I wore red

Photo by Eduardo.

At today's new product introduction video audition in San Francisco, I was to play the 50ish manager of an event producer in his 30's. Simple go-see. Do a gratified nod to my successful underling on camera. I wore a red linen Mandarin-collared coat with black cuffs and Chinese coin buttons, over black slacks. So different from all the other women auditioning in tailored suits and bright blouses, or in the case of actress Terry, in a bright turquoise jacket, perfectly setting off her coiffed Asian hair.

Funny how things work: In my 30s I was an event producer! I worked for William V. Levine and Associates in New York City, on 28th Street, in the heart of the low-rent TV production neighborhood. My clients included AIG. We produced the initial roll-out about their very first 401K programs, and we produced their annual sales meetings, even one in San Francisco, which brought me out here for the first time. I had an adorable, easygoing client, Paul Morigerato, and he reported to the fearsome "Hank" Greenberg, long the iron-fisted leader of AIG (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_R._Greenberg). 

Those were the days! But, what did I know? Life was hard, I had boundless energy, and a funny boyfriend who took me out to dinner and to piano bars, and I was able to buy a house on my sales commissions from selling marketing presentation capabilities to newspaper and magazine publishers, in addition to the Fortune 500.

Event production was a busy small business for freelance creatives in those days - there was Caribiner, Ray Simon, Inc., who changed names several times, and many others.  I worked for several of them, both as producer and sales manager. At Levine, I was a vice president. Oh, that was another lifetime ago! Yes, I gave it all up - I really did - to move to sunny California.