Actors take temporary jobs to make ends meet

FOCUS / THE UNITED STATES : WRITERS' STRIKE

Actors take temporary jobs to make ends meet

By COREY KILGANNON

New York _ If you're a moviegoer or TV watcher, don't be surprised if you could swear you've seen that face before. That person wrapping your present, selling you a sweater, serving booze at your holiday party or sweating beneath that Santa beard could be an actor. With a writers' strike shutting down productions and drying up acting work in New York, many actors are being forced to take holiday-related temporary jobs to get by, according to staffing agencies and actors' organiations.

Take Janifer Youmans, who has acted in commercials, television movies and soaps including All My Children and As the World Turns. These days, you can see her starring at a gift shop next to the big Christmas tree at Rockefeller Centre, wrapping presents.

And if you happen to use a certain online tax preparation service, it may be Adam Phillips, 43, who does frequent television work and has acted in films with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, who prepares your tax forms.

''We're getting a lot of actors calling for temp work because of the strike,'' said Marty Gargle, an owner of the Employment Line, a staffing service in Manhattan that works with a number of actors. Ms Gargle herself is a former actress who still takes a role or two and has many industry contacts and a steady advertisement for her agency in Back Stage, an entertainment industry magazine.

''They're taking jobs wrapping packages, addressing cards, anything,'' she said. ''They just want something to last them through the strike, which works well with the need for holiday help because it's temporary by nature.

''Mostly, it's actors who get smaller roles on soaps. They're not stars, but they are actors who have a foothold in the industry and just need to pay the bills. They're not giving up on acting.''

Even without the strike, she said, actors make excellent temps. ''They're very employable and have flexible schedules,'' Ms Gargle said. ''They do very well in corporate jobs because they can sell the role and be what you want them to be in an office, and rise to the occasion.''

Mr Phillips, who has been in series like Law & Order and Rescue Me, and soaps including One Life to Live and All My Children, not to mention a part in the forthcoming Sex and the City film, said he has four children to support.

With a college degree in accounting, he has taken to working for a company that prepares tax forms online and has resorted to selling off part of his CD collection and other possessions on eBay. There are low-paying roles out there, he said, non-union jobs that pay $50 a day, but he refuses to take them.

''With the writers' strike, it's very, very slim pickings out there for background or feature work, and there are so many actors competing for them,'' he said. ''I'm collecting unemployment and looking for work. I'd like to get a job in retail, but I know as soon as I commit, the gigs will start coming in.''

Ms Youmans, of Queens, stood wrapping gifts and helping customers last weekend in the Metropolitan Museum of Art gift shop at Rockefeller Centre.

''It started as a holiday temp job, but I really got to like working here,'' she said. ''Everything you do is character study for acting. I watch the shoppers, how they act, and you even get famous actors coming in to shop.'' After answering a customer's question, she continued: ''We had Alan Alda in here, and Bette Midler, too, recently _ you can learn a lot by just watching a good actor.''

Sue Porter Henderson, 64, an actor and career consultant, has been a background nurse for the past 35 years on As the World Turns. She said she knows many actors who have taken side jobs this month _ including handing out advertising flyers on the street, selling in department stores and taking tickets for the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall.

''Nobody's too proud when it comes to making ends meet,'' she said. ''I know a make-up artist who is taking on people going to holiday parties. The other day, I saw an actor I recognised from soaps _ he was selling Christmas trees on the Upper West Side.''

Kay Gaffney has acted for 16 years in background roles in soaps like As the World Turns and films including Meet Joe Black and Woody Allen's Celebrity. She has been filling in as a secretary this month.

''A lot of offices are having Christmas parties, and people leave for a few hours and need someone to fill in and take in packages and things,'' she said. ''Temp work is a Band-Aid to get us through.''

Despite the strike, there are still some films and shows casting. Ms Henderson said she went to an open casting call recently for a new film called Shopaholics.

''There were 1,500 people, where you usually would have had a few hundred,'' she said. ''I recognised actors from Law & Order and another guy who stands in for Alec Baldwin, all for some background work doing outdoor shooting in January.

''It was in a church basement, and I saw a lot of actors going from the audition line right to the soup kitchen,'' she said. ''I am not kidding _ they said they had no money.'' NYT