Welcome to my new blog! It’s just LOVELY to see you here. This first one is pretty wordy – – – but I’ll get the hang of it!
Perhaps you are asking yourselves, ‘Why “Will Work For O’s”?’ Well, even if you are not – I shall endeavor to answer!!!!
Because, you see, I would not be where I am today without A).Casting Director and treasured friend, SHEILA MANNING (I’ll go into detail about that later)and B). CHEERIOS!
I really want to do a commercial (starring me, of course!) about a baby wrangler and CHEERIOS. Never mind the cholesterol and heart-healthy stuff, let’s talk about the REALLY importance aspect of that cereal from Heaven: I CAN GET A BABY TO DO PRACTICALLY ANYTHING FOR ME FOR CHEERIOS!!! (More to come on that, to be sure).
And re What The Heck is A Baby Wrangler, Anyway: (Are you envisioning chaps & a lasso?)
I am, in my blogs, going to tell you lots of baby wrangling stories, and coaching with slightly older kids stories . . . and stories of me, too. My husband – amazing acting coach, Shawn Nelson, says that if I leave me out of the stories, I am leaving out some of the heart.. Of course, he’s biased – (is that GREAT or what??!!!!), but I will trust him for now. When this (hopefully) becomes my book – we’ll see what the editor leaves in!.
SO- onto the definition portion of today’s blog:
1. BABY WRANGLER – the ACTUAL definition: a paid fool who can have no pride, no ego, must break into song and dance, or make embarrassing faces and sounds at any given time or place, must have roughly the mentality of a 6 – 10 month old person, must generally face humiliation and possible ridicule, and ideally fits into small, cramped and sometimes yucky places.
For Example: there was the time I spent approximately 3 weeks squished into either the bow of a little sailboat, hidden under a dusty, dirty heavy canvas sail, or squished under the bench- like seats of the little sailboat under a dusty, dirty heavy canvas sail with Meryl Streep’s feet on my tush. Or with Liam Aiken or Emily Browning accidentally stepping on my head. Or my hand, Or my foot. Or all of the above. (never could quite figure out how they accomplished THAT!)
Below you see a good example of the above mentioned yucky place . . . but spending time with Meryl, Emily and Liam was a delight!
In addition, the baby wrangler is the person that you can yell at if the baby doesn’t do what the director needs (I mean, come on – what kind of monster would yell at the actual BABY??) However, truth be told, though I have been yelled at – it hasn’t happened very often.
Oh wait a minute – here’s an exception: we were filming at Burbank Airport. It was Season One of my miraculous gift from God and Aaron Spelling – seven seasons as on-set acting coach for the WB mega-hit, SEVENTH HEAVEN. It was a very long and very wide establishing shot, which means that everything was being seen in a radius of about a gazillion miles. My little Mack (Mackenzie Rosman aka “RUTHIE CAMDEN”), barely six at the time, had dialogue and needed me close by to prompt her, but there was NO place to hide. Our Director, the late great Harry Harris, said, “Dawn – get way close to the kid (meaning Mack) over by that bench.” I said, “Harry, if I do that I’m gonna be in the shot. He said, “No you won’t.” I said, “Yes I will.” He said, “No you won’t. I said, “Yes I will. He said, “Dawn, just go to the damn bench!” I said, “Okay, Harry – but I’m tellin’ ya, I’m gonna be in the shot!”
So I went where he told me to go, our 1st AD, Paul Snider, said “ROLLing,” Harry said “AKshun” and then, one second later, “GODDAMMIT DAWN, YOU’RE IN THE SHOT!!!!!!!”.
sigh. And here is Mack and Me – a partnership that gave me joy for 7 years. And sometimes drove me crazy. But that’s another story. And believe you me, you’ll hear it!
And here he is – the amazing Harry Harris – and me, on one of hundreds of happy days on 7th HEAVEN. A truly incredible, lovely man – and an incredibly talented director. I love him . . . and I miss him! You can ask anyone from our family-crew of that wonderful show – they’ll say the same thing. We all loved Harry.
Back to my original point (and I warn you, I digress a lot) – I was defining “baby wrangler”. Above, I supplied the actual, factual definition.
Now here’s . . .
2. BABY WRANGLER – the TECHNICAL definition: the baby wrangler is actually the person responsible for the performance of the baby: needed to coax, cajole, encourage and deliver the reactions and actions called for by the director, the script, the client, the ad agency, the producer, the producer’s wife . . . . well, you get the picture. Depending on the director, and his or her comfort level – a baby wrangler can actually direct the baby.
And this is part of what I do for a living. I’ll be telling you lots more in the blogs to come.
Am I a lucky girl or what????????
© Dawn Jeffory-Nelson
2013All rights reserved
Dawn Jeffory-Nelson: Will Work For O's 