HowTo Make It in Hollywood as a Quadriplegic Actor/Writer/Producer

As the only quadriplegic actor/writer/producer in Hollywood, the only successful one at any rate, (by successful, I mean has made money doing this and is a member of at least two of the three unions SAG and WGA, I haven't yet made it into the PGA) I consider myself an expert. Over my many years of doing this I've come up with Jim's rules of how to make it in Hollywood if you're quadriplegic.
1. Forget you're quadriplegic. Nobody cares. Everybody will expect you to do an able-bodied person's amount of work plus 10% because you're quadriplegic.
2. Remember you're quadriplegic. It is both the aspect about you that will open doors and close them. It will make people remember you as well as scare them away from you. It is your biggest asset as well as your biggest detriment. However, if you don't make it, don't you dare blame it on the fact that you're quadriplegic. Too many people have worked much too hard getting performers with disabilities opportunities in the media for you to blame your lack of success on your disability.
3. You had better be talented. Not just talented, have multiple talents. So many damn talents that they can't afford not to hire you. I'm talking a three ring circus of talents. If you don't have them, develop them. I'm not saying that a young, good-looking quadriplegic guy could never make it here with no other talent than acting. I did it. The reason I didn't go any farther for many years was because I was a one trick pony. I thought acting would do it for me. I started writing projects for myself. Told producers a zillion ideas for projects that would include me as the lead. It wasn't until I started writing projects with out me that I started getting notice. I started becoming known as a writer, I stressed the actor part of me less and less.
4. If you are quadriplegic, think twice before you bring that up on the phone. Quadriplegic can be a very scary word. Show them your talent and get them to love you before you drop the Q bomb.
5. Wherever you live, try to make a name for yourself as an actor or writer or whatever it is you aspire to be. If you are an actor, do as much community theater as possible. If you're a writer, write plays, get them produced. If you're a director, direct plays. That way when you get to town here, you will have a track record. It will help you get an agent.
6. This is the most important rule if you are a quadriplegic with dreams of making it in Hollywood. Do not become direct competition for me. I will kill you. It will look like an accident; after all, I am a writer. You may laugh and think I am teasing... There is a reason I am the only quadriplegic actor/writer/producer in town.
7. This is the other most important rule. Don't forget you're quadriplegic and try to do everything. In other words, look after your health. At times in my career, I neglected mine to get ahead, and though I did edge ahead slightly, I paid for it. Get a good doctor, and stay healthy.
8. Forget all of these rules and make your own way. Because the truth is, there are no rules in Hollywood... except of course, rule number 6.

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Okay, So Being the Only Successful Quadriplegic Actor/Writer/Producer in Hollywood Does Occasionally Have Some Pretty Cool Perks!

The hot blonde on my left is Nicole Hiltz from the popular USA crime drama "In Plain Sight." Though I was introduced to them, I don't quite remember who the other ladies were because the event we were at was sponsored by Gray Goose Vodka, and had an open bar where the booze flowed like blood from a fresh vampire bite. We were also treated to wonderful food and outrageous desserts.

As a voting member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the group who presents The Emmy Awards, I'm invited to a lot of meet and greets of the actors, writers and producers of television shows. Not only is it way cool, I am generally the only guy in a wheelchair, certainly the only quadriplegic guy at most of these functions. When I contact people I've met there, if they don't remember my name they certainly remember the "guy in a wheelchair." More importantly, my wheelchair makes my presence obvious and producers and writers are reminded that people with disabilities exist in all facets of society. It is a topic I bring up often to them, not only to promote myself, but to promote the idea in general. It's getting a little better, but there are still very few examples of accurate portrayals of us on television or in the movies. They could almost be counted on one hand.

As a member of the WGA, the Writers Guild of America, specifically the Writers with Disabilities Committee, former national chair of the Performers with Disabilities Committee in AFTRA, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and a former member of the SAG, Screen Actors Guild Performers with Disabilities Committee, and it is important to me to constantly remind the movers and shakers in the entertainment industry about the importance of including disabled characters on television shows and in the movies.

When I was first injured, there were no people like me on television. No quadriplegics and barely any paraplegics, no one who looked like they were in the same boat I was. Occasionally, there would be a "sickness of the week" TV Movie about a quadriplegic, but generally they were pathetic characters who were victims. Yes, there are quadriplegics who are victims of crimes or whatever, but the dialogue wasn't realistic and the roles were not true to life, they were written by able-bodied people based on stereotypes.

To tell the truth, there were no quadriplegics on television until I appeared on Highway to Heaven. Not that I'm looking for a pat on the back, I was just happy to work and just happened to be the first. I first got on television in 1984, 26 years ago. I was sure that by now there would be plenty of us on television. I was positive that roles played by disabled performers or at least about disabled characters would be prevalent.

Oh well, I guess I will have to attend a lot more Hollywood parties and be surrounded by gorgeous women to promote positive images of people with disabilities in the media. If it must be done, it must be done...

Pre-Advance Publicity

Hopefully about this time next year you will be picking up a copy of my autobiography,"Don't Make Me Get Out Of This Chair." As you might expect, it is about my life!

It is not my first autobiography. I finished the first one in about 1986 or 1987. It was a straightout timeline of my life from my accident in 1971, to getting on television in 1984 and ended with my divorce in 1987. It was written in the style of; this happened, then this happened, then this happened. There were plenty of long conversations that took up many pages, some timid sex scenes, and a blow-by-blow (so to speak) of my life and loves at Rancho Los Amigos Rehabilitation Center in Downey, California where I lived for almost a year after my accident. (note: details about my accident, the one that left me paralyzed, exists somewhere on this blog. I will probably repeat it the whole gruesome story in a future blog).

That epic volume of my memoirs also included an epilogue, yes, an epilogue that somehow drew a correlation between the steps I took to become a success, and a ladder of success the reader could take to improve their lives. It bore the ungodly title, Dare to Dream.

You've never heard of it?! It wasn't on the New York Times best-seller list, you say? You never even tripped over it at the $.99 store? Probably because it was never published. Excuse me while I give a silent "thank God" that all of the publishers I sent it to turned it down. I would hate to have it out in the world as a sample of my writing. Schlock and dribble would be a compliment although my mother liked it. But then again, she was excited over my first poop. There is an analogy there somewhere.

Anyway, "Don't Make Me Get Out Of This Chair" will, I promise, make for much better reading. It contains my guts. It contains the real me. As you may have gathered reading this blog, I have a well developed sense of humor (read warped). I honed that sense of humor in the hospital It was my defense in the face of a cornucopia of horror (sounds like a Roger Corman film). In addition to learning at 14 that I would never walk, or do any of the things I enjoyed ever again, I watched friends die and grown men plead for death.

It will make you laugh. It will make you cry. it will make you re-examine everything you've ever thought to be true in your life. Liberals will become conservatives, Republicans will become Democrats, dogs will become cats, and the entire makeup of this planet will become disassembled and reassembled in a manner none of us could have ever conceived. (I swear to you there is absolutely no hyperbole in that paragraph)

I promise you will enjoy it though. When it comes out, please buy enough copies that I can leave a generous inheritance to my grandchildren who have yet to be born.

Jim

Explosions vs. Emotions

A lot of my gripe with Hollywood is that there are way more explosions than there are emotions up on the screen. I can only wonder how many times that sentence, or one similar to that has been written in a blog.

I can tell you from personal experience it is because it's way easier for the writer. Knocking out explosions scripts spew out about as fast as you can type. Knocking out emotion scripts is gut-wrenchingly difficult. I am working on a script right now, a twist on the classic story of Faust, about a guy who sells his soul to the devil to further his career. My story could very easily include a lot of explosions and CGI. It might even be fodder for a summer blockbuster. A summer blockbuster that would leave you cold. You would not leave the theater having learned anything about yourself or the human condition, nor would you care if the main character won or lost whatever his goal was.

Although it is tempting to make your audiences hearts flutter while the main character defuses a bomb, it is far more gratifying for the writer and the audience, if you make their hearts flutter over some emotional obstacle the main character has to overcome. The hard part is opening up my soul and filling a hundred pages with my joys and sorrows. The real ones, the emotions we never admit to anyone, sometimes not even ourselves.

So, a few years from now when you are in the theater laughing and crying over the roller coaster ride that will become that year's best movie, and will garner me a multimillion dollar, multi-picture deal, and make my name a household word, remember this blog, and the angst that spilled out of Jim Troesh's blather.

Live long and help me prosper,
Jim