A MOMENT THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

Today, Sheryl MacKay, the warm and radiant host of CBC Radio's North By Northwest, asked listeners to write in and tell her of a defining moment in their life, and she would read many of those stories, on-air, over the next few weeks. It got me thinking about a defining moment in my life. One that completely changed the trajectory of what very well could have been a simple, anonymous existence in small town, Canada.

As many readers of this blog are aware, before I retired to a quiet life on Vancouver Island, I managed the lives, careers and financial bottom lines of some of the most powerful people in Hollywood – when I wasn't working as an actress, screenwriter or television producer, myself. It all blossomed from a random event that I remain equally grateful for — and embittered by. So, I emailed Sheryl an abbreviated version of this story:

It was 1989, a year into my relationship with a veteran radio & television broadcasting celebrity, ten years my senior. In addition to his Monday to Friday live radio show, in Ontario, my boyfriend (later husband) also voiced and produced radio and TV commercials at the station, for various clients, well after everyone had gone home for the day.

Late one Sunday night, we went to the station, so my boyfriend could go over the new batch of commercial scripts he had to voice, for delivery at 9 AM the next morning.

"Uh-oh," he muttered.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"There are two scripts, here. A conversation between a man and a woman."

I looked at my watch. It was 8:52 PM. "Who can you call at this hour on a Sunday night to come down to the station and spend five minutes talking into a microphone?"

"Nobody," he replied, then, more forcefully: "Which is why you're going to do this with me."

My heart sunk. I'd spent a few years as a stage actress and singer in a pop-rock cover band, but my crippling, mind-numbing stage fright made every performance such an unbearable nightmare, I quit, in 1988, and was quite happy in my new job as a part-time nightclub manager.

"Oh, no, I'm not!" I bellowed, my palms already starting to sweat. I inched toward the exit doors. "Find a way to do this without me, cuz...I...I just can't."

What followed was a 30 minute argument – with LOTS of yelling and swearing – that I thought, for sure, would be the end of our relationship. Finally, a promise/bribe of a Dairy Queen banana split after the voice work was done convinced me to go into the sound booth and, after a whiplash-fast course in radio voice acting, I finished the two man-woman commercials, plus another script my boyfriend gave me that was intended for him.

The ads I voiced started airing on radio and television the very next day and were so well-received, I started getting requests to voice more radio and TV commercials, from clients who were willing to pay more for "such a diverse and natural talent."

This random event led to a 30-year career as a professional (and very well-paid) actress, singer, voiceover artist, screenwriter, comic book writer, television producer, celebrity publicist, personal assistant and A-list Hollywood talent manager. I often wonder...what if I had stubbornly stood my ground and refused to help out my boyfriend by doing 5 minutes of voice work in a sound-proof booth?

"Would you like fries with that?"

KJC