St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 56

2E March 9, 19B0 St UMS POST-DISPATCH Anxiety lustration, ri In A Models9 Mirror off the wall fife? ii Skr, the emotional roller coaster of auditioning for jobs a few times a week. Models and actors are constantly faced with the harrowing specter of rejection. They are always being judged by others, and the results usually reflect-directly on their talent and ability. By Jeff Meyers Of the Post-Dispatch Staff Through a friend in the modeling business, I found out that an advertising agency was auditioning men with gray in their beards for the National Hairdresser's Association annual catalogue. Although my beard seemed qualified for the job, I wasn't really interested in jeopardizing its amateur standing until I heard that the pay was $40 an hour for six hours of easy work with a fashion photographer.

For that kind of money, I'd even consider shaving the thing off. The audition was held at Barbizon modeling school and agency in Clayton, perhaps the last place in the world I ever expected to find myself. About a dozen people were there, women to show off the hair on their heads, men to put the hair on their faces on display. I was sitting between a permed blonde and one of those mythical raven-haired beauties. Both were nervous.

Unlike me, they depended on modeling for a living; a job like this could represent a week's work. When my name was called I had to stand in front of a pleasant man named Max. Tilting my head so he could examine my beard in the light, he ran his fingers across the grain and studied the hair shafts for only a few seconds, long enough for him to deduce that about 10 percent of my beard was gray. Then in a friendly but business-like voice he said, "Thank you very much next please!" That was it. No shouts of "eureka, we've found the beard we've been looking for!" No words of hope and encouragement.

I stood there limply, my beard beginning to frizz in embarrassment, and began plotting how to sneak out of the room without anyone noticing. Was there something terribly unattractive about my beard? Had he found lice in there? I left the audition feeling totally rejected, a worthless human being who can't even grow a photogenic beard. But as I was leaving Barbizon I ran into the mythical raven-haired beauty in the lobby. To my astonishment, she thought she'd been rejected, too. I asked her if she had dandruff.

"No, it's nothing like that," she said. "My hair's just too long in back and I have bangs. They weren't after that look. It happens all the time in this business." I felt better after talking to her, and I was glad I didn't have to go through FIT ioenollack business. But she doesn't seem to miss it.

"Your whole concept of yourself becomes synonymous with getting work," she said, "and that's one of the reasons I don't mind getting out of the business. I always felt powerless. Everything was decided by other people. It was always so subjective. Your hair was too short, your nose was too long.

Rejection can be real debilitating, just as getting a job can really validate your self-worth it's a real trip." I can vouch for that. My self-worth took a giant step forward when Max called a day after the audition and wanted to rent my beard for the catalogue. I hadn't been rejected after all but I know the feeling. 'We don't like you' they're saying, 'You're not right for this particular "But this business is absolutely unpredictable. It's the nature of the beast.

There are times I can walk in and get a job I didn't think I had a prayer for, and there are times I can't even get arrested." Bev Ostroska did a lot of acting work in Los Angeles, and Boston before moving to Edwardsville in the fall of She is a dance therapist and also teaches acting at SIU-Edwardsville, but her acting career is at a standstill, primarily because she's 30 miles from St. Louis and hasn't been able to develop the necessary contacts in the thick skin. There are lots of people who are real good but can't handle the rejection, so they become bitter and get out of the business. I went through a period when I was bitter, but I finally convinced myself that nobody is saying Debatable Need For Another Arts Group Hagar Replacing Flash; Darling Going Hager the Horrible, Dik Browne's madcap "Norsecom" about Vikings who are funny and cuddly, will replace the venerable adventure strip, Flash Gordon, in the daily Post-Dispatch's comic section beginning Monday, April 14. Before Flash goes, however, the present story about islands and lizardmen and sharks and a boy named Teraki will reach its conclusion on Saturday, April 12.

Hager, a real dark horse in the recent Post-Dispatch comic poll, finished a surprising 10th place of Delicious Offer For Blue Chip If they hit a long dry spell, a series of tough rejections week after week, it becomes difficult, to maintain confidence and self-esteem. In perhaps no other field does a person's livelihood depend almost entirely on someone else's opinion. But how do models and actors deal with rejection? How do they cope with the frustration and anxiety? "I try not to take it personally," said Andrea Webb, a local model. "If I can rationalize why I didn't get a job and someone else did, I'll be OK. But if the decision doesn't make sense to me, it'll get me down.

What's really bad is to be among the finalists for a job and not be chosen. That happened to me recently. If I didn't snap out of it right away I would have gotten depressed and started eating, and my weight would have gone "I really fear rejection. My father says that's why I didn't go to New York if you don't go and try, you don't face that fear of not making Andrea's modeling career began in 1974 when she was in high school. "I wasn't so dependent on it then, so it was fun," she said.

And her luck was good; one of her first auditions landed her a job with Seventeen magazine. But her career slowed down after high school, her weight increased and she quit modeling in 1977. "It became frustrating because you never knew how much you'd be making from week to week," she said. Less than a year later she decided to resume her modeling career. "Even with the frustrations, I missed it," she said.

Presently, she is trying to overcome a serious setback: Last October she went to a hairdresser to have her hair dyed brown; it came out orange and had to be cut within an inch of her scalp, putting her out of work. "I just have to keep myself psyched," she said. "Attitude is really important." Will Shaw is one of the most successful actors in town. He does dozens of radio and television commercials a year, but he also has his share of rejections. Like most models and actors in St.

Louis, Shaw can't support himself on acting alone; he's also a DJ for WMRY in East St. Louis. "If you don't learn to live with the. rejection you'll go nuts and it'll destroy he said. "It used to eat my insides out, but I've developed a pretty bridge quiz A By Charles H.

Goren and Omar Sharif Q.l As South, vulner able, you hold: fA1076 A4 AKQJ963 The bidding has pro ceeded: South West North East 2 Pass 2 NT Pass 3 Pass 3 Pass What do you bid now? Q.2 Neither vulnera ble, as South you hold: 4AK VQ762 J8643 A5 The bidding has pro ceeded: South West North East 1 Pass 3 NT Pass wnat action do you take? Q.3 Neither vulnera ble, as South you hold: K1032 VAKQ7 A763 8 Partner opens the bid ding with one spade. What action do you take? Q.4 Both vulnerable, as South you hold: A6 VJ9S7532 7 SC5 The bidding has pro ceeded: North East South West 1 Pass INT Pass 2 Pass wnat action do you take? Q.5 Both vulnerable, as South you hold: 10652 VAK762 K7 Q4 Your right-hand oppo nent opens the bidding When with one spade. What ao tion do you take? Q.6 Both vulnerable as South you hold: KJ63 VA84 AKJ1052 The bidding has pro ceeded: South West North East 1 Pass 1 Pass What do you bid now? Look for answers on Monday. Woody Allen Play At Ark "Play It Again, Sam," Woody Allen's comedy about a movie buff who looks to Humphrey Bo-gart to solve his romantic problems, will be the next play at the new Noah's Ark Dinner Theatre, 1500 South Fifth, St. Charles.

Willy Switkes will star in the play, which opens Thursday, March 13, and will run through April 20. For ticket information, call 94S-4409. 1 Deposit $100 Or More $14.95 FSLIC Clarkson Or At His And 8-pc. service Simplicity Sets plates, cups pieces and In you'll receive Here's On Our Additional (Does not Completer Generous Large Sugar With Matching HM1 ooo the best-liked comics, while Flash Gordon was next to last, No. 33, of the most preferred, just beating out last-place Today's World.

Flash Gordon was ninth among the most hated strips. Other comic section changes being made as a result of the poll involve John Darling, a 31st-place finisher in the best-liked list and No. 6 of the most hated, which is being dropped on Monday, March 24, to be make room for a new strip, Downstown. Downstown is the creation of a former St. Louis an When you select a book that entitles you another at some of the of course, are extra.) Special Low Prices I Dinners At 14 Of St.

Louis1 Her Stoneware Dinner Sets 1 Leading Ull 11 IV. VU1I the last 20 years. In addition, it found that there was competition in the summer time, and that some people preferred to go to places like the movies, or the Mississippi River Festival, or Six Flags, or baseball eames. or the Pops concerts. Some even preferred to go shopping or to night school.

So, the Municipal Opera has decided that a new image is necessary. I would agree, but why must it come from an advertising agency and not from the theater's own productions? HANGING AT LAUMEIER: Herb Weitman, the Washington University photographer who also focuses on pretty girls, football players and boxcars with equal facility, will share space with an old friend, the late Alexander Calder, at Laumeier Park next month. The sculpture garden will offer a group of Calder sculptures, and also a selection of Weitman photographs taken of the sculptor at work in his Connecticut studio. It was a football trip, many years ago, with the Cardinals to play the Giants at New Haven. We stayed in Hartford, and were on our way to dinner when Weitman suddenly the car." We were passing what looked like an ordinary scrap yard, but in the dusk, he had spotted a group of in-progress Calders, their strange lyrical shapes looming against the sky.

Weitman had to photograph them. Weitman visited Calder on a number of occasions, but hopefully, some of those shots from a long-ago football trip may be included. -it AUTHOR, AUTHOR: Former St. Louisan Willy Holtzman, whose unauthorized biography of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft appeared last fall, is represented just off Broadway with a new musical, "Housewives' Cantata." Mira J. Spektor wrote the music and June Siegel the lyrics to go with Holtzman's book.

Patti Karr, Forbesy Russell and Sharon Talbot portray three sisters, and William Perley represents all their various men in their lives. Holtzman now is working on a novel and another play. -h THE ROMANCE OF THE VINE: Most press releases are pretty stark stuff, occasionally leavened with ridiculousness and error, rarely with humor. But the French are different. The Beaujolais winemakers of the Villefranche region recently discussed the 1979 vintages, and wrote of the second half of the growing season this way.

"The rain which followed 15th August was wise enough not to persevere, thus limiting the risk of grey mould. At the beginning of September, no one dared hope for the beautiful weather at the end of the season with which 1977 and 1978 had favored us. However, around the 10th, a radiant sun sustained by a northerly wind shone over our vineyards. On top of this, the healthy state of the crop was protected and the proclamation of the beginning of grape picking on 20th September enabled us to face this task with confidence and optimism." The forecast for the 1979s, according to the growers, is for a rich and mellow wine without a dominating acid taste, a compromise between the balance of the 1976 vintage and the delicacy of the 1978. Speaking of the French '79s, the Chablis growers report an abundant crop and, hopefully, lower prices.

As far as quality is concerned, they do not think it will be as outstanding as the wines of 1978. H. L. MENCKEN SAID IT: "I believed I could digest anything colorably organic much to the surprise of my concrete-mixer gizzard." Whether or not the state of Missouri, the people of Missouri or the artists of Missouri really need another organization is probably a debatable point but all of the above are going to get one, starting next Sunday at an organizational meeting in Columbia. It's called "Missourians for the Arts," and Joan Mondale, wife of the vice-president, will be the keynote-speaker.

Bill Blair, president of a similar organization called "Ohio Concerned Citizens for the Arts," also will speak. The action begins with registration at 1:30 p.m. at the Flaming Pit, off Business Route 70 in Columbia. Joel Katz, of the Missouri Arts Council, relayed the information, and described the organization as a grassroots movement that could, and supposedly would, act to lobby on a statewide basis for legislation or funds tht would support the arts. It will offer both individual and group memberships, and theoretically will work for both as well, providing a spokesman for, say, theater companies and individual painters.

Plans are for its ruling body to represent the entire state, and to be divided so that neither the cities nor the rural areas have control. According to Katz, it will be in a position to disseminate information on a statewide basis, too, so that interested citizens could then take action. An example is a bill introduced into the House of Representatives by William Clay of Missouri's First District. It would establish a municipal arts grant program to aid neighborhood and community art groups. Katz' point was that the new group could help raise popular support for the bill, as part of its function of creating a statewide environment more receptive to art and artists, and he said that the group could do some things that the Council could not do.

.1 suppose that the idea is all right, because the more interest there is in the arts, the better we all are, but there are so many groups floating around who are supposed to help artists and make non-artists more familiar with artistic work, that I wonder if another organization, another level of bureaucracy, is really necessary. Just to name a few, we have a city commission that deals with the arts, and we have the Missouri Arts Council, and we have the Arts Education Council, and the neighborhood groups, and then there are all the entities, like (he symphonies and the theaters and the museums, and they all flood us with mail and appeals for funds. I question the need for another one, but I'll wait and see. Perhaps I'll be proven wrong. 6 BIG DOINGS AT THE MUNY OPERA: Well, maybe not real big, but at this time of the year, with spring, summer and the schedule due to arrive soon (and hopefully not in that order), almost anything the Forest Park folks do, is welcome.

This off-season, they used a 1977 survey among high-school students and discovered that that particular group thinks "opera" means grand opera, which means heavy music in a foreign language, attended by rich, older people. So the Muny streamlined its name. No, they're not going to call it the Muny Rock Opera, which might interest both high school students and geologists. They're calling it just "The Muny," which sounds more like a public transportation system. But it has been designed on a new logo, and it will no doubt become familiar, just like the substitution of numbers for those grand old telephone exchange names eventually became familiar.

The survey didn't stop with opera, either. It also discovered that the local population had changed substantially in County resident, 25-year-old Tim Downs, who graduated in 1972 from Parkway West High School. Downstown began as college comic strip, featuring characters in a campus setting, and has evolved into the humorous frustrations of two young men, Odd Couple-type roommates, Downs calls them, who meander through life seeking romance and recognition. Mostly, they "get no respect." Downs began doing the strip as a student at Indiana University. He now lives in San Bernardino, Calif.

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