugly anymore. The casting directors would tell me, “You
’re ugly, but not as ugly as we’d hoped.” I turned out to be a flash in the pan. My mother managed to see that flick but she refused to believe that pitiful creature was me. “I never had a kid that homely,” she declared. Mom never stuck around for the credits.

  “Yeah, Paul, that was glory alright, but I’m serious this time. I’m sick of extra work. I know that’s your bread and butter but I am going to refuse it from now on. I mean it.”

  Paul sat back in his groaning chair and gave me a long, shrewd look. He was an actor in his younger days and I could see he was emoting the ‘deep thought’ look. I sat under his scrutinizing stare until I thought I would yell “Cut!”

  He finally spoke. “OK, Alice. Since you want to speak so badly, I may have something for you. Five days’ work, twenty bucks an hour, plenty of talking. You want it?”

  “Yes, Paul!” What did he think I’d been complaining about?

  “Alrighty then. You start tomorrow, 9 a.m., at The House of Bull.”

  * * *

  I wanted to speak and I got my wish. I talked non-stop for five days in a role I never wish to repeat. I was a pork chop. It wasn’t even an acting job, just some publicity gimmick. I stood in front of The House of Bull handing out flyers advertising the Special of the Day.

  “Lamb chops today, folks! $11.95! Come on in to The House of Bull!” I repeated that line about 900 times today. Do you know the kind of looks you get when you’re urging people to come into the restaurant at 9 a.m. in the morning? I’d press flyers into their hands and watch them walk away and throw the flyer to the ground. I really tried hard the first couple days but was hurt by some people’s reactions to me. Finally I looked at it in perspective and realized I’d react in the same way if I was being accosted by an eight-foot-high pork chop.

  The phone rang. “Alice, sweetheart!” said my agent, Paul. “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing. Why?”

  “I need you for a job tonight. Someone cancelled on me. Can you do it?” he urgently requested.

  “Extra work?” I rather hopefully enquired.