From someone who signs her name "Sadye" comes the following query…and this isn't the only one I've received asking about this…
You've occasionally written about your friend Kristine Greco, who was one of the students in the classroom on Welcome Back, Kotter. I'm not sure which one she was when I watch those old shows but I think what a great job that must have been to be on TV every week like that. I've never had any aspirations to be an actress because I don't think I have the skills for it but I could have done that. I see people on Glee who seem to have the same kind of job today. How does someone get a job like that? I suppose you're going to tell me it's almost impossible and that it isn't as good a job as I think but I had to ask.
Don't blame you for asking, Sadye, and you're right: It's almost impossible and it isn't as good a job as you think. Extra work on a TV show means submitting yourself to a cattle call process that may involve a ratio of five hundred people for every one opening. In some situations, asking "How do I get hired?" is akin to asking "How do I win the lottery?" but it's actually more difficult because you can improve your chances of winning the lottery by buying more tickets. Also, the lottery is truly a random chance whereas you can lose out on an extra job because someone important called someone else who was important and said, "Hey, my niece needs a job tomorrow and would love to be on TV." And suddenly, there's no job opening at all for you.
I kinda did that once for my mother. She had a whim that she wanted to be an extra so I called a friend who was producing L.A. Law and got her a gig. I'll tell that whole story here someday but here's the punchline: She had a brutal, exhausting day during which all the seasoned professional extras kept telling her, "Oh, this is the best job…they treat us better than any other show…it doesn't get any better than this." On L.A. Law, all my mother had to do was wait around for hours, then sit in a jury box and listen to Jimmy Smits give a speech. There was decent food and everyone was very polite to her but all around her during breaks, she heard extras comparing horror stories from other shows. They had to do with being screamed at and having to drive a hundred miles and march back and forth all day in the rain and not be allowed meal or bathroom breaks, etc. By the time she got home and collapsed, all she could think was, "If that's the best extra job around, I don't want to do this anymore." And she retired after her one and only day in the field.
The loot is not wonderful. It wouldn't be wonderful if somehow you could work every day…and almost no extras work every day. Most feel fortunate to get two days a week…or one. The fees used to be better but one of the ways the actors' unions have eaten it in the last decade or two is by accepting, much against members' will, rollbacks on overtime pay. Extras used to live for two things. Overtime pay was one because you could make some real money when the shoot stretched way past the schedule. That's largely disappeared.
And the other longing for most extras was and still is an upgrade…to be given a line or two. Extras tell tales of the one in 10,000 cases where an extra not only got to speak on an episode of some series but somehow evolved into being a regular. (One or two of the recurring barflies on Cheers, for instance.) That still happens — not often but it happens. I think most folks who do extra work see it as a stepping stone, albeit a longshot, to something else. The ones I've known, my mother aside, certainly have.
I don't remember what Kristine made when we were doing Kotter but it was achingly low money unless, as occasionally happened, she was given a line to say. As a non-speaking extra though, she got a low rate per day and she only got it one day a week…and only if they called her in. They didn't always — and late in the season, one of the other writers went to the producers and said, "My son needs a job" and thereafter, the son usually wound up in Kristine's seat. She later realized that losing Kotter made her income go up a bit because she no longer had to hold her schedule open for our tape day each week and could accept, for example, a three-day stint on another show or a real acting job that conflicted.
(And like my mother on L.A. Law, that was one of the better jobs. She did two days as an extra in a party scene for the movie, S.O.B., and called me from the set in tears about how bad the crew — not the director but a couple of workers — were treating her. She did one day on a TV movie set in the thirties for which she had to go to a thrift shop and purchase a period outfit. They said she'd be reimbursed but she never was. For one rather major movie, she got cast in a speaking role but the character had to be "established" in a group in earlier scenes so she did two days of what was basically extra work for those scenes…then they cut her dialogue and she only got paid as an extra. And she'd turned down a speaking part on General Hospital to do the movie. There were way too many stories like that.)
She had been doing it because she thought it would lead to that real acting work. Among agents, that is an arguable premise. One who represented her after that told her, "I don't want you doing extra work. If casting directors think of you as an extra, they're much less likely to consider you for real roles." I'm sure that's so in some situations.
There are perks to the job, not the least of which is that your friends and relatives see you on television. That can matter a lot to some. To those who aspire to full actor status and can block out fears of being typed as "atmosphere," it can feel a lot better to be reporting for work at a studio than waiting tables…and there are those stories of extra work leading to something better. Because Kris got those occasional lines on Kotter, she could list it as a genuine credit on her résumé and that sure didn't hurt. (I did her a big favor one time. She had been penciled in to play "Girl #1" and I changed that to an actual name.)
I don't mean to be discouraging or to dash your dreams, Sadye…but it is not a good life for most folks. One of the reasons some jobs in TV and movies pay so much is because you have to go through so much crap and uncertainty to get them…and then they still aren't steady. Extras have all the downsides of that without the upside of decent money. Kristine was lucky to get out of it and so was my mother, though I can certainly understand why some people want to do it anyway. It always brings to mind the old joke where the punchline is, "What? And give up show business?" If you don't know what comes before that, you should.