Free All My Life by Susan Lucci

out, someday, it would become my destiny.
    The father of one of my girlfriends from Garden City was very good friends with Robert Dale Martin, one of the top executives at CBS. My friend’s father asked if he could help me get a meeting with Mr. Martin. Luckily, and for reasons I will never know, he agreed to see me. When I went to his office, Mr. Martin offered me some of the best advice I was ever given. He said that if I wanted to be an actor in New York, I needed to give myself a year before taking a job out of town. He explained that a lot of young aspiring actors make the mistake of taking the first job they’re offered, which is usually some national touring company of a Broadway show. While it’s great work and can mean really good money, once you’re out of the loop, it is extremely difficult to find your way back in.
    “If it’s New York that you want, Susan, then stay here and work,” he said. And he was right. It was excellent advice that I have never forgotten.
    “And, there’s one more thing, Susan. You may run up against some issues because you might be considered a little too ‘ethnic-looking’ for television, as you don’t have blond or red hair and you don’t have blue eyes.”
    Ethnic-looking? I knew I didn’t look like everyone else when I was growing up, but I had never heard the word ethnic applied to me before. When I was a little girl, my mother and I would watch the Miss America pageants together on television. My mother always pointed out the brunette contestants to show me how beautiful and exotic-looking they were. She always picked one of them to be the winner. I never forgot her descriptive words. Her comments helped me maintain my self-esteem throughout my early years, and now, for the first time, as an aspiring actress, I would pull confidence from those memories to help get me through the inevitable challenges.
    While it may seem a little odd to talk about ethnicity in today’s more liberal world, back then Mr. Martin had a valid point. We were a nation tuning in to watch color TV. No one wanted to watch a brunette when they could watch a fiery redhead or golden blonde. Not since I was cast as Cindy Ellen had it occurred to me that my looks would be a detriment to my career. After all, many brunettes such as Sophia Loren and Raquel Welch had made wonderful careers for themselves. I shared my views on the subject and then asked Mr. Martin what he meant by ethnic-looking.
    “Those women are exceptional and few and far in between,” he said.
    It was strange because I didn’t take his comment to be negative or as a setback. I don’t know if that was because I was young and naive and simply didn’t know any better or if I just didn’t believe that he was right. I probably didn’t take it to heart because I didn’t think he was necessarily talking about me. And besides, I believed in myself. I understood what he was saying, but deep down, I just knew it wouldn’t matter. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that my “look” would become my calling card.
    I ended up getting involved in the New York State Miss Universe Pageant, but only for a while. My father never wanted me to become a professional actress. He didn’t believe that it was a wise career choice. Of course, my parents knew nothing about show business. Everything they knew was based on the sensationalized stories they read about in the newspaper. Still, my father was proud that I was asked to be in the pageant, so I went ahead with the competition. I made it to the finals, which was the bathing suit competition. That round of the competition was set to take place in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. When I gave my parents the good news, my father didn’t share my happiness. You see, the final round of competition took place the same week as my comprehensive finals and oral exams for school. My father made it utterly clear that I needed to finish school and graduate. Plus, he didn’t love the idea of me