Brief Encounter

By Marshall Stearn

Lenny, a 32 year old Chicago educated, streetwise man. He is hired by Barrie Connell a manipulative, conniving former runway model. The first night they have a business dinner they become intimate. Lenny is 5 foot 6 inches, Barrie is 6 foot They are never seen together after work. Barrie is embarrassed by their height difference

After a while she feels brave and invites Lenny to a gathering of her former models and their boyfriends. Lenny subsequently has a confrontation with one of the boyfriends, quits his job and ends his relationship with Barrie.

While Lenny has been with Barrie he has fallen in love with one of the workers at the casting agency. Sylvia a former actress hates the entertainment business as does Lenny at this point. They decide to take a weekend trip to La Jolla.

While having dinner and dancing they meet an interesting couple who give them a stock tip.

When they get back to Hollywood they hock everything to buy a million shares of a penny stock. The stock skyrockets to ten dollars a share. They are rich. Sylvia wants to make movies that speak to people instead of denigrating them. Lenny wants to start Actors Anonymous.

Lenny's vision is like AA, where people tell their story. This is one of his fantasies.

"My name is Alice and I'm an addicted actor.
I'm broke, depressed, with an incompetent agent. It all start in the fourth grade when Mr. La Fond said I should be on the stage. I'm 58,and short, have never had a speaking role. When I was younger and had great T's and A's I got all kinds of roles to drape horror films, muscle movies, brain dead teenage movies. Never close. My agent said new hair dew change my nose, get an uplift on the T's. I did all that but no luck. I noticed new younger prettier actors who would do anything for the role I did it too; but nothing worked I even married a producer. The next show a younger hottie came by he dropped me for her.

I've hit rock bottom, they want me to do extra work. Me with degrees, classes, teachers, coaches, voice over. 'Can anyone out there use me, or do I have to look for a real J-O-B.' To top it off a young hottie wanted me to bear it all in a movie teaching women how to strip. Me a grandmother, so young boys can take their dvd's in the bathroom. she's reaching for the lowest common denominator.

End of fantasy

Sylvia your awful and cruel Lenny.

The End

Fantasy continues credits roll with sound

"Well on second though;t if I was an actor in France, England, Spain, or any other country they respect age and experience. Look at Charlete Rampling getting juicy role in France.
after 30 in the USA forget it. If your T's or A's are in shape make a million in porno. Look at the tv announcers. No lines perfect bodies made over with trainer, dieticians, etc. If you don't make it by then; find a product. Do an infomercial with a well known make actor."

Sound stops
She's still talking, credits still overlap. The camera is now on the group in front of her. They all get up and clap

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marshall Stearn
• Release date: Jan 6, 2013
• ISBN: 9780961048068

Marshall Stearn

My non-fiction books represent my interests in helping the population at large. I am a psychotherapist & Life Coach and have tried to approach my interests to help the human condition, as illustrated in: Drinking & Driving, Self Hypnosis, Portraits of Passion, 90 Important Things to Survive the Future. Being a SAG-AFTRA actor I wrote Screenwriting Made Easy, and subsequent screenplays as books: Miltee, Ed Boudreau, Press Bet, Brief Encounter, Love Is A Many Splendid Thing. These are all fictional and character driven letting my creative imagination take hold. In Portraits of Passion I interviewed 32 men and women about creativity & passion for work. Some of them were known participants: Charles M Schulz(snoopy), Robert Mondavi, Melvin Belli, Steve Allen, Norman Cousins,Jerry Jampolsky, Linus Pauling, John Wooden, Alice Faye, and many others. Their work was their life!