Turn the Lights Out When You Leave

*Disclaimer: I do not personally know Alan Rickman, nor any celebrity mentioned herein nor do I own, have association or contacts for them. If you did think that, don't you think I'd be out enjoying my real life a little more or write about it when I'm 80 or something? The things written about me are mostly true, such as physical description, some life situations, etc, but that's just what makes the story a little more interesting.

I watched from the back of the theatre as many men and women before me each waited their turns to go on stage and try their best renditions of Shakespeare to win a part. In that it set me alone. I was just a nobody in off the street with a huge passion and penchant for dramatics. But I could barely understand, much less memorize Shakespeare. And unlike the many women ahead of me with their mid driffs bared and toned bodies, I wasn't much to look at.

My hair was bleached blonde in different tones from platinum at my roots, to a yellow gold in the middle and at last, at the ends where it was cut just above my shoulders, it turned a deep shade of strawberry-orange. I had not yet lost all my baby weight from my first child, but at the tender age of 23, I had some time yet to work it off. I had left my beloved America a few years back for England, and when I did return, I found myself expecting a son.

I remember the shock and just thinking I was sick with a bad stomach virus completed with heartburn. When I told the father, he told me I was a great one-night stand and that he wasn't ready to be a dad though he already had 2 by different women at the age of 29. I let him off with a nice "fuck you very much" and let him off the hook and had my son while I was 18. My nose was a little wider spread being my mother's biological father was from Israel, but I had a fair complexion from the Russian, also on my mother's side. I did pride myself though, that at 5'9" and 190 pounds, I balanced out nicely with an hour glass figure, and thankfully, a bigger top than bottom. I was usually nervous at these things. But I did have beautiful eyes, I'd been told. The color changed constantly from a bright blue to a jade-green when I cried. I'd also been told I had a charasmatic smile. Some said it reminded them of the Cheshire Cat.

I always wanted to be an actress, so much so that I took a holiday in London and won the part of Martha in a low-budget rendition of Who's Afraid of Virginnia Woolf? And that only encouraged my deep desire to be a name on the stage. Sweeney Todd, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Romeo and Juliet, Cabaret, made me adore the stage. Elizabeth Taylor made me love it even more, and while others tried their damndest to emulate Marilyn Monroe, I tried to become Elizabeth. Hence, for years I dyed my hair black. But for some reason I thought to go to my original dirty blonde. What would the usual theatre cliche be? Oh yes, "Know Thyself.", "To thine own self, be true." etc.

I called myself off my memories. Now was not the time for reminiscing. I was about to be called for a play I thought I was meant to be a part of: George Bernard Shaw's "Caesar and Cleopatra". Rumor had it there had been some big names up in this part of New York for the part of Caesar and Cleopatra. I hoped merely to get any part, perhaps one of the women that tended to Cleopatra. If I raises my hopes higher, I would get Ftatateeta, Cleopatra's main nurse maid. I knew though I had no chance for Cleopatra, chances are some blonde bimbo with a 26" inch waist and big lips already had given the casting director a blow job. Oddly enough, there were no auditions for Caesar that day. And I had wondered to myself on the way to the theatre, how a play such as this could ever come to Broadway. I had thought the whole street belonged to Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats and yet another version of the Lion King. But I always thought that people playing animals had no right to be onstage as it was meant to portray human beings inner thoughts and struggles.

I clenched my hands as I felt a sudden chill of cold sweat come over me and my heart raced as one by one the red light on stage flickered on and off to show people to remove themselves from the stage. A few fought and told the directors off. One woman went as far as throwing the light over to the opposite end of the stage.

"What a diva." I said aloud to no one in particular. A few gay men up for the role I presumeably thought was Rufio hugged at each other with fear.

"She's vicious." I heard them mutter as they watched with intrigue as she was carried off by security and the light put back in place by a stagehand. Then I saw a beautiful woman walk to the center of the stage as the directors asked her the usual run-down questions.

"Name?"

"Ava Loren." She spoke with a husky voice, had gorgeous pouty-lips and a figure I had to wonder how much it would cost me to get one just like it. Her hair was straight, jet-black, shoulder length and when she spoke, she held more sex appeal in one syllable uttered, then I had on my most flattering night.

"Part auditioning for?"

"Cleopatra." She asnwered. She wasn't meek, she wasn't coy, she was fierce and forceful, and worst of all reassured. Ah, I thought to myself, here's the hussy.

"Very well." The director called, as he sat cross-legged in the third-row centered with another guy and girl on either side of him. "Whenever you're ready." Her oval eyes closed, she took a deep breath then began to speak like Greta Garbo. She secretly reminded me of a story I read once in a biography of Lauren Bacall; who once called the wife of the man she was seeing and complained about him being late for a date, and when the wife complained about the nature of the call, Bacall responded with "If your husband doesn't respect your marriage, why should I?" Ava spoke.

" ...I miss her, she moved to California to pursue her modeling career but drugs is killing her. She moved in with some guy named Rasco. Sounds like rat! And he looks like a rat too. He pumps gas for a living. Not that anythings wrong with that..." I had to say she was a piece of work, like a dog. They could probably get things done, but they had to be told what to do first or they just (normally) looked good. She was eye-candy, trophy-wife material. No more. She finished as I listened to the words she spoke, which was a nice change of pace from all the classics I had been hearing. She had tears in the corners of her eyes as she rushed to the front of the stage, her hands held before her like pleading to a judge.

" -That's why I'm leaving for Cali tomorrow. I need to save my sister before it's too late!" She pulled it off like Mae West than Garbo. And I knew we had found Cleopatra. Or at least they did. I promised my mother I'd come back to Texas if I didn't make my acting career work out in a year. A year was in 3 months.

I was the third in line from the stage. I heard the judges debate over their 'star'.

"She's great!" Ah, that must be the one she sucked off. I was jealous of her, I'll admit, but not at the rate of losing integrity.

"We'll be calling you." The main director called. An obviously gay, puertorican man stood behind me and whispered to me.

"Do you think Cinderella, there, got it?" I looked back at him and glanced at this creature called Ava as she thanked them and grabbed her Prada bag hastily and exited the stage.

"Actually I have no doubts." I said, looking over my lines in my hand. I had actually done some research on the original play and watched the movie. This Cleopatra was a child. A mental child, as Vivien Leigh portrayed her to be, not a sex symbol. I hoped the directors had more class.
A few days later after the audition process was over I came back to the theatre to check the list of who'd been hired. And my name wasn't on it. And that was that. Dream over, time to go back to Texas. Maybe I could get my old cashier job back... if I begged. I was so angry. I sighed, as I left, hailed a taxi, packed my things and took a plane back home the next day.

A few weeks after settling back into my old life, something shook up my routine. A man called. He mentioned my audition. He asked if I was interested in being in a big movie.

So I did what came naturally, I asked if he had the wrong number.

He assured me he didn't, and he thought I'd be perfect in this little romantic-movie as the main girl's best friend, who gets all the laughs.

I answered him in a choice phrase: "Where do you want me?"

I got the basics on the flick: A girl is conflicted between two handsome men, one younger and edgier and abusive, the other a mysterious older male who at times loses his temper because the main girl can't see he's the one she should be with. My charactor gives the girl advice, defends her friend and tries to weed them both out on who's better for her. I arrived on the set, and was assigned to a small little dressing room at the end of a hall in a hell of hells studio. Everyone else had nice rooms, I glanced at the stars on the doors as I passed them.

"Brad Pitt."
"Skeet Ulrich"
"Alan Rickman"

Some of the names were not mentioned to me, but knew I'd see one I'd not like a little closer to home.

"Ava Loren." What the hell is she doing here? I thought to myself bitterly. Ah, the man who called me must've let her in on this escapade. Sadly I thought, maybe the phone call for me was just a mistake. A mix up and they didn't call me on purpose.

"Excuse me." I stopped a man passing by with a headset and carrying scripts. "Where am I supposed to go?" The man looked confused.

"I'm Delaney Lindley, I'm supposed to be in the movie." He shrugged, and his voice sounded as though he were just hitting puberty with how it screeched.

"I don't think your room is done." He said. "All the nice things are in the bigger named rooms. Just wait on the set." I did as I was instructed, picking up a copy of the script from my bag. I had been so desperate for a moment like this that I completely disreguarded the script. All I knew was what I was told. I shook hands with all the helping people, I thought that was always a good start. Introductions. I waited and waited and finally just sat on a fold up chair next to a make up vanity that was brightly lit. I flicked a bulb and made it brighter and smiled in the mirror.

"Alright. Who's the tart in my chair?" The voice was thick with an accent, and I was expecting Guy Ritchie to be standing behind me. I had not seen a name on the chair. It was blue, it was folded, it beat sitting on the ground.

"Who the hell are you calling a tart!" I turned around smack, face-to-face with Alan Rickman. Who was standing over me, wearing a pair of reading glasses. He stared seriously for a moment then cracked up in laughter.

"C'moff it, love. Don't you know how to laugh?" He said holding a script in his fingers as he gripped my shoulders and smiled in my face brightly. He looked in the mirror and brushed back his bangs. I took him in for a second. He stood about 6'1", had sandy blonde hair and that famous hooked nose that for some reason or another oddly suited him. His smile was enigmatic and he smelled like some brand of Old Spice and sandal wood that I found refreshing. He was wearing a plaid shirt and jeans. Not what I would have suspected.

"I do when the jokes are funny." I retorted, cutting my eyes at him.

"Oh, you Americans." He said.

"What drugs are you on, today, Mr. Star?" I looked at him. He seemed euphoric as if he was playing a charactor right now. He smirked a little and offered his hand.

"Alan Rickman."