Sometimes I feel like I’m trapped in an episode of Toddlers & Tiaras, because I’ve accompanied so many children to auditions, television sets and photo shoots. I’ve applied fake tan and false eyelashes to five-year-olds and put a toddler in stilettos. Sometimes, when you look around a pageant hall, it’s like someone has shot a shrink-ray at a strip joint. I don’t enjoy being part of the process but I have to follow the orders of the parents, who are often keen for their children to follow them into the family business.
The three eldest Appleby sisters, Goldie, Harlow and Cherry, had been asked to star in a commercial for a ‘healthy’ fast food chain where the bean burgers are served in gluten-free buns and the chips are made from sweet potato fried in coconut oil.
The kids were excited because all of the ‘talent’ who appeared in the advert received a ‘milkshake credit card’, which bought them unlimited drinks at the restaurant. They’d also be paid, but only Alysha and her agent knew how much and where this money went.
I was glad that the commercial Alysha had signed the girls up to was a group shoot at least. There would be twenty or so children there, so the focus wouldn’t be on the Appleby girls. They hadn’t even had to audition, because the director played golf with Sir Cameron. This was also how Cherry became the face of a breakfast cereal, how Lavender became an extra in Glee, and why little Chanel was appearing in a romantic comedy as Kate Hudson’s love child.
You usually see the same children at these types of jobs, and when we arrived at the restaurant where the commercial was being shot I instantly recognised the twin daughters of a country and western singer, and the three sons of a Wimbledon winner.
You can spot a pushy parent from a mile away. At one end of the room, a mother was strapping her five-year-old into a corset while muttering ‘This is all your father’s fault for giving you that bag of potato chips last month.’
In another corner, a mother was applying a ‘tooth flipper’ to a little girl’s mouth to hide the fact she’d recently been visited by the tooth fairy. I once heard a pageant judge call a three-year-old’s tooth gap ‘unsightly’. In pageants, girls could also be marked down for having dimples that are ‘too symmetrical’ or ‘over-elongated eyebrows’.
Rosie and Opal were already there with their children, whose mouths were full of chocolate buttons. To the disgust of the pushy mothers, there is always a ‘candy bar’ at shoots such as these, with jars full of every American kid’s favourite lollies, from cinnamon candy to Hershey’s Kisses, Bursting Berry Blow Pops and Tootsie Rolls. These producers are sugar-pushers, because they want to keep the kids’ energy levels high (and have sweet treats on hand to bribe the kids with if they don’t behave).
Sure enough, when a female crew member wearing a baseball cap with a ponytail swinging from the back rushed up to us, she had a bag of gummy bears in hand and immediately started pouring them into the children’s hands. ‘Hiya! I’m Stephanie,’ she chirped. ‘We’re so glad that you could join us. Now, I need to get the four of you into hair and make-up immediately.’
I gathered Goldie, Harlow and Cherry in front of my legs. ‘You mean the three of them,’ I said, touching each one on the top of the head. ‘We were told the other three sisters were too young to be in the shoot.’
Stephanie looked puzzled for a moment. ‘Yes, that’s why I said four,’ she said slowly. ‘You’ll need hair and make-up too. We don’t want any shiny foreheads, do we? Oh, and can you sign these release forms? Muchos thankyas!’
As she rushed off, she pushed a piece of paper into my hand. At the top of the page it said, ‘Name—Lindsay Starwood. Character—Mother.’
My heart sunk. Suddenly my trip to the beauty parlour made even more sense. When Alysha had given me a makeover she wasn’t just punishing me for being pap-snapped. She was preparing me to play a Hollywood Mama and needed me to look the part.
While the children were in the make-up trailer having their faces caked with foundation, I called Alysha’s agent to get the lowdown. Kerri-Ann was not my favourite person at the best of times, but she would have sealed the deal on my behalf.
‘Oh yes, didn’t Alysha tell you?’ asked Kerri-Ann innocently. ‘The casting director wanted a package deal with three children and one parent. Alysha suggested that you take her place, seeing as you have the same hair colour and you’ve recently lost a bit of weight. I thought you knew. Oh well, break a leg!’
As a large clock in the corner of the restaurant counted down five minutes to action, it was too late to back out. I’d just have to suck it up and pretend to be a mummy.
The children and I were shown to a round melamine table at the centre of the set, a prime position right in front of the main camera. I guessed this was down to Sir Cameron pulling a few strings. The pushy mothers glared at us, wondering why the children were the chosen ones. It probably didn’t help that Cherry was loudly and tunelessly singing ‘The weebles on the bus go round and round’, although I had tried to explain that it was ‘wheels’. Meanwhile, Harlow had two bubblegum balls stuck in her cheeks, making her look like a chipmunk. As one mother shoved past me she muttered, ‘Who did you sleep with to get this gig?’
The kids and I were given cone-shaped party hats in psychedelic colours with glittering tassels sprouting from the tip to wear. I could understand why Alysha had skipped this job, as she hates to look anything but perfect. A lot of famous mums want their children to appear in commercials, but would never actually lower themselves to that level. I noticed that Opal and Rosie had also been pulled in to play mummies. We rolled our eyes at each other as the crew members fussed about, straightening the kids’ outfits and telling them how to place their hands on the tables.
A crew member placed four ice-cream sundaes on the table in front of us, complete with whipped cream, cherries and candles. When the cameras started rolling we had to blow the flames out in unison. Then I had to say my one line: ‘I can’t believe these are sugar-free. Can you, kids?’
This might sound simple in theory, but there were intricate instructions for both the children and me.
‘Don’t look at the camera, look at your mom,’ shrieked the director. ‘I want to see a big blow of the candle. And no saliva! I need a dry blow, not a spray!’
Blowing out the candles was a fun game for the children the first three or four takes, but the novelty soon wore off as their technique kept being criticised. ‘One more time, but don’t purse your lips so much, Cherry,’ instructed the artistic director; ‘One more time, but can you tilt your chin up a little, Goldie?’ ‘One more time, but could you sit up straighter, Harlow, you’ve got a little tummy roll going on there.’ One more time, one more time, one more time . . .
The children looked more and more confused with each new instruction. I don’t think they could understand how a simple activity they did every year at their birthday parties had suddenly become so complicated.
To make things worse, the director clearly hadn’t been warned that I was Australian. ‘What is that accent?’ he hollered after my first take. ‘This simply won’t do. We’re meant to be an all-American diner.’ He turned away and muttered something to an assistant, who frowned and made a note on her clipboard. Stephanie, who had been standing off to the side watching the action, then approached our table to deliver a message.
‘The director has requested that you mime your line instead of actually saying the words aloud,’ she hissed. ‘We’re going to have to dub your speech with another actress’s voice in post-production. The director wants a voice which is a little more . . . local.’
Maybe I should have been offended, but in a sense I was relieved. At least I didn’t have to repeat the line thirty times to perfect the right intonation. It was hard enough getting the candle blowing right, without ‘over or under pursing’, or ‘looking like a fish’ as the director had scolded Cherry.
By the time he eventually yelled ‘Cut’ on our scene we were all out of breath, but our ordeal wasn’t yet over. We now had to be extras in a scene where a group of waiters danced across the tables.
‘Lindsay, I need the bathroom,’ said Cherry, pulling at my arm. She wasn’t the only one, as many of the children had been given supersized soft drinks as props and hadn’t been allowed a toilet break for an hour. The nannies on set were exchanging nervous glances, knowing that it was only a matter of time before somebody ended up in a puddle.
I tried to signal to Stephanie, but she was too busy taking photos on her mobile, probably posting snaps of our out-takes to the fast food chain’s Facebook page. By this stage Cherry was wiggling around in her seat like a performing seal, getting increasingly red in the face. Her mother would kill me if she was caught on camera having an accident.
Then, at the other end of the room I saw Opal scoop up her seven-year-old ‘daughter’ in her arms and run off the set, scattering crew members.
‘Ewww!’ screamed the little girl who’d been sitting at the same table. ‘She peeed on meee.’
The producer called the shoot to a halt shortly after that. I don’t think bodily fluids fitted with his artistic vision. As soon as he yelled ‘Cut’, every nanny in the room whisked their child into the bathroom. I pulled out a box of baby wipes and rubbed the make-up from the girls’ faces. Goldie was already coming out in a rash from the foundation. I was just grateful this was a part-time job for them and not a vocation.
‘You were all utterly brilliant today,’ I told the girls. ‘I was so, so proud of you. You’re all little superstars.’
I’m not the kind of nanny who over-compliments kids or showers them with praise—I don’t think doing this prepares them for the real world. However, after being around all those pushy parents, I felt the need to overcompensate. The world of junior showbusiness can be cruel and unforgiving.
As we left the diner, I heard one mother lecturing her daughter. ‘Why were you smiling so crookedly? I need to speak to your acting coach about this.’
On the drive home, Cherry immediately fell asleep in her car seat, worn out from the bright lights and oxygen expenditure. I was pleased that the other two girls seemed to have enjoyed the experience, not that it’s something I’d like them to get too used to.
As we sped down Hollywood Boulevard, Harlow, who was sitting in the back seat, leant forward and tugged my earlobe. ‘Lindsay, I liked you being our mommy today,’ she said sweetly. ‘Are you going to be our mommy from now on? A girl in my class has two mommies and no daddy and my teacher says we’re not allowed to tease her. That’s the same as our family, right? We have two mommies and no daddy too.’
I didn’t know what to say. How could I correct her when, in a strange way, she’d summed up our unorthodox living situation perfectly?