My Extra Life

By Wenonah Oliver

My Extra Life is about one woman's quest to get a SAG card. She also wants to become an NFL play-by-play announcer because she is obsessed with the game of football. The majority of the book is about her experiences on movie and TV productions. She has been fortunate to work with major movie and TV stars. She started out as an extra, hoping to get discovered and get a starring role. Some major female and male actors have started out as extras.

The title is meant to catch your eye and make you think that this is about someone who is leading two separate lives of some kind. My Extra Life is exactly what the title reads. It is about many experiences in the life of a movie and TV extra. The author hopes that you will find it very entertaining as well as interesting. She hopes that you will learn something that you did not know before. She hopes that some parts will make you laugh out loud and that you will tell others about it. She hopes that you will get a dream and pursue it no matter how many obstacles come your way. Never give up. Never give up. Never give up. Succeed!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662484896

Book preview

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My Extra Life

Wenonah Oliver

Copyright © 2022 Wenonah Oliver

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2022

ISBN 978-1-6624-8490-2 (hc)

ISBN 978-1-6624-8489-6 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Bluff City Law

Memories from Memphis

Today We Are Free

Chicago

Actors on Sets When I Was Booked

My Longtime Chicago Buddies

Music Videos Booked on in Chicago

About the Author

Dedicated to all the background actors who seriously love working as much as I do in the motion picture and television industries and always put forth their best effort.

Preface

Vouchers, vouchers, vouchers. Without my vouchers, there is no way I would have been able to compile this memoir. I started saving them because I was excited about everything that I had worked on and I only intended to show them to family and friends.

I never had any thoughts about writing a book. In Chicago, one extra had written a book and she used to bring copies to sell for ten dollars each. I never took more cash than my bus fare to bookings, so I couldn't buy her book. I don't know what her book contained. On a booking for Grey's Anatomy in Los Angeles, I overheard an extra say that he had bought a book for eighteen dollars that was written by a Los Angeles extra and he asked him to autograph it. I was curious as to what was in the book, but I didn't say anything. This same extra said that he was planning to write a book, too, about his experiences as an extra. At that time, I thought that I could write a book about my experiences as an extra. A young extra in Chicago told me that I should write a book too. She knew that I had also been doing extra work for a long time. I just smiled at her. I didn't get her name, but now she is a part of my encouragement to do it.

I haven't read any other extra's book because I didn't want to be influenced by anyone else's format or writing style. I wanted to figure this out for myself as to how I could make a book out of my experiences as an extra. I have always heard a different drummer. So here goes!

The first thing I did was choose my title. Then I pulled out all my vouchers and started to remember.

Chapter 1

I Had No Idea

My extra life began subliminally in 1952 in Paris, Illinois. My dad, who was an AME minister, raising six children by himself, would send us to the show every Sunday after church so that he could get some peaceful sleep. He usually worked on two jobs during the week to keep us fed and clothed. In the fifties, the phrase was we're going to the show rather than to the movies as was the phrase in later years and even today.

The ticket price was fifteen cents. Coca-Cola was the dominate fountain drink. I always bought Chuckles or Milk Duds, which were five cents each. I had a ritual for eating the Chuckles. I ate the red one first and then the yellow and then the green and then the orange, always saving the licorice one for last. Why I did such a thing, I don't know. Just childish I guess. But I always did it. Popcorn was ten cents a bag and only came in one size with no butter to add. Some theaters sold it in those bags like you get at a carnival or Disneyland or just a plain brown lunch bag.

There were two theaters in Paris. I remember one was named the Lincoln because my dad worked there as, I'll say, the custodian. That somehow sounds better than janitor or cleanup man. But in the fifties, he was a janitor. Okay, I admit it. He would let me go and help him sometime and I would sweep up the popcorn and whatever else was on the floor. I wish there had been some way that I could have known about collecting those pictures that showed scenes from the movies playing and the new ones coming. I could have had hundreds. Those things are worth good money now as seen on the Antiques Roadshow. Who knew!

Anyway! We could alternate between the two theaters according to which one had the best picture showing that week. The format consisted of a movie, a cartoon, and a newsreel short. Sometimes we got a special treat of seeing a double feature for the same price. I really miss those cartoons in today's world and even the newsreels.

No matter what was going on in my life, I could always look forward to going to the show on Sunday. I always felt good afterward. I loved to laugh, and it was even good to be moved to tears too. I enjoyed Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck, Goofy, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Porky Pig, Sylvester and Tweety Bird, and Tom and Jerry. I remember that Bambi was one that made me cry. It was the scene where the hunter killed Bambi's mother.

In the fifties, musicals were in their heyday, and I'm sure I saw them all. A few were Oklahoma, South Pacific, and Singing in the Rain. It was also a time of the big biblical epics such as The Ten Commandments and Samson and Delilah.

I enjoyed The Three Stooges and The Bowery Boys with Slip and Satch. Satch was the funniest. Jerry Lewis was the one who kept me laughing the most. I remember watching these movie stars: June Allyson, Fred Astaire, Gene Autry, Lauren Bacall, Pearl Bailey, Lucille Ball, Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Marge and Gower Champion, Jeff Chandler, Claudette Coburn, Joan Crawford, Bing Crosby, Bob Crosby, Irene Dahl, Dorothy Dandridge, Betty Davis, Sammy Davis Jr., Olivia de Havilland, Kirk Douglas, Dale Evans, Eddie Fisher, Henry Fonda, Joan Fontain, Clark Gable, Eva Gabor, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Ava Gardner, Greer Garson, Betty Grable, Gloria Graham, Cary Grant, Jean Harlow, Susan Hayward, Rita Hayworth, Kathryn Hepburn, Charlton Heston, Bob Hope, Katy Jarado, Howard Keel, Gene Kelly, Allan Ladd, Fernando Lamas, Dorothy Lamarr, Hedy Lamarr, Burt Lancaster, Jack Lemon, Jerry Lewis, Ida Lupino, Dean Martin, Tony Martin, Virgina Mayo, Victor Mature, Gordon McCrae, Mercedes McCambridge, Marilyn Monroe, Ricardo Montellban, George Montgomery, Donald O'Conner, Maureen O'Hara, Debra Pagent, Sidney Poitier, Dick Powell, Ronald Reagan, Debbie Reynolds, Edward G. Robinson, Ginger Rogers, Roy Rogers, Mickey Rooney, Jane Russell, Frank Sinatra, Barbara Stanwyck, Elizabeth Taylor, Robert Taylor, Spencer Tracy, Lana Turner, John Wayne, Esther Williams, Robert Young, and many, many more. I've been watching the Oscar and Emmy Awards for many years. When the In Memoriam segment is shown, I always feel sad to learn that some of these stars I cared about had died.

In my wildest dreams, I had no idea that I was even interested in becoming an actress myself.

Chapter 2

Hooked on Acting

I first got the acting bug when I went to live with my mother and stepdad in Gary, Indiana, in 1955. I attended Froebel High School and everyone had to take an auditorium class before graduating.

My first play was The Haunted House and I played one of the guests of the house. I enjoyed learning my lines and being on stage in front of an audience. My mother died unexpectedly in 1957, and my life had to take on an entirely new direction.

I didn't get to act again until 1977 while I was attending Chicago State University as an English major. I don't know why I thought about acting at that time. I chose acting/drama as one of my elective courses.

I read in class the part of Linda from