First of all, I must say that the picture of me alongside this column (my old headshot), is dated. Lovely, but dated. For the past few years, I have been reluctant to bring my headshots to auditions, send them out to agents, or have it printed alongside my bio in programs. Why? Because I am no longer a blonde. Not even close. I’m a “Nutmeg,” right now, or so sayeth the box of Clairol’s Natural Instincts.
I loved being a blonde, even though it was that certain shade of blonde
that bespeaks a home dye job and a life spent having flat Pepsi and
cigarettes for breakfast. I loved it because, trashy or no, it got me
noticed. By construction workers, mostly, and homeless men, but still…
My blonde, blonde hair made me happy. My blonde, blonde hair was…fun.
My blonde, blonde hair broke off in clumps every morning as I blew it
dry, but goddamn was my blonde, blonde hair a good time...
I have long labored under the assumption that I am “not pretty.” When I was a child, my mom insisted upon having my hair cut in what she thought was a cute reproduction of a Dorothy Hamil bob, but which made my rather fleshy young face look even more like a pudding than it already did. That haircut offended me. I wanted pigtails and barrettes and headbands to hold back long, silky waves of hair. Even my grandmother, whose love for me was almost deafening, once looked at my hair and said “You know, it kind of looks like a toadstool.” My best friend and I used to talk about how we wanted to be models – a popular choice among my peers – and marry famous men (Rick Springfield and John Schneider, respectively). One day, our career reveries were broken by the popular girls in my class. The little Izod-clad vipers said “You can’t model, because you’re UGLY! And you’re never going to get married. Why don’t you go be a LUNCHLADY?”
It should come as no surprise, then, that I fell victim to a televised makeover. I should clarify that my friend Kristen was the one who, without my initial knowledge, signed us up for “A Makeover Story” on TLC. We met for drinks one night at a bar and she shouted to me over the sound of a vomitous jazz combo that she had submitted our names for the show. “I thought to myself,” she hollered over the slopping sounds of ‘The Girl From Ipanema,’ “who do I know who doesn’t care about how they look?” It may sound cruel, but it was a fair assumption.
Within a week, we found out that we had been chosen and were strictly told by the show’s producer not to change our appearance at all, not even to touch up our roots. “After all, we want you as ugly as possible.” They taped the show over three days in June, having us do all sorts of “quirky” and “fun” things, being that we were comedians. During one “quirky” and “fun” segment that featured us skipping through the streets of Boston’s North End, I must have touched something noxious and later wiped my eyes. I found this out as my eyes swelled shut during our dinner break. “Kristen,” I asked, plaintively, “do my eyes look funny?” She said something along the lines of “Holy Christing FUCK!” which made me realize that the problem was evidently more serious than I thought. I left dinner abruptly once I found out that my corneas were blistering (!), and was escorted to the neighborhood clinic. The doctor told me to go home and sleep, to which I replied that I was being featured on a major makeover show and had to perform in a comedy revue that night for the taping. He looked at me and, after a long pause, said, “Well. That’s a new one.”
Opthomological crises aside, the taping went smoothly. Granted, they did have me try on a pair of voluminous gold pants with a dung-brown long sleeved T-shirt that I hated, but I dodged that bullet. I had been charming and effusive with all of the outfits up to this one, making the Matt Damon-esque camera guy laugh out loud, but when I had to try this one on, I shut up. “How do you like this one?” asked the boutique owner. “’Sfine,” I mumbled, slowly sliding into a pronounced slouch that made the pants look as awkward and ugly as possible. “Do you like the shirt?” I glanced at the sleeves, which had snaps up the top side of both arms, “Uh, yeah. I guess.” I rounded my shoulders until I thought I tore a rotator cuff. “I don’t think this is the right outfit for you,” said the boutique owner. “WHAT A RELIEF!” I shouted, nearly bowling her over. The crew and the store personnel decided on a pair of black pants and a floaty pink top for me, but they did let me pick which shoes I wanted. I went for a pair of Jimmy Choos, spangled with rhinestones. The magpie in me couldn’t resist.
The hair and makeup process was somewhat more traumatic, at least for me. Kristen and I were separated almost instantly upon arriving at the salon. Kristen got swarmed by a crowd of fun looking stylists and colorists while I got a dour, withering woman who pawed at my hair and said “Oh, NO!” repeatedly. At one point, she parted my hair for the cameras, showing off my roots, and said “This is what we in the business call ‘the road through the wheat field.’ “ She let loose with a low, self-satisfied chuckle and my eyes started to tear up. I told one of the producers she was mean, and the producer didn’t believe me until the Mean Hair Lady came up and scrutinized her hair, as well. “Damaged,” she said. “I bet you use cheap product.” Then came the growling chuckle again and I saw the producer’s eyes begin to well. Just at that moment, gales of whooping laughter rang through the salon from where Kristen was apparently doing karaoke with her team of hair professionals. I had a bit of revenge, though, when the Mean Hair Lady was being interviewed on camera about my hair. She made quite a few grammatical errors and the lovely woman doing my makeup corrected her loudly from off camera. “I seen that her hair was severely damaged.” “SAW! You SAW that her hair was damaged. Jesus. They let you out of school?” In the background, I swore I heard a champagne cork pop from Kristen’s general direction.
I finally got to see Kristen after being colored, hacked, poked, dressed up and painted. The producers arranged us on either side of a sliding door and, after a couple of false countdowns (“Damn! Start over. We had a weird shadow on that one. No no no! Wait! Your blouse is tucked up funny. Hold on!” etc.), finally got to see what three days of intensive making over could do. Kristen looked amazing. It is to my credit that I noticed her hair first, being that a great expanse of her boobs had been hoisted into view and dusted with sparkly powder. My dear, Anne Taylor wearing friend Kristen was wearing a leopard print tank top with a slit down the middle that threatened mammarian escape at any moment. The great divide of her shirt was held together with a large gold safety pin that had two tiny dice dangling from it. “Dice,” Kristen said as she got lost in contemplation of her remarkable outfit, “to go with my full deck!” Her cleavage plus the fact that the pants that she wore had a row of buttons down each leg eventually earned her the nickname “Titsy McButtonpants.”
The reveal to our friends seemed almost anti-climactic, and we quickly tired of our fussy outfits. After a couple of weeks, we tired of our fussy hair. A little bit after that, I think I even dyed my hair at home again (tastefully, this time…Biscotti by Loreal). In October, a great gang of people met at Kristen’s condo to watch the show. In honor of Kristen, I brought pink frosted cupcakes with a maraschino cherry on top; tiny little boobcakes. The editing left in large swaths of awkward bits where we had been asked to be “funny” by one of the producers, and a brief cut of me with my hair spiky with tinfoil. “My God,” I thought, “my face looks like a pudding. Still.”
A few years have passed since I was made over, but I am never allowed to forget my experience due to the fact that Kristen and I are still in rotation on TLC, most recently on March 23rd. I can only hope that the Lisas and the Jennifers who tortured me in elementary school were watching. I have even had imaginary conversations with them: “So what, you’re still ugly!” Maybe so, bitches…but I was on TV!
--Amy Roeder is an improvisor, actor and producer based out of Chicago. She loves to hear other people's stories.
