In 1964 I had studied for a year on a Fulbright Grant in London at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. When I returned to New York in July, before going home to Atlanta, I got an audition with Carl Weber, who would soon be directing at the [now closed] Front St. Theatre in Memphis, Tennessee. He recommended me to George Touliatos, the artistic director of the Front St. Theatre, one of only a handful of resident, repertory theatres in the country at that time.
After I got back to Atlanta, I flew to Memphis to audition for George and he hired me to do the season. I was at the theatre night and day and loved every minute of it. I had parts in seven plays, as well as being the wardrobe mistress, which meant collecting the laundry, repairing costumes and helping the costume designer. The core company was very small and actors were jobbed in from New York for almost every show.
I'd already been in three or four shows when one actor from New York expressed astonishment after one show closed because I was working all night tearing down the set and putting up the next one (we did a show a month). He assumed I was Equity and remonstrated with me, but I told him I wasn't Equity. I really didn't know exactly what that meant at the time, and I don't remember the name of this person who figured so importantly in my career. He said if I wasn't Equity when I left the Front St. Theatre that people were going to wonder why – especially since I'd been in so many plays – and that I should become Equity right away.
So a day or two later, I took a deep breath and went in to see Touliatos and told him that I wanted to become a member of Equity. He ranted for a while, as this was not the basis on which I was hired. But, eventually he relented (and was even good enough to pay my initiation fee and take it out of my salary every week till it was paid off). My wages increased from about $65 to $75 a week, and I felt very rich indeed. That confrontation with Touliatos was one of the hardest things I've ever done, standing up for myself and insisting on becoming a union member in the face of opposition. But when my Equity card came in the mail a few weeks later, I was walking on air. I actually thought I must look different to people passing by as I walked home: It must show, surely they could see that I was a professional, card-carrying, Equity actor. Even if you can't tell by just looking, I have been a proud member of Equity ever since.
