That's Show Biz...



The little woman is a member of the local Mothers of Multiples club. This joins her other memberships, like being a charter member of Women in Animation, an ASIFA member (another animation society which vote for the coveted "Annie" awards), KCRW, and World's Greatest Mom (her mug award is still forth-coming). The MoM club has a web site bulletin board where you can find out about nannies, free baby stuff, etc. Occasionally it will post requests from casting agencies that are looking for twins.

If you are not in "the know", Hollywood desperately needs multiples to cast all their baby and child parts, because the laws concerning child actors are so strict. For babies under 6 months they are so restrictive it is hard to see how any baby ever shows up on camera. Seriously, I think a baby is allowed to be under the lights for 20 minutes a day. Total. There are also restrictions on total time, including travel to and from the shoot on the order of a couple of hours. A total nightmare if you have ever seen film-making in action, which is often barely controlled chaos. Imagine spending all day setting up a shot, paying all your actors and crew members, only for some sort of fifteen minute delay to scrap your whole day... UNLESS you have a second baby that looks almost exactly like the first. The most famous example of acting twins nowadays would be the Olson twins of Full House fame. They are in fact fraternal twins (not identical). They just look a lot alike.

So back to our message board. A couple of months ago we had seen an ad for the Sopranos. We were real bummed, because our children would have had a chance to be involved in a whacking, but the filming for that is all out in New York so we couldn't apply. Then a few weeks ago, another ad came up. Someone needed newborn twins for a Suave commercial. Not actual newborns, as you do not want to know how hard it is to shoot babies under a month (I think they require a full medical team and a written afidavit from the Governor), but young babies. Our girls seemed perfect, so Candy said what the hell and sent in a photo, which I believe is the one topping this entry (or one so close it doesn't matter).



We got a response the very next day. They told us, and I kid you not, that sorry, they were looking for someone a little younger. They might have been interested, but they also weighed too much. Man, Hollywood is absolutely brutal. There is a saying that you can never be too young or too thin. Apparently this still holds at 3 months and 9 pounds.

So our dreams of being abusive Hollywood parents who exploit our own children for wealth and vicarious fame are temporarily smashed. Did you know you can take as much of 85% of your children's income? Rules require 15% be saved in trust for the child actor so they are not completely screwed, but the rest is under control of the Guardian. Poor Gary Coleman.

The final two pictures are just about as saccharine sweet as can possibly be imagined. How can you say these faces don't belong in the pictures?

Miss Rylie and Kayla, you used to be big!

We are big. It was the shampoo commercials that got small.