The Kid Stays Out of the Picture
In 1987, I handed Michael J. Fox a pack of cigarettes that he dropped on the set of the movie Bright Lights, Big City.
I had no aspirations of becoming a movie star. I was writing screenplays and wanted to see an actual film being produced. When my aspiring actor friend Don mentioned a “cattle call” for extras, I got busy.
I went to a drug store that had a vending machine for “three photos for a dollar” and created rudimentary head shots. I took my basic résumé and headed downtown to a church with two lines of people trudging through, separated into SAG (Screen Actors Guild) and non-SAG talent. We dropped our documentation into oversized containers and headed back to our previous locations.
A few days later, a production assistant called and gave me the details: Show up at The Tunnel, a nightclub in Manhattan that had previously been a freight railroad terminal, wearing “dance club apparel.” Don received a similar phone call. We decided he should sleep over, since our “call time” was 6 AM on a Tuesday morning.
Dance clubs were not my forté. I chose a brown crushed velvet tuxedo jacket and a gray and white polka dot bowtie purchased at a thrift store, with black pants. Don chose a big-lapeled pinstripe suit, which would come back into vogue a few years later when the Squirrel Nut Zippers hit the pop charts.
