Here's a video with a story behind it. It's about a lovely lady who used to be part of my life. Her name was Bridget Holloman and she died way too soon. Way too soon.
Bridget was a dancer and an actress and she did other things, as well. One week, she went to audition for a role in a Diet Pepsi commercial that was scheduled to shoot the following weekend in San Francisco. It went well but when she didn't hear anything for days after, she figured she didn't get it — not at all unusual. Most actresses don't get 96+% of what they audition for. Her batting average was around one in eight. That's high.
So Friday evening around 6 PM, she came over to my place. Being an actress, first thing she did was to call home and check to see if there were any messages on her answering machine. There was one and it went roughly like this: "Hi, Bridget! This is Isabel. I'm the wardrobe person on the shoot tomorrow. You have to be on the set at 9 AM so come to my room at eight and we'll get you all fitted. I'm in room 720 at the Fairmont. Bye!"
Bridget knew the Fairmont was a hotel in San Francisco but no one had called about her being in that city or being on any set there. She called her agent and her agent hadn't heard a thing. She called the ad agency where she'd done the Diet Pepsi audition. Someone there told her, "There's no one from that department here. They all left this morning for San Francisco." She turned to me, told me what they'd said and asked, "What do I do?"
We called the Fairmont and checked. They had a reservation in her name and the clerk said it was charged to that ad agency. I said, "I think you go to San Francisco" and then I called Western Airlines — this was before I personally put them out of business due to their lousy service — and I bought her a ticket, then drove her to the airport. I would have gone with her on the trip but I had script deadlines that had to be met.
Bridget flew to S.F., checked into the room at the Fairmont and went to bed. The next morning, she reported to Isabel's room at 8 AM and they fitted her for an outfit. There was already another lady there — a stuntwoman who'd been cast because she looked enough like Bridget. The stuntwoman was dressed the same way they dressed Bridget. At 9 AM, both of them reported where Isabel told them to report and they spent the day shooting the commercial. Once she was dismissed, Bridget checked out of the Fairmont, took a cab to the airport, flew back to L.A. and I picked her up. She was more than a little stunned at the whole whirlwind experience.
Monday morning, her agent called the advertising agency and asked, "How was Bridget?" They said she was great. The agent said, "Fine. Now, let's discuss what you're going to pay her."
The agency guy said, puzzled, "Just what we agreed to pay her." That was when they learned that no one there had ever called to book her. Apparently, everyone thought someone else had taken care of that minor detail.
On the set, they'd had her sign a contract that specified union scale. Her agent argued that he, as her lawful dealmaker, had not had the opportunity to negotiate or at least approve the compensation. That was a breach of ethics if not law and the agency agreed to pay her a lot more. They probably could have stood their ground, sent her scale and said "Sue us" but they wanted to thank her for finding out and showing up anyway. If they'd all gotten to the shoot that morning and there was no Bridget, it would have been a very costly disaster. As soon as she got the check, she reimbursed me for the cost of the airline tickets.
A few weeks later, almost the exact same thing happened with a commercial for Aplets & Cotlets, a sweet confection that I'd never heard of and which Bridget said she'd never seen anywhere except on the set of that commercial. Again, no one called and told her she'd booked the job. Again, she found out about it by accident and went in and did it. And from then on, whenever she did an audition, I'd ask her, "Did you hear anything?" and she'd say, "No…that's a good sign."
This is the Diet Pepsi commercial she did in San Francisco. In most shots, the blonde lady is Bridget but in one or two, it's the stuntlady. She said she wished her double had done the hardest part: The 109 takes of the shot of her drinking the Diet Pepsi…