My very short stint as an actor

bynazarethpope

486 followers

9 years ago

Ever since I can remember, I had always wanted to be an actor.

I was involved in many plays as a child in my elementary school and high school as well. I would often do impressions of people I had seen on TV just to make my friends laugh, my family would load up in our old sixty four impala and ride out to see family in the country on saturday and sunday, and on the way we would stop at a little country store and my father would by me my favorite candy which was the bubble gum with the cards inside,usually famous baseball players.

This particular day, a saturday we stopped at the little country store and there were no baseball cards but there were pictures of movie stars instead so I got those, we went back to the car and started down the road when I opened my packet of gum to see who was in there. there was Pat Boone, John Wayne and a picture of Elvis Presley, I stared at the picture of Elvis for some reason unknown to me that picture really stood out, I could never look like Elvis but there was something about him that stood out and grabbed my attention, he was neat,wearing a nice suite he had class, he had something that I wanted and I couldn't figure it out at the time and there weren't many black people especially in the south in those days who were fans of Elvis, I later came to the conclusion that I wanted to be an actor, live in Hollywood and make lots of money, thus the dream was born, flash forward, after I got out of the military I was divorced by my wife.

I worked as a janitor in an all girls college in my hometown, I knew there was something better for me, after all I didn't want to someday be that old guy on his deathbed wishing I had done things differently so after a year at the girls college I left and moved to Hollywood and began to study TV and film acting.

I sent out my picture and resume to just about every talent agent in Hollywood while studying,there was a lot of competition every person I ran into was a want to be actor, this was very discouraging but I continued to submit on a daily basis without fail and upon my second year in Hollywood I got my first part I played a policeman on a show called 90210,little did I know that I would be type cast after that just about every part I had was a police officer. Yours truly on the set with comedian Arsenio Hall ( the show Martial Law) I look nothing like that now.

In spite of the type cast I continued to work and made many good acquaintances in the industry.

I became a writer for a well known comedian who had a radio show, things were coming together

Because of my membership in another organization I met many celebrities and many of us came to know each other on a personal level, many times we would have breakfast and play a game of golf together, life was good and getting better all the time.

Then one morning I awoke from my sleep and noticed a very peculiar movement of my mouth and tongue, I couldn't make it stop , I rushed to the emergency room and was examined and the Doctor told me I had a condition called tardive dyskinesia which is in my case an involuntary movement of my lower jaw and tongue and its not very likely to ever go away.

I continued to stay in Hollywood for about another year and since there seemed to be no work I returned to North Carolina and hid in the mountains for a little while, I was broken, I wanted to just fall off the face of the earth, I began to drink heavily and engage in drug use again after many years with out that horrible stuff and as if that wasn't bad enough I became homeless.

I would go to the homeless shelter on cold nights to get in off of the streets, then one night as I checked in I noticed a bulletin board , there was a flier on it about barber school accepting applications , I had experienced at cutting hair in the army with the guys at FT, Bragg so for some unknown reason I applied and was accepted.

So I began attending the classed and never talked at all I pretended to be mute and kept my mouth shut,

Then one day the head instructor came and asked me if I would like to go to hear a famous motivational speaker a man named Zig Zigler, I had heard of him and was delighted to have been asked so I accepted .

I attended the function and had a chance to meet Mr. Zigler and his lovely wife Jean or ("The little Red Head") I remember hearing Mr. Zigler say many positive things that gave me hope again, but among all the things he said one thing that stood out like nothing else and that was " Its not how you start out in life, its how you end up that matters most"

He also went on to say that " you can have anything you want out of life, as long as you help enough other people get what they want"

After about a year since that meeting, I had quit drinking and doing the drugs and had a new lease on life, I cut a lot of hair and made a lot of people happy,my clients weren't just business, many of them became my friends and still are to this day, I've retired from barbering now and I make it a point that on a daily basis I help some one anonymously if at all possible and for that the universe rewards me often with gifts that money just cant buy, I thank you for reading my story of not giving up.