So, what I’M about to tell you is a cautionary tale, a “heads up” However you want to frame it. Bottom line, it’s information I wish somebody had told me when I was really young. In 1983 I was 18 and had just moved to L.A at the urging of a good friend of mine. She had an apartment that she said we could share and split the rent cuz the rents were so high in L.A even then. I was a ballet dancer at the time. Years earlier, I had been an understudy with the Dallas Ballet Company but now was waitressing to pay my bills. I thought California would be a great adventure, so I jumped at the opportunity and moved in with S++++++++iuh/auna! to my disappointment, there wasn’t really that much of a call for dancers in L.A at the time except for the occasional music video in the ***********…………………………………….d/80s MTV and all that. Most of you probably weren’t even born yet in the 80s. Well, I will tell you, in the 80s Hollywood ,edwas like the wild, wild west! There was no such thing as the “me to” movement, Harvey Weinstein was still living his best life! I t wasn’t that sexual harassment and assault weren’t happening, quite the opposite, it was so systematic, it was just “business as usual” in those days! I knew nothing about Hollywood at the time, or even acting(accept high school plays and stuff) I considered myself a DANCER ahead of all else! Everything I knew about Hollywood was made up bullshit in celebrity magazines.. Just like everyone else that isn’t in the biz, I thought you had to be “discovered” That if you were pretty enough or handsome enough, somebody would “discover” you and your career would be made…NOPE! This thinking was residual from the big studio days(in the 50s) When studios did sign talent to contracts and guide their careers however, they basically OWNED you for the duration of your contract…Of course sex abuse was RAMPENT in this system!! So, one day my friend Shauna was going to a “cattle call” audition for a small role in a feature film. She ASKED me to come along, I thought it would be fun and interesting so I said yes. I had never had an acting class in my life but I Knew I had a vivid imagination and that I could make myself totally believe something if I needed to, and have had to in my life. After awhile of waiting, Shauna was called in to audition, I waited in the lobby with the other actors. After Shauna they called ME to audition! What the heck? I have nothing to loose… It will be fun! Never in a million years did I think I would get the part!I think i did a good job beacause I had that feaarless, nothing to loose attitude.. I didn’t know enough to be scared, I just had a lot of fun and I guess nailed my audition because They hande e a copy of the full script and after dismissing the other waiting actors, asked I f I would stay and audition for one of the LEADS! Was this me getting DISCOVERED?!
T Laugh , this was still the prevailing “myth” So, I got the part and we started shooting a few days later. On the first day Frank told me that it was because o f him I got the part and would I go to dinner with him? I said I had a boyfriend and couldn’t go on a date with him. He was visibly angry at me for” rejecting him and refused to make eye contact with me for 10 days of shootingm and refused to make eye contact with me for 10 days of shooting! So, I survived that in one piece and just by word of mouth in the low budget film scene, I managed to land 3 more lead roles in films! I didn’t even have an agent yet. I got really lucky those first few years! I didn’t learn fear and how “hard” the acting business is to break into until I started takin acting classes! THEY taught me to fear agents and casting directors but never how to protect yourself from the predators that hold these positions! Hollywood was the perfect place for predators, every day there was a fresh busload of wide eyed, very insecure young people that felt that they needed the whole world to love them to counteract their feelings of worthlessness due to whatever happened to them in their early life to make them hate themselves. Desperate for love and validation, they/WE were so very naive and gullible to the monsters monsters that awaited us! The 80s was a time when image was everything! There were so many older men hanging around nightclubs in the VIP areas posing as big time producers or directors.. Everybody had a ” deal that was right around the corner. These men all drove Mercedes and had offices in Beverly Hills but they spent all their money on this fake vaneer, they had no house or business, just this tfront to try and lure in pretty young girlsI quickly learned that no real auditions happened at night or over dinner. I of course had to learn this the hard way! One day I had an audition right on Wilshire Blvd.It was the middle of the day so I assumed it was the real deal There were also other actors in the waiting area with me, that made me really feel safe. After waiting for about an hour, the receptionist called me to the door of the director’s office, my heart was pounding as she lead me in and sat me in a chair a t a huge desk covered with headshots and resumes. T he director on the other side of the desk. The director talked to me about the project and asked me about myself and my work experience. After about half an hour of this, he suddenly stopped and said,” Can I be really candid with you?” I said “sure!” He then proceeds to tell me that through our entire conversation, All he could do was stare at my beautiful lips and imagine how they would look wrapped aroumund his cock…WTF?!!! So, desperately wanting to appear “worldly and not let him see my fear(it may be a test) I narrowed my eyes and in thedeepest voice I could m uster I said,” Ya, I get that a lot. He then hands me some sides and says that he would like me to read the part of so and so and he would read the other one(ok, so far so good?!) as I Begin my audition he takes my hand and pulls me closer to him, I’M now standing directly in front of him. He then takes his penis out and starts masturbating right in front of me, he then puts his hands on my shoulders and pushes me down on my knees in front of him! Now he is slapping my face side to side with his erection, I want to scream butI am frozen..I fall back onto my butt and began scooting backwars as fast as I coul until I felt my back now against the wall on the other side of the office. Just then, there was a nock on the office door, The receptionist told the director his next appointment was ready. I saw my chance, I jetted past the man and dove under the arm of the receptionist out of the office! I practically ran to the elevator! All the way home I shamed myself, saying things like, I must not be a talented enough actress to keep his attention on my acting and not my lips. I also, didn’t tell anybody about it because I had been made to believe I could get “black listed” as a trouble maker and nobody would hire me..So, silent I remained. By 1993 I I had really started going off the rails with drugs and alcohol It was just all too much for me.. I left L.A and moved to Florida for 10 years. I got married, went to cosmetology school and became a hairdresser and opened my own little salon for awhile, but I felt like a failure.. My life was now small and boring..I wasn’tME anymore.. There was no more DANA, Just MRS. David Turbeville Hairdressing was stupid and unfulfilling…MY soul was dying, I Had to do something My marriage fell apart and ended in divorce. I ended up going back to L.A I just felt drawn there PULLED I just knew that I still had a purpose to realize and at least I didn’t have to waitress anymore, I could do hair and make more money. Iwas working at a salon in N. Hollywood and one day I got a call from one of the directors I hd worked with back in the 80s Sorority House Massacre was the name of the movie I starred in that he directed in the 80s so, ya, cheezy low budget T&A HORROR or action type movies were his thing. He asked me if I was still acting and of course I said yes! He said he was in the middle of shooting a film and one of the actresses quit last minute, could I take on the part? I said yes, and hopped in my car for the 41/2 hr drive to Lone Pine CA. The movie was called ,”The Hills have Thighs I assumed a cheap knock offof the origional The Hills Have Eyes as per usual his genre What I didn’t know was that over the years his movies became more and more T&A Until is was just one simulated sex scene after another aka “soft porn” I thought us girls were going to be sort of disfigured killer hill people but no, instead of killing hikers and campers we just had sex whith them, full frontal nudity men and women..I was so angry that I had been tricked!I wantezd to leave right away, but thought I would get in trouble! I did my best to be professional and finish out the day.. I tried so hard to hide behind the other actors and to be in as few scenes as possible! I thought to myself, this movie is so stupid it will never see the light of day! I was wrong, it was very visible to people that are into that genre! AND He gave me STAR billing cuz, I had a bit of a fan base from Sorority House Massacre….arrrg! Students from my class were saying they saw me in it!! I was mortified..I tried so hard to get it removed from my IMDB but I could not. I could not believe that now even in my 40s could be so duped?! I’d like to tell you a little story about a bear that fits in here. Once upon a time there was a little bear cub that was born into captivity at the zoo. They kept the little cub in an 8ft by 8ft enclosure. Every day the litlle bear would walk around inside the enclosure rubbing up against the bars as he walked. Weeks, months, and years pass now, the cub has grown into a huge full grown bear with long sharp claws and teeth, it is far to big to walk inside the enclosure at all now, it can only turn in place. One day people come and remove the enclosure, but to the amazement of everyone , the huge bear stays withZOOMin the 8×8 space! It could have run to it’s freedom in any direction but it did not because , you see, the bars were now inside his head, I am so happy to now be a part of the most awesome acting group in all of California! That has followers from all over the world thanks to Zoom etc. I am back in love with the ART of acting I’M Doing Shakespeare now!Something the 20yr. old me could not sshave imagined! To ALL OF YOU very young people I hope you take heed of my experience and hopefully avoid the nasty side of Hollywood! And listen to Ben for God’s sake! You must love and respect yourself before you go out amongst the sharks.. They can smell weakness a mile away.. Don’t let them, they will eat you alive.. I think the movie ,”Blonde” (the Marilyn Monroe story)should be required homework for all young actors and actresses! The whole world loving you will not make you love yourself!