CAREFUL WHAT YOU PLAN... PART I
- Elaine Lakeman
- Jan 15
- 5 min read
NONE OF IT MAY GO THE WAY YOU THINK!
I often wonder how I ended up where I am.
My dreams never included owning and running a heating and air conditioning business with my husband (never even thought I would get married!). I studied acting, dancing and singing, not accounting! I never even took a typing class. I had completely avoided all office work just to get back at my mean ballet teacher, who not-so-subtly suggested I should consider this option.
The paths I have taken in my life have had many twists and turns, as life does, and some days it just blows my mind how things have turned out so far. Careful what you plan, none of it may go the way you think!
Let me just start with saying that my desire to entertain came to me naturally when I was little.
My nickname in Grade 1, given to me by my teacher, Miss Mitchell, was “Chatterbox.” I just babbled away to anyone who would listen and couldn’t wait for Show and Tell days. I remember that for these events I didn’t bring anything to show but myself. I would stand in front of the class and sing a Beatles song with all the lyrics rewritten in a way I thought was endlessly funny and entertaining, or I would show off the latest dance craze I saw on TV, like Chubby Checkers’ new dance, the twist.
Nothing slowed me down.
Not even when I was wired for sound with big, fat braces. I spoke with a lisp for a couple years, so my yeses were now more like yeschhhes, and it never ceased to amuse me. Thank God, my shy and insecure times came a few years later!
Then one day I discovered my mother’s movie magazines in her bedroom and they altered my life forever. I always knew I wanted to be someone, but was just not sure who or what. I just couldn’t seem to restrain myself from talking, singing and dancing at any given inappropriate moment of the day or night.
Then I saw Ann-Margret’s photo on the cover and I knew it! I would be a movie star, and not just any movie star, but a sexy movie star! Of course, I was not sure what sex was, but it sounded good to me.
I didn’t want to be one of the few options given to us girls back in the early ’60s, like a nurse, a teacher, a beautician or a housewife (all good stuff, but no one was promoting female doctors, pilots or scientists yet). I wanted to be a movie star. It was not complicated; I knew all the moves, and they got lots of attention, which is what I seemed to crave so much of.
In 1964 I was nine and Viva Las Vegas came out. I could have died when I saw this woman, Ann-Margret, dance and sing. (Never mind Elvis!) I knew I could do that. She was so gorgeous with that wild, beautiful hair, kittenish voice, sexy dimpled smile and long lovely legs, and so very sweet on top of it! She could do the shimmy like no one! I wanted to be her in the worst way. I ran up to my room and swept up my fine, mousey hair all to one side, back-combed the crap out of it and tried various poses.
I wasn’t completely blind to the fact that I was not a stunning beauty, but I always believed I was special. I just had some work to do; but I was definitely on my way to being a true movie star!
The school system had put me on the accelerated program, for us intelligent folk, midway through Grade one, and I had now become a smartypants chatterbox. As I jumped ahead to join the older girls, by Grade six, with my extremely slow-developing body, fitting in was becoming a whole lot tougher.
I was embarrassed by my body and felt compelled to beg my mom for a bra. I can still see the pain on her face, from holding in either a laugh or a cry, but she did it for me anyway (bless her) and I was proud to now wear a triple AAA ribbon around my chest.
I wasn’t interested in being smart. That was just plain boring, as were the art and piano classes that I was naturally gifted at and my parents most likely struggled to pay for.
I wanted none of that. Ann-Margret was the real deal.
So began my quest to be a Movie Star Sex Symbol, not really understanding the pain that would come my way, given what I had to work with. Thanks to my parents getting me to a good dentist, I at least no longer had to worry about looking like Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor. I hated my hair so much I again begged my mother to let me colour it. She finally agreed to get me some “summer blond” and I ended up with a weird shade of orange on my head.
By this time, sadly, my plan was not working out very well. I was not growing taller, no boobs were anywhere in sight and my skin was getting oily. Yep — pimples, and lots of them.
I remember the sense of panic I felt entering Grade seven, which in Alberta at that time was considered junior high school. I was not ready for it. I was a grade ahead and very physically underdeveloped. Kids never stopped pointing me out. I felt terrified, and mortified that I was not yet Ann-Margret —the most beautiful woman in the world!
I began to lose confidence in my quest and who or what I was supposed to be if I couldn’t be just like her.
So many cute, tall, well-developed girls in this school, and I was not one of them. If only I had known that it’s not the most important thing in the world; but to me at that time of my life, it was. I felt invisible to boys. I felt like a failure and I didn’t even know why. Being with the “in” crowd, fitting in, was all I wanted now, and I began to promote my humour to get me through my miserable days.
Unfortunately, much to my parents’ horror, my grades slipped badly and I slowly began to fall apart. I couldn’t concentrate. I was hiding all my embarrassment and fears as deep as I could, unable to express how lost I felt.
I was now 13 and it was the Age of Aquarius: men wore long hair, Woodstock was “the happening,” the race riots were in full force and the Vietnam war was going strong. I was finding it harder and harder to cope with my mother’s growing stress and her fear of a world gone mad. She had survived World War 2 in England, left home at 25 on her own to sail to Canada for a better life; and now this!
I, of course had my own fears about all the scary events on TV, and the free sex and drugs movement I was facing not only on the tube, but at school. I kept it to myself. It frightened me so much. I knew I was too young and out of my league, but I felt unable to escape. I kept up a brave act, playing this girl who was cool and OK to handle anything. It was so far from the truth, but I was already learning to be a good actress.
My life began to spiral more and more out of control. I tried to keep Ann-Margret in my sights, but life was not like that anymore. In my heart, my desire to entertain was lost in fear and self-doubt; the age of innocence and purity felt like it was gone forever. …
Everything had changed.
...to be continued...
By Elaine Lakeman . First Published in Island Gals Magazine . 2011 . Volume 1 . Issue 2
