I started in show business doing theatre in Hollywood. I was doing a show of burlesque sketches with Joey Fay and Jack Albertson. I played the Barfly in the famous “Pass-The-Poison” drink sketch, all in pantomime. I was making $5 a show, obviously not union.
So, as luck would have it, one night Billy Barnes came to see a friend of his, who was in the show. During the bows, the lights went to black on everyone in the cast except for one green light that stayed lit on me – and I took the chance to make faces and made the audience laugh. Afterward, Billy Barnes came backstage and asked me, “Do you talk?” I said, “DO I EVER.” Then he asked, “Do you sing?” I sang out, “Yes, I doooo.” The next day I auditioned for his show and that’s where I got my Equity card.
I remember the initiation fee was almost all of the first week’s paycheck, a concept I didn’t quite understand at the time, but I certainly get it now. I have turned down shows where they said to me, “Oh, dahling, just withdraw from Equity for a while to do our non-Equity tour.” I said, “I don’t think it works that way.” And they replied, “Of course you can, dahling, everybody does it.” Well, I talked to some of my friends about it and no, everybody doesn’t do it. And I didn’t.
