Bag Lady Post from Charlene Baldridge

Speaking of bag ladies 
by Charlene Baldridge

Marianne McDonald and I answered the call to play a pair of them in Dale Morris’ film titled The Lonely Detective. She and I engaged in joust by shopping cart, during which she drove me into a wall in an alley next to Les Girls Ten on El Cajon Blvd.

Between takes, I met a stranger in the alley. He was smiling at me, so I said, “Do you like my outfit?” He smiled again, and I asked, “Would you like to have dinner?” It was so thoroughly what my daughter, Laura Morefield, would call “A Mommy Moment.”

I was so tired from my big film debut that I didn’t change the major costume item, a wild print dress festooned with beads and sequins that I found at the old Broadway Department Store many years ago. I just collapsed for an hour and then headed for Steel Magnoliasat Lamb’s Players Theatre. In Café 1134 prior to the play a woman came over to compliment me on the dress. I didn’t tell her I got it off a bag lady in the alley earlier that day. My “look” for the film was definitely inspired by Herbruck’s get up in Superior Donuts.Thank you, Kate Stallons.

As for my future as an actor, I definitely do Green Room better than acting, even when typecast. Hats off to all true practitioners of the art.