When I first arrived in Denver in July 1988 and was looking for jobs, I searched the classifieds for people looking for actors. I found one ad for John Casablancas. I went to their open call in Aurora without knowing anything about what they were. It turned out it was a modeling agency. I had some three-year-old headshots that I was able to use. When I talked to the recruiter, I told her I was interested in acting and voiceover work, but not in being a model. The woman was rather impressed with my voice and said they could help out in that area. However, I still had to attend their modeling school before they would be my agent. I signed up and got a loan of $600 to pay for the classes. It seemed like a worthy investment.
I enjoyed going to the classes once a week. They were taught by beautiful women. They had separate modeling classes for men and women. The women had a lot more classes and had to pay about $1000 for the school. One of my fellow classmates was a 13-year-old boy. The agency was booking for a runway show and needed someone about his age and size, so he was able to get work while he was still going to school. It looked like John Casablancas was on the ball and strived to get work for its models.
I was the first one in my class to complete all the requirements for being signed by the agency. I kept calling them once a week to see if they had any voiceover work for me. They didn't. They never did. I don't think they really had the connections to help me get voiceover work. I wasn't good-looking enough to be an actual model. However, they were able to get me in with a couple of marketing promotions at the 16th Street Mall. In the first one, models from several different agencies were handing out free Marlboro Menthol cigarettes. They had groups of models stationed at each corner. Only the women handed out the cigarettes while wearing these white Marlboro jumpsuits. The men were in charge of the supplies, so I didn't really hand out the cigarettes. However, I did feel like a pimp.
We got paid $10 an hour and were there all week. Because we were from John Casablancas, we actually got paid more than the models from the other agencies and were told not to discuss the pay with the other models. One model told me she was getting paid $8 an hour. We only had a few people griping about us giving out cigarettes.
A few months later, the same marketing group did the same thing. Only this time, it was with Twix Peanut Butter Cookie Bars. Yes, it was a much better choice for giving things away. The idea was to increase sales of the peanut butter version, because just about everyone only ate the original caramel version. I also had to take part in giving them away, so I didn't get to just stand on the sidelines while the women did the work. This time, they only used the models from John Casablancas and we made $8 an hour. We each also got a whole case of Twix to take home. It took me about a month to eat mine.
With those two jobs, I actually made my money back on the school. I landed one more gig, doing a hair demonstration for Modafini products at some kind of hair convention in Colorado Springs. This job didn't pay. All I got was a free haircut and some Modafini samples. The only other thing the agency pointed me toward was an audition for a production of "Hair" in Boulder. At this time, my hair wasn't very long, so I never got past the audition.
Interestingly enough, I talked to Bid sometime after I had moved to Denver. He told me that he has John Casablancas was his agent as well. I'm certain they were able to do a lot more for him than they did for me. I realized that meant he also had to pay $600 and take their classes.
A few years later, when I was about to move to San Diego, I took a bus out to Aurora (because my car wasn't working) to talk to them about making certain my representation would transfer to San Diego. I figured that since it was closer to Los Angeles, I would have better luck getting voiceover work there. When I got there, the office was vacant and the business' name had been removed from the front of the building. There were no notices of where they may have moved. I didn't know when they closed, but I sure felt sorry for anyone who paid for and completed the school right before they shut down.
As for JF Images, I found out about this modeling agency after a PSA appeared on my station while I was working a shift. It put out a call for extras to appear in some television productions that were being shot in Denver. Right after the PSA aired, I got flooded with phone calls from people trying to find out more. I looked through all our PSA information, but I couldn't find the info. I had to call the woman who recorded the announcement. She told me that it was for JF Images and where I could find the information. I was able to answer the questions and I decided to look into it myself. I told Bez about it and she was also interested in taking part. We went down to the agency, filled out the paperwork and they took polaroids of us. At the time, I didn't have a phone in my apartment, so I listed Bez' phone number.
I was aware that this was flat-out wrong, having this agency book me for extra work when I was signed with someone else. I just didn't mention that on the JF Images paperwork.
One night, I was at my apartment when someone rang my doorbell. This was the first time this had happened since I moved in. I had a problem trying to get the intercom system to work because I hadn't dealt with it before. I kept hitting the buzzer to let whoever in, but I couldn't talk to them. I went outside my door. Bez' parents and grandmother were there. Her mother told me that I had gotten a call from JF Images and they wanted me to be an extra the next day. I thanked them for coming over. I did not let them in the apartment. Bez later told me her parents didn't like that I didn't show them around, but really, the apartment was a bit messy.
After they left, I went over to to my workplace at Phone Survey, Inc because they had phones over there I could use. I called the agency. They said they had filled their quota for the next day, but they could use me for another production a couple of days later. The location would be at Denver University.
I'm not going to go into full detail about my extra experiences because they involve celebrities. I'm saving that for Phase 2 of this blog. (It could be at least a year before I get to that.) Toward the end of the day's shoot, they told us to call JF Images in a couple of weeks because they would need extras for courtroom scenes. I called them and they told me that yes, they could use me and I was to show up at the City and County Building. I spent a whole week doing that. I got a taste for was it was like to make a living as an actor.
JF Images called me again to do more extra work. It was supposed to be one day on the outskirts of town. I drove all the way over there. After a couple of hours, they told us that the main actress was sick and couldn't work that day, so the shoot was canceled. They told us to all come back the next week, which I was able to do.
In all of this, they never called Bez to get her to be an extra. I found it hard to believe that they were that overloaded with women extras that they couldn't have found one day of work to do.
All in all, I made almost as much money working for JF Images than I did for John Casablancas, and I DIDN'T have to pay hundreds of dollars to take classes. I'm certain that John Casablancas has been able to get a lot of people work, but for me, it was really a ripoff. I actually don't feel bad about doing work for JF Images.
I never tried to do extra work again after that in Denver. I tried in San Diego, but the agency I used there only called once and then found out I wasn't the right type of person for the project.
I just wasn't meant to be in showbiz.
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