By Pat Sellers
... On that same West Coast sojourn, I got to do the wardrobe thing myself when I guest-starred on JAG. Well, OK, so it was actually more of a walk-on, which I'd bought at a Leukemia Society auction. (Walt Willey - Jack, All My Children - is a very seductive auctioneer, particularly when one has been primed by several glasses of champagne.)
I was just an observer at the first of two locations that day, on the beach in San Pedro, where my ridiculously inappropriate stiletto-heeled black suede Charles Jourdan boots kept sinking into the sand till someone gave me a chair next to the director of photography so I could watch the action. I saw a breathless horde of extras who, portraying Navy SEALS-in-training [SEALs-in-training], were being put through authentic, rigorous exercises. Most look exhausted. One threw up. ("Chowed too much breakfast from the catering truck," someone said.) Apparently, they don't know what they're in for when they're booked. The Navy buzz cut also comes as a surprise. "We sometimes have to have a bullet for them to bite on," chief hairstylist Laura Connelly told me. "They choke back tears."
Someone should also supply these guys with self-tanner; in regulation green shorts, their untoned, Clinton-white legs are a giveaway. Two exceedingly muscular exceptions were tech advisor Matt Seglock [Sigloch], a former Marine, and guest star Montel Williams, who spent 22 years as a Naval officer before becoming a talk-show host. Montel has just directed his first feature film, Little Pieces, starring Eva LaRue (ex-Maria Santos Grey, AMC). "In Hollywood terms you would call it a chick flick, but I call it a female realization movie," Montel said. When one of the male actors bailed out of his role as a lecherous producer, Montel persuaded Eva's husband, John Callahan (Edmund, AMC), to step in. "He did a wonderful job. He was such a pig!"
At the second JAG location, a bar where I was to play a cocktail waitress, I was outfitted in jeans and a shirt, but I kept my treacherous boots. Though I had no dialogue, those boots were made for talkin', tip-tapping across the hardwood floor as I was supposed to serve drinks soundlessly. A guy taped my heels. The tape made me slide and loudly kerplunk two beers on a table. "Don't you have any other shoes?" the sound man cried.
I really wished I did after one spike heel stuck in a floor vent in series star David James Elliott's trailer and he had to get down on all fours to dislodge me. David, by the way, came this close to soap stardom back in the '80s, when he was flown from his native Toronto to New York to test for Guiding Light. "They said I had the job and they paid me some hold money. I was really excited. I thought, Wow! This is going to be great. But it didn't happen; they backed out at the last minute. Then they called again and said, 'We'd like to bring him in for 10 weeks as a guest shot,' and then two hours later they called and backed out again. I guess God must have had another plan."
Catch my act on the May 9 episode (CBS; check local listings), and let me know whether you think God has another plan for me or I should hold on to this day job. And in case I don't get to do my Emmy acceptance speech, I'd like to thank assistant director Suzanne Bornstein and Harriet Margulies of Don Bellisario's office for a fabulous experience. Worth every cent!