My mom always told me I had chutzpah

This is based on actual events in my life, so I have changed some of the names and places to protect the innocent. So, read and enjoy.

It was late February, 1977, I was in high School and living with my family in Brooklyn, New York. I was sitting on my bed doing my math homework but was having some difficulty with one of the problems. I thought, I should call my friend and classmate Erica for help. Now, Erica was a bit off, but we were still pretty good friends. We worked through the math problem together, and after a few minutes we were confident in our answer

"Wow" I said, "I really hate Mr Stillman's class, he's the worst math teacher ever". 

"Yah, he's pretty bad. I don't think anyone likes him" responded Erica. Then she asked "Hey, by the way, where's (my boyfriend) Joey tonight, why aren't you at his house doing your homework?" Now Joey was cute, not hot but cute, and very sweet on me. He had long dark hair, a great smile and, a nice car. He was 16 and could drive; I was only 15. He was not the love of my life, but he was good kisser, and treated me pretty well. I had somewhat of a bad girl reputation at school because of him, and for sure I didn't mind. I loved to dress the part more than anything else.

"(explicative!) I gotta get off here and call Joey, I need him to do me a big favor tomorrow afternoon" 

"Why, whats going on?" Erica asked.

"Ok, so, I saw in the Daily News the other day that they're having auditions for a new movie filming right here in Brooklyn, and I wanna audition. It's called Saturday Night Disco, Fever, Dancing ... something like that" I answered, then added "I'm cutting class to go to the audition and I want him to drive me there."

"Laura, you're insane, you're not only going to cut school, but have Joey cut school too so you can go to an audition for a movie? Erica asked questioning my sanity. "And, exactly what kind of part are you planning to auditioning for?" she continued.

"It's some sort of dance movie with John Travolta. Y'no, Travolta from that TV show, he has the long dark hair, Gd I love his hair. He is soooo hot. I wanna be in the dance scenes and get close to him" I confessed.

 Erica started laughing, and commented "No, I was wrong, you're way past insane sweetheart, insane was 2 or 3 subway stops ago." I explained "hey, you know that Joey and me sometimes go disco dancing at this club downtown. He knows people, so they let us in. I'm a pretty good dancer; Or, at least Joey and his friends think so."

I turned and looked at the clock beside my bed, it was close to 1030 at night. I hung up the phone on Erica while she was mid sentence, without saying goodbye or goodnight. I then called Joey, 2 2 ... 4 ..... it rang.

"Hey beau, it's me. What are you doing?"

"finishing some science homework, I have a test tomorrow in Science Class" Joey answered.

"Too bad you're going to miss it" I said, completely without concern, then continued, "I'm cutting school tomorrow afternoon, and I need you to take me somewhere. And, yes, I'm serious".

"No, no," Joey paused a second "what??, ... are you for real??? Why? Where? ... and, what's your plan for getting out of school for the day?" Joey was used to my dry humor, and the fact that I could be a wee bit demanding at times.

I had been devising a plan to get to the audition since I saw the ad in the paper. I had not yet worked out every detail but I was prepared, and responded to Joey excitedly "we'll just go out the back door by the gym. Believe me, no one will miss me for lunch period and gym class". Then informed Joey "It's probably about a 20 minutes to half hour drive from the school to the audition place. The audition's at some studio somewhere on 7th Street in Bensonhurst. I'll bring the paper with the exact address".

I did manage to talk Joey into it by telling him I would buy him a certain rock t-shirt that he wanted, and that I would bring some vodka from my dad's stock. We both liked to drink.

The alarm went off at 630 am, as usual, that Thursday. I got up, brushed my teeth, put on a pair of jeans, a pink sweater, and my sneakers. Tied my long red hair back, and put my glasses in my book bag. I was supposed to wear them all the time, but didn't. Back then kids glasses weren't that nice looking and I hated how I looked in them. I also needed a skirt and heels for the audition. I found my black velvet skirt that I wore when I went dancing with Joey and stuffed it, my black heels, and a tight top in my book bag, and ran down stairs for some breakfast. "Hi Mom, bye Mom" I yelled as I grabbed my lunch and something to eat on the bus. As usual I was running late, so I ran out the door and barely made the bus to school.

Thursdays my lunch was at 100pm, right after American History class. I had arranged with Joey to meet me at the back doors near the gym about 115. The 100 o'clock bell rang and we both made our way to the doors by the gym. We looked around and everything was clear. We rushed out the door. "It doesn't look like we've been spotted" I said confidently. We started running .... panting I asked Joey, "Where's your car?" 

"Over here" Joey answered.

He opened the door and we both got in. I climbed into the back seat and started changing into my black velvet skirt and heels outfit, then climbed to the front; took out the vodka from my book bag and the Daily News with the address. I drank the vodka first and took 2 swigs; I was definitely nervous. After driving about 20 minutes or so I yelled to Joey "here's the place, you go park the car and I'm going to run in and register" I told Joey. 

I ran in, the registration line was about 25 people deep, and looked like it was f-o-r-e-v-e-r. I was about 4 people from the front of the line when Joey found me inside. I finally reached the registration table where 2 middle age men in suits were taking everyone's information. The first man at the table asked me my name and age. 

"Laura Nelson, 18" I answered, believing I looked older in this particular skirt and heels outfit. He looked me over, shook his head and said "uh, ... yeh, sure." He then asked if I was by myself or sent by an agency. I lied, "An agency" ... then before he could ask which agency I explained "I want to audition for the dance scenes. I've been taking ballet and modern dance since I was about 6 years old." The man didn't say anything else to me execept that I should go to the front of the room and wait with there to be called to audition. I think he was still trying to reconcile as to whether I was actually 18.

 I was sitting with Joey, talking, when they called my name to audition. The director paired me up with a high school senior. I said Hi I'm Laura and he told me his name was Steve. On came the BeeGees: Disco Inferno. I absolutely danced my heart out, had fun too. The song ended and I was told to go to the left. Joey didnt audition, which was sad because he was a really good dancer. He had been standing in the back watching the others auditions. He came over and kissed me, and said "Nice job. Really nice job girl. And you look hot in your skirt and heels" I said thank you, and thank you for taking me, and smiled. We kissed again and he went back to the back of the room to wait for me. 

After everyone had auditioned, the director asked the dancers on the left side of the room to step forward. They played another disco song and told everyone to pair up with someone, and dance. A nice looking guy, with long straight brown hair and wearing designer jeans asked me to dance with him. I didn't ask him his name and he didn't ask me mine. When the song was over, the director told everyone they could leave and that those chosen for the dance scenes would hear from someone early next week. Joey and I left, stopped at McDonalds along the way for a burger and soda and continued driving home. "Do you think you got a part?" Joey asked me. I told Joey "I really hope so, but ... I don't know. There were a lot of really good dancers there".

When Joey pulled up at my house it was a little after 500 o'clock. We kissed, I told Joey I love you and thank you, and got out of his car. Joey waved bye then pulled off to go to his house. I forgot to change back into my school clothes while Joey was driving me back home, and thought I'm going to get crap from my mom if she sees me in this skirt and my heels. So I purposely rushed in the front door and was running up the stairs to avoid my mom and the - where WERE you - question. But as I reached the top of the stairs, she walked into the Living Room and spotted me running up the stairs and demanded I get my butt down there and explain where I was all afternoon and why I was dressed liked that. My mom and I did not get along too well, so I pretended I didn't hear her and ran to the upstairs hall bathroom, changed into my pajamas and went to my room to call Erica and my other best friend Lorie. I was still riding high from the whole experience and wanted to chick chat with my friends about it, the audition, the boys, the music, Joey, Steve.

A bit later my mom was yelling for me from the bottom of the stairs to come down for dinner. I heard her but I didn't answer, I was too busy laughing and telling my friend Lorie what happened at the audition. Now, these were the days before cell phones, and I didn't have my own phone line. We had 4 phones in the house, but one line. So, if someone picked up another phone in the house, he or she could hear your entire conversation. When I didn't answer my mom yelling for me a few minutes earlier, she thought I might be on the phone and picked up the phone in the kitchen. Luckily, all she heard was me telling Lorie that I'll get a call in a few days about it. "I'm on the phone, what do you want???" I said, definitely annoyed that she picked up the phone and interupted my conversation. "It's dinner time, your father's here" my mom yelled. "O.K., Whatever" I responded, still annoyed. I said goodbye to Lorie, went downstairs to the dinning room and took a seat at the dinning room table.

"So how was everyone's day" my dad asked as my mom started serving dinner. We didn't have a TV in our dinning room, and so my family would actually talk about our day or homework or current events while we ate dinner. When it was my turn to talk about my day I for sure didn't say anything about the audition, though I was still very excited about the prospect of being in a hollywood movie with my favorite actor. I remembered I had a pop quiz in Spanish class and talked about that.

My dad and I got along really well, I was definitely daddy's little girl. So, I remember Saturday afternoon being out with my dad and telling my dad the whole story. He thanked me for being honest. He also told me that my mom told him I didn't get home from school until 500 O'clock on Thursday and that she was trying to find out where I was but I was ignoring her. He gave me some extra chores around the house as punishment but didn't ground me. It's funny how most parents have a sixth sense and know when the math isn't adding up.

The following Tuesday afternoon, I was in the family room watching TV when the phone rang. My mom picked up the phone and yelled that it's for me. I asked who it was and she said she had no clue, some agency.

I picked up the phone "Hello?"

"Hello, Ms. Nelson, Laura Nelson?" the lady asked for confirmation. 

"Yes"

She continued "You have been selected to be in the movie 'Saturday Night Fever' as a dancer. We will be filming the dance scenes for 3 days at the end of March." I calmly (at least that's how I remember it) said thank you, thank you, and hung up the phone; Then I began screaming exitedly at the top of my lungs, "they picked me, they picked me they picked me ... Oh my Gd, they actually picked me." My mom was somewhere between pissed off at me for the entire escapade and excited for me. My dad, well he just smiled and said fantastic. Both gave me a big hug. I remember my mom said, sweatheart, you really got chutzpah, youre going to go far in life.

A little bit later I called Joey and told him I got a part, he agreed to drive me there one day and my mom agreee to drive me the other 2 days.

I remember thinking, I had the perfect skirt and boots for this. A short black suede leather skirt with black leather boots. Then I searched through my closet and found a nice yellow sweater. I wanted to stand out so my friends could see me in the dance scenes when we went to see the movie.

Erica came with me and Joey the first day. We pulled up to the filming location about 830 am and went inside. We sat down and waited about 30 minutes before the director called for the dancers to come forward to the center of the room. Then we were paired up with a partner based on who looked like they would be a good couple. I had 2 different dance partners. We were supposed to be boyfriend and girlfriend, and all smiles and lovee dovee, but we were really just amature actors y'no, so it wasn't overly realistic.

Filming was fun, but very tiring, even for a teenager. Don't be fooled, acting is a lot of work, about 12 or so hours each day. We were literally dancing for hours and hours and hours, and by the end of the day it felt like my feet were about to fall off. A few times during the breaks I took off my boots just to give my feet a rest. I was so exhausted after so many hours of dancing I fell sound asleep within seconds of getting in bed.

In the back room there were 2 tables full of food and drinks for everyone during breaks. The food was ok. Joey would join me during cuts and breaks, and we would go in the back and eat and talk. Truly, it was a party atmosphere, at least during the breaks.

The second day John Travolta showed up. He really didn't talk to any of us, but during one take I did manage to work my way over to where he was dancing and brushed beside him. "Oh, I'm so sorry", I said with a huge smile on my face. He just looked at me, didn't say one word.

Filming finished and several months later the film was released at the movie theater close to our house in Brooklyn. I went with Erica and Lorie and their dates and my boyfriend Joey. It was 1.25$ for the Friday night show. Popcorn and soda was another couple bucks. We had the time of our lives. When I saw myself in the film I screamed so loud "that's me, that's me, Oh my Gd, There I am in the yellow sweater" I think the entire theater turned around to see who was screaming. Joey stood up and announced that I was going to be the next hollywood starlet.

Next time you watch Saturday Night Fever, and the scenes at the disco club, look for the young girl with long red hair and a yellow sweater, and that's me. The day I was an actress in a movie with my favorite star, John Travolta.

The end.

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