Malibu and Charles

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If you are new to my blog, on Wednesdays I post about my experience in Hollywood as a former child/teen actress. If you want to start at the beginning of these posts go here.

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This is an updated rerun from a few years ago . . .

I don't know how I am going to hold your attention after the Kirk story. It doesn't really get a whole lot better than that... but here it goes with a little Charles in Charge story.

While we were down in Soutern Cal stalking Kirk we got tickets to go see a taping of Charles in Charge. And remember that before Kirk swept me off my feet, I loved Scott Baio. But I was pretty much over Chachi at this point - although I am sure there were some residual feelings for him. It's hard to let go sometimes).

Before a live taping of a show they have someone (a comedian type) "warm up" the audience. Mr. Warm-Up Guy asked for a volunteer to sing the show's theme song. Shannon (who makes me look shy) was happy to oblige. She sang it. The crowd went wild.

Because of her FULL-ON performance, Al Burton (who was in the audience), recognized her. And I am pretty sure he was eyeing my gray, stone washed, oversized jean jacked. Al was the executive producer for the show. We had all met Al previously when we all auditioned for The New Lassie several months before. As I recall when we initially auditioned I don't think I had a call back. I think Kerry had one call back and Shannon had several. At the time of the Charles taping we were all out of the running for Lassie (or so we thought) as they had decided to go with an older-aged girl.

After Shannon's theme song magic, Al talked to us about joining him the upcoming weekend at his beach house in Malibu to help him with a show he was trying to get off the ground called Malibu Kids. OF COURSE, we would come. And OF COURSE Kerry's Mom (now being bossed around by us) was a little sketched out by the whole thing. "Hey young girls, I'm an old man. Come on out to my beach house for some filming of a "possible" show. Bring your swimsuits."

However, Al Burton was legit. He has worked on a ton of shows AND he co-wrote the theme song to The Facts of Life. Is it just me or is that not the greatest theme song ever? I failed to mention in first post that while I tried to dance like the Fame peeps I also always made up dances and hand motions to the Facts of Life theme song. I used to watch it before school in first and second grade at my babysitter/neighbor's house.

So off we went to Malibu. We had a fun day at the beach with Jan and Dean, but looking back it was a little weird. It was us girls, another girl named Shannon who was in her late 20s and was an assistant for Al, and Jan and Dean. If you are from my generation then you probably don't know who Jan and Dean are. They were musicians who had songs like "Surf City" and "Dead Man's Curve." Some music was played and we danced around on the beach lip syncing. I don't recall what Jan and Dean's roles were in the whole thing, but I do remember that at this point Jan (in the red shirt) had been severely injured in a car accident and was physically and mentally disabled. So maybe they just sat there while we danced around like total fools. I mean vibrant young ladies? Ummmm... sounds like a hit show.

Nothing ever happened with that show (shocker), but something else pretty major came as a result of this day . . . we all got called in for the final call back for that role in The New Lassie. And one of us got the part. I won't say who, in case you are new to my blog. But let's just say her name rhymes with Bendy Fagen. And it used to rhyme with Bendy Fox before she got married.

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