Prologue
The following 10 chapters are my version of the truth. I have changed all names. I exaggerated only where I thought the exaggeration more accurately depicted the events involving myself. This account of my descent into a very particular world of Hollywood took place over the course of a year.
I don't want to be cast as a victim. I don't want this to come across as some kind of morality tale about the perils of being an actress in the entertainment industry. What happened to me during that unique time was as much a result of my own doing as it was others doing things to me.
Yes, at the end, I became a kind of slave to a man and to the business as a whole. Do I regret it? No, not in the least. It was a personal journey as much as a professional choice. During the course of it, I learned things about who I am as an individual.
I learned that the control I had attempted to maintain over myself, and over life, was not giving me what I really wanted at deeper levels. Not only was it not giving me what I wanted, but I came to discover that the very opposite was true. I discovered that by giving up control completely, and submitting wholeheartedly to the male-dominated business, I found a feeling of deep exhilaration that I had never known in my life.
Why have I decided to publish this? Well, the easiest answer I have to give is that a friend convinced me to submit it for publication. But that really doesn't explain the full truth. I have written this book to recount the events to myself and to better learn why I did the things that I did. And I have also written this book for other women and men out there who have had the same urges and thoughts, but believe there is no reality to their fantasies.
I have chosen to write what happened to me in the film industry in full graphic detail, both psychologically and on a sexual level. There are many people who work in Hollywood who are not going to be happy that I am writing this as I vividly recount both our sexual escapades as well as the private knowledge about how things sometimes work in the entertainment business. But my career as an actress is over so I really have no bridges to burn.
I am neither ashamed of anything I have done nor am I afraid to tell things like they are. All I can do is tell the events as they happened and describe the thoughts that were inside my head at the time. The readers will decide for themselves if the choices I made were good or bad, or so bad they were good...
Chapter 1 -- The Audition
au•di•tion : a trial performance to appraise an entertainer's merits
The audition was at the legendary Wilkes-Meyer building in the thick of the Sunset Strip, in the thick of Hollywood, in the thick of the place where every girl comes to be famous and never looks back. I don't want to say that I never expected to be there because that would be a total lie. I not only expected to be called in for an audition with The Agency at some point, I not only expected to leave the casting call with a room full of whispers and awes heard from Century City to Beverly Hills to Manhattan, I expected to finally get the part that I came to get.
Despite the years of struggles when all this seemed so far away, I was there because I deserved to be there. I was there because I was born to make it. I was there because my name is Madison Ava Jones from Biloxi, Mississippi who was now resides in a beautiful mid-century apartment in the Miracle Mile neighborhood of Los Angeles. Those are just the facts. I don't want to say that I was arrogant.
Someone has to be famous and that someone is always willing to pay the price to get there. That is the way it has always been. People need a celebrity to read about and ogle and love and hate. They need someone in which to see themselves, and to have someone to talk about, that everyone else knows. It binds people together. If it wasn't going to be me, it was going to be someone else. But it wasn't going to be someone else. No one else wanted it as bad as I did, had worked as hard for it and was more willing to do whatever it took to become famous.
What I didn't ever expect is that it would take this long, I would be this broke and I would spend the entire day before the audition methodically figuring out how to best use the final $78 on my student Visa card. I didn't expect that three years after graduation I would be spending my last pennies to purchase the little black dress and white panties I was now wearing.
What I thought that morning and what I had believed every day of my life is that happiness is about independence. Control your own destiny and don't let it control you. I was determined to make it in my own way and wouldn't let anyone tell me what to do. Ever since I was a little girl, I prided myself on being the leader and put together at all times. I was the girl in high school that every other girl looked to for what to wear, how to act, who to be with, what to say and what not to say. It became my role, my image and my responsibility.
But in the end, it was what made me a prisoner and what I discovered I wanted to be free from, but couldn't.
I had grown up in the Deep South that, despite the progress from the kind of place it once was, remained a culture where everyone knew their place. You didn't try to be too different or too modern. My family was different, though, because they expected me to make it on my own, expected me do anything I set out to do, expected me to be somebody, expected me to succeed, expected me to control my life and expected me to be the actress that I had told everyone I was going to be since I was a little girl.
It was a world of expectations that I had so deeply internalized, I didn't even see that there was a difference between the expectations and myself.
The day I left for California to become a real actress, it seemed like it was just a matter of time before I was discovered. Hardly a week had passed since I had graduated with a bachelor's degree in drama from one of the best schools in the country.
But that was three years ago. It was now the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression, I was very much broke, I had only got a handful of parts in student films and commercials and I was still telling all my friends and family that everything was going great.
I had made them all think that I was always on the cusp of making it. I just needed to buy a little more time before I actually made it, buy a little more time before I got that big part that I deserved and that knew I would get.
The official notice for the part that was published in the trade magazines read: "Female, 18-25, speaking role, union. Untitled James Weinberg picture. The Agency." And not a single one of the hundreds of young women standing, pacing and reading the lines to themselves in the long, half-lit hallway that day needed to be told what those words meant.
They knew a union speaking role meant union wages and they knew that being in a movie produced by The Agency meant real fame. Billboard fame. Paparazzi fame. Name recognition fame. And it meant never again being just another actress trying to make it, another girl telling her glossed-up lies about her new part to friends and family on her way to waiting tables and getting another day older as a nobody pretending to be a somebody.
I had been to dozens of casting calls since I arrived in Los Angeles three years before but never one like this. The building was a granite Beaux Art-style fortress built in the 1920's in the heyday of Hollywood beginnings. It was rumored to have been owned by The Agency since the day it was built and never once had been sold.
Unlike other casting callbacks, I received no call. A few hours after I had submitted for the part, I received a text message on my phone: "Friday. 10am. Wilkes-Meyer Building. Arrive 30 minutes early for official check-in."
Little did I know then that it was the beginning of the story. And little did I know how fast it would all happen.
When I pulled into the underground parking lot, the security guard motioned me right away to pull to the side. I complied and waited while he circled my car with a long metal pole with a mirror attached to it, inspecting the undercarriage all around the car. He radioed to another man who arrived immediately with a German Sheppard and proceeded to circle the car for a second time.
"Please step out of the car miss," he instructed me.
"Excuse me?" I responded.
"Please step out of the car. We need to inspect you."
I was more confused than astonished at his request and I looked back and forth at the two large men standing there waiting for me to comply.
"I am here for an audition. I am supposed to be here," I told them curtly. One of the men lifted the clipboard he had in his hand and looked down at it.
"Madison Jones?"
"Yes," I replied strongly in my conviction that they had figured out who I was.
The man put the clipboard under his arm and took hold of his walkie-talkie. "Front desk, this is parking security," he barked into the device. "We have a Madison Jones here who is refusing inspection." Not a single second had passed before a response came through.
"This is the front desk. Refusal noted by The Agency. Please request inspection again. If Miss Jones refuses again, please remove her from the premises."
"Thank you, front desk."
I half expected the men to break out into laughter but they just glared down at me stone-faced without saying another word, waiting for me to figure it out and make the choice. I tried to peek around the subterranean parking lot but it seemed like I was the only one who had entered for a good amount of time.
I was initially fearful that the two men were going to do something to me but what could they possibly do and get away with? There must be cameras and whatever they were planning to do must be fine if it was authorized by the front desk. I glanced at them once more then prodded open my car door and stepped out onto the slick concrete lot.
I now noticed that one of the men had a long black metal-detecting wand with which he was approaching me.
"Arms out, legs spread," he commanded me.
I suddenly felt a bit relieved that it was all just precautionary security and that it was their job to be fairly strict with any visitors. I did as I was told, spreading my high-heeled feet wide apart and extending my arms straight out.
The security officer did not stop staring at me the whole time as he ran the length of the wand from the tip of my fingers toward my chest, down the length of my body to my toes and back up my inner thigh. He moved the device in a gliding motion so it was so close to my body that I could feel its exact position every second.
"Turn around," he commanded dryly. I quickly complied. "Legs spread. Arms out. We need to pat you down."
