Falling stars: Hollywood is full of them

It is said that everyone who was ever told in the seventh grade that they had show biz talent is out here in Los Angeles. To prove that hypothesis, I play a Gallup game with a writer friend from Chicago every time we try a new restaurant.

If the server is under 30 and more attractive than nearly all of the people we know back home, we ask where she's from — it's never L.A. — and then we ask what brought her to Tinseltown.

The answer is so predictable that we're thinking of publishing a book of 8 x10 head shots: “Best Supporting Waitress In A Hollywood Chimichanga Joint.”

Some of these young people are devoted to their craft — acting, writing, music — and willing to see where hard work takes them. Amy Ryan, who played a waterfront cop on “The Wire” a few years ago and is up for an Oscar this Sunday, comes to mind. Many more just want fame.

The writer William Saroyan said that vanity is an artist's courage. It is that innocent bravado — “I think I can, I think I can” — that sends constellations of would-be stars falling over Southern California from tiny towns like Wallace, Idaho, and hard-luck cities like Baltimore.

One of those people is Todd Felderstein, who graduated from Pikesville High School in 1981, earned a general studies degree from the University of Maryland and headed west to become a filmmaker. He has been in Los Angeles for more than 20 years now, part of a loose community of Marylanders in the film industry.

“I tell people that I was raised in Baltimore but grew up in Los Angeles,” said Felderstein, born 44 years ago on the day JFK was murdered.

“My plotted course had me sitting in the ‘big chair’ behind the camera, quietly yelling at starlets.”

Instead, he is executive director of the Story Project, a nonprofit literacy program that works to give poor kids a shot at a chance at the future through the alchemy of narrative.

“We let kids dream and introduce them to others who turned their dreams into reality,” said Felderstein, employing the Hollywood standard of “who you know” at street level.

“Since it's finally being accepted that people learn through a variety of means, we inspire these kids to read and write through art. Hopefully that creates a spark that will push them to graduate high school and [pursue] college.

“We're not out to turn all the kids we meet into future filmmakers and actors.”

That's a relief, for as Felderstein and so many hopeful waitresses know, the reality of Hollywood edges much closer to the Altman film “The Player,” than “A Star is Born.”

This past Halloween, the parking lot next to Felderstein’s home in L.A.’s Palms neighborhood was crowded with cops. A young actor with the magnificent marquee name of Darius Ever Truly — 26 and a product of Catholic schools in Memphis, Tenn. — had been stabbed to death after a party.

Truly had only been in town for about a year but was doing well, having landed the role of the Black Panther Bobby Seale in a stage production of “The Chicago Conspiracy Trial.”

If anything more than a stretch of Tinseltown called the 3600 block of Bentley Avenue ties Todd Felderstein to Darius Ever Truly, it is this quote from J.M. Barrie: “The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another.”

Felderstein watched from his lawn on the night of the All Hallows Eve murder, a guy who came to Hollywood challenged by the fact that Spielberg made “Jaws” while still in his 20s. His own journey includes a writing gig for MTV's Spider-Man series and a single film, a documentary on Michael Tulkoff, a childhood friend and magician who works as a humor therapist in Israeli hospitals.

Felderstein came all the way from a profoundly illiterate town that painted “The City That Reads” on all of its park benches and wound up helping kids 3,000 miles away learn how better to read and write in a city whose economy is based on moving pictures.

“I never thought about growing old in L.A., I never thought I'd be here this long,” he said. “When I think about Baltimore, I don't miss the place. I'm not one of those Baltimore guys. I just miss my family and the people I grew up with.”

Rafael Alvarez is an author and screenwriter based in Baltimore and Los Angeles. His books — fiction, journalism and essays — include “The Fountain of Highlandtown” and “Storyteller.” He can be reached at ralvarez@baltimoreexaminer.com.

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