If you're fascinated by the entertainment industry, want some
information about what aspiring actors and actresses have to do
to get work, audition, go to work and just plain cope, get and read this:

An Actor Succeeds

[www.amazon.com]

You get some insight into the massive pressures faced by people in show business. Most of the time you are looking for work, period.

Bullying is rife. Even if you are not bullied on a set, a cruel director or producer may single out one person who is the recipient of screaming fits and
humiliation, while the rest of you stand by and watch.

(Corboy note: This is only too true. Jerry Stahl, in his memoir, Permanent Midnight, gives cameo descriptions of one star and a producer whose abuses
and viciousness Mr. Stahl witnessed at first hand. One producer stood so close
while screaming venom that Stahl says, (my paraphrase) "I could smell his eyeballs".

If you become famous, you
face isolation. People over charge you. Sharks come in.

Fame brings exploitability.

An Actor Succeeds is also fascinating and useful for any of us who have to
do job interviews, then make sense of a workplace, be it ever so humble.

Private citizens who suddenly find themselves in demand for public appearances might also benefit from this book.

One juicy anecdote: Peter O'Toole tells how he got the leading role for Lawrence of Arabia. A guru saw him in a silly film role.

That guru had a disciple who was wife of the guy who was going to produce LOA - and the guru told
the lady that O'Toole should get the lead(!) (An Actor: Page 110.

Rosie O'Donnell tells us that if you are obscure, are cast for a movie part, and want
to increase the likelihood that some of your footage is *not* cut from the finished product,
do all you can to stand close to the leading stars when the camera zooms in. Less footage of
the lead stars lands on the cutting room floor.

(Makes a person glad not to be famous. Kirk Douglas
tells how Walt Disney scammed both him and his young kids. Douglas wanted to sue Disney. Mrs. Douglas and told him the public adored Disney and Douglas' public reputation would be ruined, even if he won the case. "Everyone loves Walt Disney" So, Mr. Douglas withdrew the suit.)

Detailed advice on how to interview, how to audition and how to identify bullies and nip
it in the bud.

Plenty of examples on on how the double standard still applies to women, especially attractive young women. "If you're very beautiful and have the sensitivity of a rhinoceros you might succeed in this town!"

Racism is alive and well in Tinseltown. . All too alive and well.

A delicious and useful read for anyone. If I am ever hard up to give a present to anyone I do not
know, I'd pick this item. Even middle school and high school students would find lots to relate to.

Aha: Yet more advice: be clear on what you know you will not do before you get work. On a set, actors,
get pressured to go beyond their moral limits.

"There are guidelines for actors about not doing something that sounds dangerous, per the Screen Actors Guild. But when you're asked on the set, when they implore you and it's made to sound so simple and so important to the movie...it's not easy to say no. Depending on a director or producer, you can create anger and resentment by saying no. They can make it very difficult for you. Damn them." -Gordon Scott, former Tarzan.

This item fits right in with what was learned the Stanford Prison Experiment: in social isolation, your boundaries and limits are changed, your moral limits shift and you forget you can leave the situation, forget you have human rights.