The Face That Launched A Thousand Ships
How a haircut ruined my chances of being famous.
I love being on stage. One of my favorite things on the planet is public speaking. When I’m in front of people, I get this feeling like I’m on fire, or buzzing. Like the whole world is in my hands. The bigger the crowd, the better the high. And if they laugh? Ohmygod. Making a crowd laugh is better than drugs. We could probably trace my love of attention like this back to the modeling I did as a kid, or my illustrious lip sync career, or my dance recitals, but let’s face it, baby. I was born this way.
All eyes on me, in the center of the ring just like a circus. (Have we talked about how much I love Britney Spears?!)
Out of all of my many talents, acting is probably the one that needed the most time and attention. It doesn’t come naturally to me. My voice cadence isn’t believable. It sounds like I’m reading from a script. But working hard at something that doesn’t come naturally to me isn’t any fun. It’s so much better when people tell you how great you are and things just fall into your lap without all that icky effort. You want me to work for this? Gross.
Like the time in middle school when I was given the role of the understudy to the lead in the school play. My job was to learn the lead role but never actually perform it. What a shit position to be in. You want me to learn all of these lines but never get the glory of being onstage? Gross.
There’s only two types of people in the world
The ones that entertain, and the ones that observe.
Wanda Lee had gotten the lead role. She was beautiful, with jet black hair and eyes the color of caramel. All of the guys from the entire middle school had a crush on her. I was so jealous of Wanda. She had everything I wanted: the attention and the lead. My attitude about the whole understudy-to-the-lead thing was so bad that I decided the director could suck it. I wasn’t going to learn the script. I could fake my way through rehearsals, learn enough so that she wouldn’t notice that I wasn’t really trying and sit back and relax. If the world wasn’t going to get the pleasure of my talent, why try? Casting me as the backup came with consequences and the joke was on her.
Turned out though, that the joke was on me. Wanda got sick and had to miss a ton of school. The week before the play was set to debut, it was announced that she couldn’t make it. The understudy was going to be the lead. Me. The back up. The girl who hadn’t learned any of her lines. FFFFUUUCCCKKKK.
Learning an entire script of a three act play as the lead role in the week before you’re set to perform is no bueno. There was a lot of panic, which added to the procrastination, and long after I pulled it off (to much acclaim I’m sure), there were nightmares that I had forgotten all my lines and was standing on the stage frozen by fear, enveloped in the laughter of the audience. The bad kind of laughter.
But here’s the thing about pulling off something that came down to the wire: it reinforces bad habits. Instead of learning from my mistake and being more prepared in the future, I had a very predictable response. The lesson I took away from this experience was that I could half-ass my preparation and still be awesome. As Elle Woods once said, What? Like it’s hard?
I tried my hand at acting again in college and auditioned for the mostly-female cast of Trojan Women. The play is a Greek tragedy, following the fates of the women of Troy after their city has been sacked, their husbands killed, and their families sold into slavery. It’s a real downer.
The role of Helen isn’t the lead, she’s hardly more than a prop for most of the play. Her job is to stand there looking beautiful and sad. Emphasis on the word beautiful. I didn’t want the most lines. I wanted the most attention. So of course the role of Helen of Troy was what I was going for. And it was the role I got. The face that launched a thousand ships. The most beautiful woman in the known world.
Lindsey Wehmeyer: Helen of Troy
It was the winter of my junior year. I wasn’t cheering and lord knows without cheer I needed to do something to keep myself in front of a captive audience. I kinda start to short circuit without attention. You want me to just exist in this world like a normal person? Gross.
Well baby, I’m a put-on-a-show kinda girl.
Don’t like the backseat. Gotta be first.
At the time of my casting, I had my hair super long. Longer than normal. It’s been my look since middle school: long, straight, thick brown hair. Parted just off to the left side. Slightly curled. My hair is undoubtedly my best feature. A real show stopper.
About a month into rehearsals though, it was getting on my nerves. It took forever to blow dry and curl, and it was so thick that without the blow dryer, it would take all day to dry. And I had to wear it down because putting it up pulled on my scalp and gave me headaches. As a lazy college student, all that effort just wasn’t jiving with my vibe, ya dig?
So I cut it. I had the stylist take more off than normal. It went from being halfway to my butt to just past my shoulders. A long bob. And when I showed up that day for rehearsals, I knew I had made the greatest mistake of my acting career.
“Lindsey. You cut your hair,” the director said to me almost in a whisper, her jaw slacking open as she said it.
“Yeah! Just got sick of it, ya know?”
The director just nodded, continuing to stare at me like I was a lifeform from another planet and she couldn’t decide if I was here to kill her or give her fun technology. Her eyes were wide. I could tell she didn’t know what to say. It took me a beat, but I quickly deduced that I had fucked up. She didn’t have to tell me that I was cast in the role of Helen because of my statement long hair, I knew it from that one look. I could feel her panic and shock. It seeped into me, imbedding itself into my psyche. Was I not cast because of my incredible and undeniable talent?!
I’m like a firecracker, I make it hot.
When I put on a show.
I feel the adrenaline moving through my veins.
Spotlight on me and I’m ready to break.
Being honest for a hot sec, it fucked with my confidence. If I had any swagger coming into rehearsals, it was gone. I just knew that she was disappointed in me and probably regretted her decision to cast me. I regretted a hair cut. What a dumb thing to have to regret.
And besides all that, Trojan Women is 90 minutes of women wailing on about how the decisions of men fucked up their lives. Though still a relevant complaint, it was written a million years ago and came with antient Greek dialog and long soliloquies that just fell flat to the audience. It was a huge downer.
Not the experience or the people or the rehearsals, all of that was incredible, but the actual play itself was sort of painful to watch. The lead, Alana, carried it because she was massively talented but I was left feeling like I’d ruined the whole thing by getting a hair cut. The director never cast me again and after a few failed tryouts, I quit acting. Because again, if I can’t be naturally talented, I can’t be bothered. Plus, shortly after the curtain fell on Trojan Women, I was back on the cheer squad, so I didn’t need the stage. I had the hardcourt.
I always wanted to be famous but that one mistake, that one haircut, cost me the dream. There surely wasn’t anything I could do to rehabilitate myself. I was completely out of options and the door was shut. Out of my hands entirely. The fates had decided that it wasn’t to be.
Oh well, she said to herself. Guess I’ll go with my backup plan and become a lawyer.
Narrator: It wasn’t the haircut that was the mistake of her life, oh no. It was the next decision. The downfall of our protagonist was, in fact, her backup plan.
Stay difficult and remember to always question authority.
What great writing!! I loved reading this. Although, I truly cannot understand wanting to be onstage with everyone looking at you. I'll stick to quietly doing the makeup backstage thanks!
Thanks for sharing another fun story. I’ve always been intrigued by these sliding door moments in people’s lives. This story also reminded me of ‘Tom Lake’ by Ann Patchett.