Way, WAY back in the day when I was young and living in Los Angeles, I…like many of my fellow Los Angelenos… embarrassed myself on more than a few TV shows, Game Shows and commercials.  (I won’t say I can’t act, but you’ve seen the commercials I’ve done for Homescapes Carmel so YOU can say it.)

One of the worst and most mortifying was in 1985 when I was hired to do a walk-on in an episode of the ’80’s show “Benson” called “Katie’s Cousin.” The jist of the story was that the characters Missy Gold and her sister Tracey Gold were playing were pretending to be college girls so they could go out on a double-date with some college guys.  The scripted “comedy” in it was that the girls were only 15 and 16 and they were pretending to be older on the date.  The life “comedy” for me, as one of the guys they were dating, was that I was actually 24.

Sheesh.  I kept trying not to be embarrassed about the whole age-inappropriate thing…telling myself that they wouldn’t have hired me if I LOOKED like I should be prosecuted for Lolita-like, geezerish lechery, but then Robert Guillaume, the guy who played Benson, came up to me, raised one eyebrow and asked me a question regarding my character’s “name” in the script.  See, my character didn’t actually have one…just a description in the notes.  So it was more than a bit mortifying when he looked me up and down and said, “YOU’RE the Cutest Guy in College?”

Lawd…it really was horrible and traumatic and, still suffering from post traumatic stress, I hadn’t really thought about it in years until the other day.  See, 20 years after moving from L.A., the TV union AFTRA finally tracked me down to tell me they owed me a check for unclaimed residuals for that oh-so-memorable/vaguely disturbing performance.

For $15.85.

And that, folks, is WAY more than my acting is worth.

But I WILL tell you that when I think back on the whole career-stunting experience there was ONE thing about it that was really sweet (and even then I thought so).  Despite the fact that both Missy and Tracey were working steadily in TV and movies at the time, they were still young girls and there was a very cute nervousness in their demeanor with me and the other guy in the scene because they were playing our dates and we were CLEARLY older than them. (And I can say “CLEARLY older” for the other guy too ’cause we’d gone to UCLA together and we BOTH were weirded out by the almost-decade disparity in the ages between us and the girls.)

Sigh.  Good times.  One day I’ll post my other “claims to fame.”  (Some of them, though, actually amuse me rather than mortify me…every time I see my “big moment” in the movie “Moonstruck” I laugh at the memory of the insider prank we played at 4 in the morning during the Opera house scene (that actually made it into the movie) and go into a whole well-worn tale of my night breathing the same air as Cher.)

And as for Game Shows…won two cars plus plus on “Classic Concentration” even though Alex Trebek really, REALLY didn’t like me.

(See…ya thought ya knew me.  Still-water’s run deep as they say.)

And as for the “Benson” thing?  In this economy….gotta tell ya, happy to get the $15.85.