"You're adorable but a hard sell, and you look too much like the girl from 'Square Pegs.' " This from my agent, who, at the time, had never heard of Sarah Jessica Parker, someone for whom I am mistaken quite often. (Okay, once in an elevator.) But she had my career, and I was in an acting company with a body count.
On a whim, I spent $150 on a demo at a recording studio in Midtown in an effort to fulfill my secret fantasy to be a radio star. I figured: I'm relatively lucid, I have a vibrant voice, and nobody will ask me my dress size. My demo consisted of some banter that I transcribed off the radio, my own personal take on the action and gossip that may or may not have been true.
I was flabbergasted when I was hired at a radio station on Long Island, where my lack of radio agenda seemed to be a selling point. It was clear that an important difference between radio and acting is that you can be very successful without having an agent or an AFTRA card.
Agent David Katz at Don Buchwald says, "People come to me when they are looking for representation to help them get to the next place and they need to be served and protected." Truth be told, you actually don't need representation till you're at Howard Stern's level.
No agenda and a 'fire me if you want to' attitude eventually got me work as a fill-in at the prestigious Z100, and a job producing "The Joan Rivers Show" at WOR Radio. It sure beat schlepping margaritas and burgers.
Now you're thinking, "Hell, she did it; how hard can it be?" Well, that's true, and you have some options. For example, you can try starting as a reporter for Metro/Shadow Traffic, a news and traffic service that handles the top radio stations in the country; they are always looking for tapes.
You can also target a syndication company like Sabo Media, which consults radio stations and tells them what to put on the air while helping them find and train hosts. It's big business and even bigger opportunity. What it takes to be a success in radio, according to Walter Sabo, is "a distinct personality who can create 20 hours a week of original show. Get a role on 'Friends' and you work 11 hours a year reciting someone else's material; you originate nothing. On the radio, you can create it all on your own, without writers, producers, and assistants. If you're an actor who likes to please, then this may be a real challenge because, if you're good, you must offend half the people--that's the show."
You can also try logging on to allaccess.com or rronline.com and then search the job market, sending out your tape to anyone who will have you in order to get your feet wet. That's what Christine Nagy of Z100's morning show did. "Actually, I went through the 'Yellow Pages' and called up radio stations. I was an actor looking for work in anything that would be creative. Target the PD [Program Director]; they do the hiring, but it isn't like agents and casting directors. You make one follow-up phone call and that's it. If you're too persistent, they'll label you a pain and will never call."
Nagy used her joie de vivre as a radio personality to land the part of Tina in "Tony & Tina's Wedding." "The hours in radio lend themselves to pursue an acting career. A shift is only four hours and, if you do mornings, you're out by 10."
You'd be surprised how many actors are doing radio, like the sumptuous Brian Patrick Clark, star of "Eight is Enough" and "General Hospital"--c'mon, he was Grant Putnam! He's been working at Fox Sports Radio and will soon have his own talk show.
Brian confesses that he is very excited by the prospects in radio. "I frankly couldn't have imagined that it would be something to pursue, and yet, not only am I at that point, but above and beyond. There's only so much you can do in pretending to be people that you are not, which in its simplest is what acting is. In radio, you have a chance for your own ideas to be expressed in your own words, dependent on your own spontaneity. That certainly doesn't come from the 'rehearsal, then plant it and say a line in front of the camera' routine that I've been doing for so long."
If Jon Bon Jovi can have an acting career, then you can certainly do more than one thing. You probably have many talents with which to express your creativity. You can be an actor-whatever, just like actor-deejay-comic Jay Thomas, the embodiment of such dazzle.
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