Wet your lips and make love to the camera.

The email was an interesting change from the usual “Where can I purchase a Hiphugger in North Dakota?” and “Never make her unsatisfied again! Buy Viagra online!” The email said I am trying to contact Quinn Cummings for an upcoming story I am writing for Los Angeles magazine. I'm on a tight-ish deadline and can give her more details about what I'm looking for. I called her.

The story, as the reporter explained it, went like this. Los Angeles Magazine is doing a new segment called “Archetypes”, which will be an interview with people who really personify L.A. “Like,” she continued, “a trainer or a valet parker”. I think both types exist outside of Los Angeles, but I got where she was going. I also knew it was extremely unlikely I was being approached as the archetype of suburban mom, dog rescuer, or a candy hoarder. I was right; I, Quinn Cummings, was to stand in for all others as the archetype of the Former Child Actor.

I said delicately, “You realize I’m not a car wreck, right?”, which isn’t exactly true, because anyone who has read this knows I am a bit of a mess, but relative to many other Former Child Actors, I am spotless enough to run for office (actually, better; I haven’t found sixteen year-old boys attractive since I was fifteen). If she was looking for the kind of anecdotes which end “…this is when the transvestite ended up in my trunk, which of course was a complete misunderstanding!”, I wasn’t the best candidate. No, she assured me, she wanted a Former Child Actor without an arrest record.

Hey! I fit that profile!

She told me the interview would run in the December issue. Seeing as it was the last day of September, she wasn’t kidding about a tight deadline and pretty much had no margin of error. The interview and the picture would have to done right away.

Um, the picture?

For years, I kept looking at pictures of myself and thinking in a disappointed way, “Oh, I look tired in that shot”; it took until last year for me to realize “Quinn, you idiot. You don’t look tired in that shot, you look tired all the time.” Hard to get excited about something which is going to strip away your illusions about looking lifelike. It’s like owning a jewelry box which, upon opening, intones “Everyone you love is going to die someday”.

Nevertheless, this was free publicity. The more I talk about Hiphuggers, the more Hiphuggers we sell. The more we sell, the more likely it is that someday I will be writing this blog from Monaco, decrying the appalling lack of good servants. So, shot I would be.

She and I got off the phone and I started to plan an attack on Mount Grooming. I needed a facial, I needed an eyebrow wax, I needed to do something with my hair, which was starting to resemble Willie Nelson’s hair-

My hair. My hair, which sits on top of the hole in my head. I promised you I wouldn’t write about this any more, so I won’t, except to say that I have the hole closed this week, but as of right now, it is still a horrible little conversation piece. I was going to have to get a haircut in a public place, which would be one conversation, and then there would be the make-up and hair person on the shoot, which would be another conversation. While my eyebrows were being waxed, I plotted a version of the story which ran less than twenty-five words. I ended up with “I split my head open. They’re closing it a week from today. Yes, that’s my skull. It doesn’t hurt, much. Please ignore any seepage.”

This was on a Friday. The reporter and I planned to meet on Wednesday of the next week, which was the first available day for both of us. The photo editor called me not long afterwards. The photo shoot would also be on Wednesday, after the interview. It was to be a portrait, the photographer was in East Hollywood, and the parking around his place was dodgy. I add all these details because of what I wasn’t told, and didn’t think to ask. I wasn’t told what to bring as far as clothing went. Over the weekend, I went through my clothing with an eye towards the shoot. Portrait means waist up, or even breastbone up. I checked the photographer’s website; his portraits were close-up, frequently framed at the collarbone. Ignoring for right now exactly how little I could stand up to such close scrutiny, I would need shirts with a simple neckline, in either a jewel tone or a dark color. It could not be worn out, and it couldn’t have stains on it.

In my closet, those are limiting requirements. I ended up with three shirts, which seemed sufficient for a portrait shoot for a little one-page interview.

Wednesday came. I dropped Daughter off at school and raced over to the restaurant where I was meeting the reporter. I had chosen the restaurant, which means only I can be blamed for how it was off the main thoroughfare into Hollywood, which meant I was one of fifteen thousand people in a three-block, two-lane crawl to oblivion. Nothing says “The sane child actor” quite like flinging yourself out of your car, throwing yourself into a restaurant and screaming at the first woman holding a notebook “OH MY GOD, I HATE BEING LATE HI I’M QUINN ARE YOU MARY?”

Mercifully, she was.

Also, having chosen the restaurant, I can also be blamed for picking a French breakfast place, which meant endless breaks in the conversational flow while we waited for the cappuccino maker to stop gargling. Not that I was saying anything of consequence. This kind of piece lends itself to brisk and (with any luck) witty little sound bites about What it All Means, but the more I talked, the less I heard Dorothy Parker, the more I heard the woman who sits behind you in a movie theater who won’t stop talking about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. At some point, I just wanted to take myself by the throat and scream, “Oh, would you just shut up!”

I didn’t do that, though. Because I’m the sane Former Child Actor.

I bet you’d forgotten that by now.

NEXT; the photo shoot. Kate Moss rests easily.