When I was in the seventh grade, my mother informed me that I was going to be an extra on the hit television show The Real McCoys, starring veteran actor Walter Brennan. Having won several major beauty titles, my mother had been pursuing an acting/singing career in Hollywood and through her networking landed me the job.

On the morning the show was filmed, she drove me to Desilu Studios that was owned by one of Hollywood’s powerhouse couples, Desi Arnez and Lucille Ball, hence the name Desilu. Five years earlier, Desilu became a major studio when its smash hit TV series I Love Lucy was, according to the Nielsen ratings, watched by 15-million households.

I was captivated by what I witnessed that day—a beehive of cast and crewmembers racing around a darkened soundstage that was the size of an airplane hangar, doing everything from dabbing makeup on an actor’s face to igniting big senior arc lamps that was brought to a sudden stop to the shouts of “Quiet on the set!” “Action!” That cavernous soundstage was ten times the excitement of any D-ride at Disneyland. I was amazed by the idea that what I was witnessing was being aired once a week on our family’s tiny black-and-white Magnavox television.

My starring role was that of a kid eating corn in a country corn eating contest. I sat at a table munching on cobs of corn as the camera slowly moved down the table of entrants. Besides making the mistake of looking straight into the camera, which caused the director to yell, “Cut!,” I sported a large ring, a Timex wristwatch, and a shiny St. Christopher medal hanging on a chain outside my short-sleeved sports shirts. I looked like an early version of “The Fonz” on the hit TV series Happy Days.

I was sure that the best was yet to come when later that week my classmates would see me on TV, which would surely give me a boost in popularity. As things turned out, when the show aired, my appearance was not breaking news. Out of the dozen kids who watched the show, only two recalled seeing me. In the end, my experience at Desilu Studios, however, had made a strong impression on me that would years later lead to a lucrative career as a Hollywood screenwriter.