An Equity card was worth its weight in gold to an actor in the early 1960s, as it still is today. But getting into the union was a "catch 22": You had to have your card to get a job and you couldn't get the job unless you had a card. One day in the winter of ’62, Michael Murray auditioned me for Shaw's You Never Can Tell that he was to direct at The Charles Playhouse in Boston. He said then and there that he wanted me for the part of Gloria, and then added, "You belong to Actors’ Equity don't you?" Without hesitating I replied, "of course,” a bald-faced lie if there ever was one. I grabbed the contract as fast as I could and literally ran to Equity's office and joined the union on the spot, breathing a sigh of relief that no one ever caught me out. Until now. Please don't expel me!
