From the Top
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Part Two
I.
It was an entire year before I was ready to start my movie career. It’s not as if I had to retrain as an actress. Outside of hitting your marks and having divine amounts of patience while waiting between scene changes, it was much the same as being on stage. What kept me off for seven months was recovering from the surgery.
Celeste had asked long ago, how far is too far? Where does it stop?
After meeting with Norman Webb on several occasions to discuss my film career, I took a screen test. I was asked to ‘shoot off some Shakespeare,’ to which I gave them Lady Macbeth’s ‘dash’d its brains’ speech. Then I was given some lines from a very melodramatic film about a mother finding the child she’d given up for adoption when she was just a teenager.
“Kate, your acting is phenomenal, just out of sight.” From the tone of his voice, I knew there was something wrong.
“But?”
He sighed, “You are a very pretty girl. We could get some headshots done, make some meetings around town, and we could probably make you a pretty good career.”
“Or?”
“Or you could have fantastic career.” He paused and looked at me.
“
He looked away from me, “Or you could take a couple of months of, get in shape, maybe get a bit of work done.”
I had never considered myself out of shape, although I supposed some exercise couldn’t hurt. As for the other suggestion, “Get work done—you mean surgery?”
“Uh-huh.”
I exploded on him, “I’m twenty years old,
“Don’t yell at me, I didn’t say that!” He shouted back at me. “I told you that you’re beautiful, but I don’t make the rules in this business. In your home town, you may have been the prom queen, but out here you’re just like everyone else.” He shook his head, he seemed sorry to have to tell me these things. “No one likes to hear this, but in this town, surgery is the standard. Have you ever seen a man in a movie who was so handsome that you imagined he couldn’t possibly be real? Well chances are that he bought his face, and that he has a dietician, and a personal trainer who counts off the thousand crunches he does each day. And you have to know by now that the bar is set a hell of a lot higher for women.”
I’d spent a lifetime being the best actress, being the most committed to my craft. And I couldn’t pretend to be so naïve as to think looks weren’t as important as talent.
“It’s your decision,”
How bad do you want it? How far is too far? When do you say stop?
Who doesn’t want to be a star?
Upon meeting my personal trainer, my first thought was that he was a freak of nature. He was a ‘trainer to the stars’—a two-hundred and twenty pound, five percent body fat monster who drank his weight in distilled water each day. The man actually had visible muscles in his face.
“More than anything else, we’re going to be working your calves and your abs,” he told me about ten seconds after meeting me. “There’s nothing sexier or a woman than a nice set of abs. Trust me. And you got a nice, small frame so that gives you a good head start. Have you ever seen any Gina Gershon movies?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Rent Bound. Great flick. Point is, Gina Gershon has got about the nicest set of calves in the world. Good, solid, heart-shaped. She’s gonna be your hero when it comes to calves.”
“Thanks, I’ve felt rather bereft all these years without a calf hero.”
My trainer nodded sincerely, “Don’t mention it. Now if you can move on over to the Stairmaster, we’ll get you started.”
I experienced the five stages of bereavement in the first month of my training: denial, fear, depression, anger, and acceptance. I would have given up if it hadn’t been so firmly attached to my schedule. It was just there, every morning, like waking up, it was always done.
I discovered muscles that ballet had never taught me existed, I had several religious experiences through exhaustion by the Stairmaster, and I was also given an ‘acceptable food’ list. It all worked, of course. After the first month I could start to see the changes. After the second month I felt ashamed about the kind of shape I’d been in two months ago. And it never seemed to end—the improving and then looking back at myself in disgust. I was aware that it had become wrong at some point. With so much slimming and reshaping the line of healthiness had to have been crossed. But I never noticed when that happened. I only remember looking at my new body with more and more pride.
After I was well on my way with training, surgery came next. The thought terrified me and I put it out of my mind until I was finally sitting in a waiting room. There were magazines on the table with before and after shots of patients. They were like the books you would find at your hairdressers where you can point a picture of the haircut you’d like to try out. Apparently here, you didn’t even need to speak. You could just hold up a picture of the girl with swelled breasts, give the doctor a thumbs up, and he’d get to work.
The office made surgery feel normal, like going to the dentist. The reception staff and the doctor’s assistants—all woman—had clearly had work done. I wondered if the doctor required it, or if there was just an employee discount.
The doctor called me in and brought me into a private office. When I told him that I wasn’t sure what I wanted done, he outline almost every procedure. Some, like breast augmentation, I was well aware of. Others, like permanent eyeliner, I’d never heard of. And yet others, in particular vulval trimming, almost made me get up and leave. The doctor could see that I was terrified, so he suggested that we started with something very easy—collagen.
“It’s just a local anaesthetic. You’ll be awake the whole time, and you can even drive yourself home afterward. And if you didn’t like it, or you feel uncomfortable with it, then we won’t do anything further.”
It was like getting offered drugs; the first one is easy but you’ll come crawling for the rest.
“How much collagen are you going to use?” I asked, with nightmares of looking like Mick Jagger.
The doctor touched the intercom, “
“What do you think?” he smiled, confidently.
His confidence infected me, “Let’s try it.”
The injections went over very well and there was pressure from
Back at the doctors, we discussed our best course of action. We decided to leave my face alone from then on. Although a minor one, I was a celebrity, and we didn’t want people to notice the changes too much. “The trick with plastic surgery,” the doctor said, “was to never look like you’ve had it.” This seemed to make sense. “The most popular facial surgery involves the nose and the mouth, and your nose is fine.” If he felt otherwise, he was the type of person who would say, Your nose is terrible. Come pick out a new one in the big book of pop-up noses.
We decided on two more procedures. The first was breast augmentation, which I’d expected all along. In the movie industry, your breasts can’t be too big. Once again, we didn’t want the difference too be obvious. “It’ll be a slight procedure. Mostly reshaping.” I had no idea what that meant.
The second procedure frightened me to death. I really didn’t want any part of it, but I was told that it wasn’t as painful as it sounded and that the results would be wonderful. I was scheduled to have two ribs removed.
What can I say? I looked like a star. My beauty had a dollar value on it, an incredibly high one. But I also had a singular look. I couldn’t have gotten the roles or the exposure I had without the lengths to which I went.
But there was also pain to accompany my new body. Sore breasts aren't exactly an unfamiliar feeling, but they were nothing in comparison to my ribs. It felt like something had burst inside of me. Some useless old organ had split open like a blown tire and the remaining pieces had hardened inside of me, and if I turned my body too quickly, one of the jagged pieces would tear right through my skin. That should give you some idea of how it felt.
And when the pain finally receded, I was left with a hollowness inside me. I could feel something was wrong. Missing. Amputees swear they can feel a missing limb itch. I underwent phantom rib syndrome.
Before the pain had fully ended, I was put back into training. My freakish trainer definitely approved of the changes. “You’re looking great,” he said. “If we didn’t have a 'no dating' policy, I’d have to ask you out.”
I must have been terribly flattered because I threw up after twenty minutes on the Stairmaster.
Comments
It's very hurtful.