As movies

ورنه

By Emerson Batdorff

HOLLYWOOD

k

ازون دره

move out,

what happens to

the film hopefuls?

With movies most-

ly going elsewhere to happen, what are the prospective starlets doing? You know, the young girls with dreams in their eyes. Do they still come here to Hollywood?

You bet they do. The acting schools are full of them and daily they try to find someplace to be interviewed. which might lead to a screen test and eventually to a job.

They operate in various stages of desperation.

Danielle Corn, for example, is one of the self-contained ones. She has insulated herself somewhat against reality and when she goes out on an interview, she gets great acting experience by imagining that she's only doing it for a hobby. Then, when no work develops, she is not dismayed.

Miss Corn is in her early 20s with a small, compact body of a dancer and a fresh, clean, girl-next-door face. She was wearing slacks, a pink sweater, a maxicoat and what appeared to be an Arlo Guthrie hat, with one exception --it had a string that went through her long blonde hair and tied under her pretty, determined chin.

Probably piquant would be the best adjective for Miss Corn.

"This is my second time in Hollywood," she said. "The first time, I stayed eight months and left after Sharon Tate. Now I'm back.” She has a chain lock for her door to dissuade people from barging in if she opens it ill advisedly, but the chain lock makes it complicated for her to get in. It would slow her down if anyone were chasing.

But she has thought it all out. Three nights a week, she goes to acting school, although she would like

One starlet, Danielle

Corn, insulates self

from reality, and gets

acting experience by

imagining that it's

not a job, but a hobby

a better one. ("If I could just get into a school that's hard as heck to get into, then I'd be happy because I'd know it's a good school.")

Daytimes, she studies or goes on interviews if she can get any, or she surfs, or she practices dancing or she goes skiing (200 miles away). To get to these places, she drives a red 1970 Volkswagen, which she has been known to repair herself. (Fender bent. She filled the dent with a fender

putty herself after finding a professional job would cost too much, then took it to the agency to have the repair job painted. You can't tell it from the rest of the car.)

Is she independently wealthy? No, she worked for her grubstake. She has enough money budgeted out for a year. After that? Well, she'll keep trying another four.

Interesting grubstake

How she got her grubstake is interesting. She worked as a cocktail waitress and go-go-dancer in which career she found that soldiers (she was at Oceanside, Calif.) liked to shoot paper airplanes at her. They were made of money. But the bar went topless and Danielle didn't. She left.

In Hollywood, where did she work? "I worked at this place called the Pink Pussycat," she said. "I turned into a hostess because I didn't make a real good pussycat. Do you know what

a pussycat is? They come up to people and say 'I'm your pussycat' and all this. You know, men look at you.

"These were real nice men but when they walked through the door they changed. So then they put me as a hostess, you know, seating people. And then I trained people. They have

a high turnover. Pussycats only last about two weeks. I lasted six months because I needed the job."

She had a lot of trouble getting going. "I couldn't get into any of the agencies. I went on "The Dating Game' but they only left me on because I'd won a surfing championship. Otherwise, they never would have let

me on.

Flooded the agencies

"I got these cards printed saying 'I'm on the Dating Game and would you please watch me.' So I sent them to all the agencies. I sent them to 360 agencies. And only three calls."

Then she got into a little trouble over some confusion. One of the agencies suggested she do a lot of nude scenes and she said she didn't want to do a lot of nude scenes.

"So when the other agency called back," Danielle said with a glance heaven-ward, "I thought it was him! So I said to myself, 'I can tell him off if I want to,' so I did. And he was the wrong one!"

She found this out when she walked in the office and met the frosty stare of the man she had bawled out.

"But anyhow, he used me.” she went on, "because we got to talking."

She had a bit part in "Hell's Angels '69," during which she was scared witless. She actually had to ride with a

Hell's Angel on a bike. She was supposed to ride with an actor, but he broke his arm. "Or said he did," Danielle said darkly.

Anyhow, Danielle found the Hell's Angels treated her fine and she enjoyed the picture except for being scared all the time!

She has no agent now. She is mainly studying. She attended Palomar College, where she got badly bitten by the acting bug, which wound up with her coming to Hollywood.

Drama teacher shamed

She shamed her drama teacher into also coming to Hollywood and now he's here too. The two swap leads to jobs. "He takes the (Hollywood) Reporter and if he hears of something, he calls me, and if I hear of something I call him. So we save money.

“And if something comes up I'll go on an interview. But I look on it as a hobby. If I put too much on it, I'll get too depressed. And I'll feel too bad. And I don't want that.

"And if I go into it kind of easy and everybody else is running up tight, why, they'll show it more and I'll be more relaxed and I'll do better. And if I don't get it, why, I'll go off skiing. And then I'll feel good again. Then it won't get me down. I'm not going to let them do that. I'm going to give it, like, five years. And then if things don't click, why then I don't think it's meant to be. But they will."

How did she get the name Danielle? Stage name?

From a magazine

"No, my mother picked it out of a magazine before I was born. She wanted me to be an actress then. My sister's name is Diedre, and from the age of three on we took all sorts of dancing lessons.”

Since "Hell's Angels '69," Danielle's mother has had second thoughts about the acting game. "You know how mothers are. Protective. Because they love you."

What is she going to do if she studies and prepares like this and then there aren't any more movies made in Hollywood?

She laughed. “TV," she said. “I'd rather get into TV because with the movies, it's too bad. I thought if I kept going to school, I've got to be getting better. And then when the movies start to do their own thing, and I'm all ready. I have the confidence."

Beautiful male

Meanwhile, she has met a male homosexual who makes up as the most beautiful woman and she has arranged so she can watch him once because she figures she can learn something of great value here.

And she has decided against silicone, even though she has a girl-friend "who is just a mass of silicone, even the lips. She's just beautiful."

So there's Danielle Corn, going to night school "because men kind of scare me and if I go to school nights I have fewer temptations," getting all set for a future as though Hollywood had one.

The Plain Dealor, May 1, 1970-3