Stephanie Bell '86
Hollywood Squares
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by Todd Larson
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Here it is time to leave, and I haven't told you about my hotel. Well, not the hotel exactly&emdash;it's just a cheapo Best Western on Franklin at the foot of the Hollywood Hills. (Trust me, that sounds more glamorous than it is.) My home for the week is basically a three-story brick tomb from the '50s with a velvet lobby, a scenic view of the Hollywood freeway, and a courtyard swimming pool I can't use because it's 55 degrees and storming.
What I mean to say is, have I told you about the coffee shop in my hotel? My first night in town, Jon Wax informs me that it was the restaurant featured in Swingers. A good share of the movie, I learn, was actually written in one of the retro vinyl booths. He also tells me it's quite the magnet for a-list celebs in search of a.m. eats. Armed with this news, I dutifully arrive the next morning, expecting Vince Vaughn to sit down next to me at the counter and order up some huevos rancheros. Unfortunately, all I find are old guys reading The New York Times and tourists purchasing "Last Cappuccino before the 101" tee-shirts.
When I meet up with Stephanie Bell '86 for lunch on Saturday it's like my 5th time at the Coffee Shop, and my second trip of the day. It's also the second time I've spoken with Bell, the first coming two nights before&emdash;opening night for the Sacred Fools Theater Company production of Jacques and his Master, the Milan Kundera play that Bell is producing. Sacred Fools, Bell explains, is a not-for-profit, self-managed collective of actors and writers where everyone also takes a turn producing, stage managing, or directing. Consciously experimental and communal, both the theater and the engaging, bare-bones production have a gritty and (dare I say?) East Coast vibe about them.
Bell herself joined Sacred Fools after moving from New York in 1997 to star in the L.A. run of "Talk Show," a play based on the Jenny Jones murder case. This followed several years of film and theater work in the Big Apple, including two years at the New Actors Workshop. The inclusive nature of Sacred Fools clearly appeals to Bell, who credits her family for instilling in her an "appreciation for what you've been given" and a desire to give something back. "My goal," she says, "is to make people leave changed somehow, to make them think somehow differently about their circumstances or their relationships with other people in life....to inspire them to want to go out and do something better for the world."
It is producing, however, that has taken center stage for Bell, primarily because it allows her to put both her "non-acting abilities" and her artistic background to good use. The Haverford English major worked in public relations throughout her stint in New York, and landed a job in legal affairs at Interscope after moving to L.A. Her exposure to the business side of the film industry has expanded with a recent move to Franchise Pictures, where she handles the details of overseas distribution deals. "It's new for me, and great training as a producer," she explains. "I've got the best of both worlds," she continues, "doing theater and film, and learning a tremendous amount." As we talk, I get the feeling Bell has reached an epiphany. "I've found what I love," she gushes. "It took me 14 years. I have found a way to combine all the things I love to do into one career: I get to combine the creative parts of myself with the business parts and the legal parts and the organizational parts."
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L.A., Bell claims, is the only place to be to get a project like Miracle done. "You have people here who have a vision and a dream and know that this is the place it can be realized," she says. "I was afraid to come to L.A.," she recalls. "As an East Coast person you hear terrible things - that it's fake, that there's no culture out here, that the people are dumb and self-centered, and that it's all about how you look. And I found that to not be true. I'm very happy here," she concludes. "I feel like I'm betraying the East Coast!"
Speaking of betraying the East Coast, it's about time, I realize, for me to get back on the old jet plane and head that direction myself. Unfortunately, I could spend another month and fill another issue and still not get to everyone who has made the move from Haverford to Hollywood. (I could probably fill a few pages writing about those who left Haverford for Hollywood - Judd Nelson, George Segal, and Chevy Chase come to mind - but that's another story.) Despite the fact that the sun comes out as I'm driving to the airport (I'm not making this up), I have to admit that I'm ready to head for home. Laker games and celebrity run-ins aside, L.A. is just not my cup of tea.
But for the folks with whom I've spent the past week, liking L.A. is not really the point. Hollywood, to be sure, can be slimy and unethical and lowbrow, but everyone knows it - knows it so much so that it's become an in-joke, an ironic point of pride for those who live here and suffer the indignities, both real and imagined, of a life in show-business. The point, I learn, has nothing to do with the "Hollywood" I spent a week trying to find, and everything to do with the people I actually found: creative, driven, artistic (and not the least bit slimy) people who can't imagine doing anything else. Stephanie Bell is right: when you're a writer or director or actor or producer with a dream, L.A. is the only place to be. And as Dan Kim reminds us, when you feel a calling, you have no choice but to follow it wherever it leads