Get Lucky!

"To have a career, be lucky. If you're not, GET to be."--Ruth Gordon

It has taken me quite awhile to put this idea into practice. I believed it to be true--but somehow couldn't apply it to myself and my own career. Feeling UNlucky is a huge disadvantage, though-- holding yourself back, comparing yourself to others, feeling cheated. Isn't that a bore? So get lucky! You're alive, right? You have aspirations! You might even have more talent than you know! You're ahead of the game in so many ways.

Of course, I'm older now, and the perspective of age helps. So many people want to do what I'm doing, I remind myself, but they just can't allow themselves. Maybe they're just smarter than I am. I couldn't do anything else; this life chose me. Maybe they're scared. So am I, most of the time.  Maybe they're more talented than I am, good for them, but maybe they haven't figured out the Luck Thing yet. Maybe they're younger, which is a really good place to start feeling lucky. The best, in fact.

Elsa Lanchester seemed to go blithely through life, making her own luck.  When you start out with no money or education and end up with a healthy career in a mansion in Hollywood--you'd better consider yourself lucky. If you don't, you're not very smart. She chose to be happy.

“Luck is believing you’re lucky.“– Tennessee Williams

That's the big secret. Thanks, Tenn.

Williams was very, very lucky. And very, very talented. And it couldn't have been easy to be him--but he understood the concept of luck.  His plays are often about victims and victimizers, which is, let's face it, sometimes just a point of view. If you aren't focused on how lucky you are, you may be focusing on feeling victimized.  And that, as my mother would've said, just "isn't attractive". Attractive in more ways than one. Get it? Attract people and thoughts and things that reflect and enhance your great good luck. Others might hope your luck will rub off on them. Make sure it does.

When Movieland was ignoring or simply underestimating Elsa, she returned to her roots, the live stage, or "vaudeville", as she called it--at the Turnabout Theatre, where she performed for almost twelve years and had the great good luck to meet Forman Brown, who wrote wonderful songs just for her. Elsa wasn't even much of a singer--but became a smash anyway, doing what she liked most: being part of a company, singing.

"I've been lucky. I'll be lucky again."--Bette Davis

Well, YEAH. Even sad sacks have had lucky days! I am, by nature, and by chemistry, depressive. I'm SO lucky I didn't off myself as a teen. I've met such interesting people since then--and I've had a lot of experiences and feelings I never knew I'd have. So, yeah.

Bill McCutcheon, an amazingly generous character actor I had the great luck to work with in St. Louis told me, YEARS before he'd won a Tony--to give up on the half-empty glass attitude. He said, "You've had breaks in the past. Even being cast in a high school play was a break. Trust that those breaks will keep coming. Cream rises to the top. You're the crême de la crême." Thank you for that, Bill.

"I was lucky. Lucky, lucky, lucky". --Angela Lansbury

And you worked hard. Hard, hard, hard, sometimes playing mothers to people who were older than you, people who had fewer chops, bigger egos, and way more money. Sometimes having difficulties in your family life, but being smart about the things you could control. 

You had stamina. Longevity. And a boatload of talent. 

Hard work, and simply living a long life equals lucky. Maybe timing is a lucky charm; talent isn't even the main ingredient. We've all seen that, right? 

“I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life." --Steve Jobs

Me too. But I'd have been lucky if I'd found it later, too. It ain't over till it's over. I'm so grateful for figuring that out.

Elsa loved to dance at an early age, and became an Isadora Duncan student for a short time. As a teen, she started a children's theatre in London, and even found funding for it. She created a nightclub in her teens, made work for herself, and became the avant-garde "cool" girl of London, with friends like James Whale, who later cast her in a little Hollywood film called THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN.  (Be nice to your friends. You never know--their luck may come first.)

"Comediennes are the lucky ones, because if you're funny, you can be 125 years old and they will still accept you." --Joan Rivers

Whew! I'm not 125 years old quite yet, but I'm funny sometimes, so there's hope. And did Joan Rivers know about tenacity, or what?!!  Her career only got better and brighter as she grew older. She remains a role model for women in show business. Any business, really--she was funny and savvy and determined and KIND and stayed relevant over the years. 

Elsa had a sylph-like body in her youth, and a quirky, irreverent, Puckish  sense of humor. She and her friend Angela Baddeley were a comedy duo in their twenties, playing scrubwomen who discussed the news of the day. Eventually, she began playing maids and nannies and nurses in film, no longer elfin--but still in demand. I think Joan Rivers is right.

In summary:

No big message here. I'm just reminding myself that I'm lucky! I wrote and performed a show where there wasn't one before, about a woman who inspires me. Some people even liked it! Many have been kind enough to encourage my work and my fancies, and to urge me to keep going.
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Of course  I'm not where I hoped I'd be, nobody is, but--I'm still here.  And considering the other option. . .

I'm grateful to you if you're still reading this. I hope you have a fabulously lucky day, week, and year, and that you occasionally place pennies face-up on the sidewalk so that you may share your sense of wonder and good fortune with others.

I am incredibly lucky. So are you, if you think you are. 

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