BETTY TROPP SAYS ‘HI’ TO THE STARS

You’ve heard the one about the guy whose job was to follow the circus elephants after the parade down Main Street and sweep up everything they left behind. Asked why he didn’t look for a better job, the sweeper replied, “What--and leave show business?”

Yes, there’s more to show business than the stars, the awards and two hours in the dark with popcorn. There are the sweepers and the gofers and the people who say, “There’s a call for Mr. Redford on line two.” These are the people the stars refer to when they say, “And last, I want to thank all the little people. . . .”

Betty Tropp, for instance. Tropp is one of those people who make up for the rest of Hollywood. She answers the phone at NBC’s media relations department, and her voice always resounds with pleasantness. Tropp invariably appears joyful to receive your call. As far as she’s concerned, every caller is royalty. That’s every caller. Hundreds of calls a day. Day after day. Rarely are efficiency and warmth combined so effectively. It’s a bravura performance.

Can it be real? Why does she bother? “I was trained that your voice conveys your face,” Tropp explains. “If people hear a cheery voice, they see a cheery face. Sometimes in this business callers are under stress and seem ruffled. I try to soothe them and hope they’ll pass on the good feelings to the next person they speak with.”

Tropp also handles receptionist chores. Sometimes “Tonight Show” guests with famous faces wander in the wrong door and get effusively polite directions from Tropp. “They’re all such pleasant people,” Tropp says. “Stars are just people like you and me, except they have more money--and talent, too, I guess.

“There was Mary Steenburgen. She was real nice. Philip Michael Thomas, Stephanie Zimbalist, Ursula Andress, Richard Jaeckel--he was really sweet. I kind of lost it when Richard Chamberlain walked in. I didn’t gush too much! ‘You look so nice,’ I said. ‘Well, thank you,’ he said. That was a thrill, I must admit.

“I read the daily report of clippings that the press department puts together. That’s part of the job. So by the time I talk to them on the phone, I think I almost know them. They call and I say, ‘Hi, Loretta,’ or ‘Thank you, Raymond.’ They’re surprised and ask, ‘Who’s this?’ I tell them, ‘Betty, the receptionist.’ They say, ‘Oh.’ ”

Tropp has worked phones since she was in high school in Buffalo, N.Y. She came out to California 25 years ago and got a job with a doctors’ telephone answering service. From there, she moved to a service used by musicians like Glen Campbell and some who today serve on the “Tonight Show” band. After time out to raise a family, she signed on at NBC in 1981.

Saying ‘Hi’ to the stars is an occasional perk, but it’s not what Tropp lives for. “Is she just happy to be a receptionist?” Tropp asks rhetorically. “Yes, I am. The fact is, I’m doing a service. Being a religious person, I believe we should all do a service. I’m a darn good receptionist, and what pleases me is making people happy.”

Brad Thornton is a darn good production services coordinator. He makes a good living working all hours for the Alan Landsburg Co., a TV production company. But Thornton isn’t just happy to be a production services coordinator. He’s an actor.

In 1980, when Thornton came out to California from his farm town of Monmouth, Ill., he waited tables at the Sheraton Universal and took acting classes alongside another hopeful named Heather Locklear.

“Some people take off, others don’t,” Thornton says philosophically. “I’m not a glamorous hunk. I’m a character actor.” Thornton has appeared in “a couple of plays, some commercials, a couple of TV shows. I finally got my SAG card last year.”

Meanwhile, Thornton has become an in-demand fixer and favor-doer. In five years with Landsburg he has risen from a $150-a-week runner to a $475-a-week supervisor overseeing movements of production equipment, vehicles and personnel to filming locations.

“I’ve been offered production-manager jobs and assistant-to-the-producer jobs, but I’ve turned them down. I’m pushing my acting now. The people at work know what I want. At first, I kept quiet. Then, two years ago, I put a picture of myself in the back of Alan Landsburg’s limo with a note saying that if he needed someone for the ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ TV show, call me.”

Since then, Thornton has gotten a few small jobs from producers working with Landsburg. But like most actors, his acting mostly consists of auditioning. “I go to about three auditions a week. I always make up the time, but a few of my co-workers show a little resentment. They work as secretaries and in office maintenance. They sometimes throw it in my face because they’ve forgotten their dreams.”

William Switkes is an actor who never forgot his dreams, moderate as they were. By watching his pennies and never aspiring to stardom, Switkes has made a living in the theater and movies for over 30 years. “The only prayer I said to God was, ‘Please give me enough work so I don’t have to have a 9-to-5 job.’ ”

Switkes works far down the bill in dinner-theater productions of plays like “A Thousand Clowns” in Texas, Connecticut or Virginia. “I do one scene, one little bit, and I walk away with the show. I get a good paycheck, because the union sees to that.

“I’m very happy in the little work I do. I’m completely happy with where I am. I’ve worked with Buster Keaton, George C. Scott and other stars. I’ve seen the demands made on them. I’ve never had that kind of ambition.

“Most of the things I do now are in movies. The films I’ve done here have involved extra work, walking in the background. ‘Compromising Positions’ was one. In ‘Dressed to Kill’ I was a crazy person in the asylum.”

Switkes’ best recent part was in “Tootsie,’ as The Man at the Cab. Everybody remembers Switkes’ scene; nobody remembers Switkes’ name.

“I went up for ‘Tootsie’ as an extra. I asked the casting person if I’d get an ‘upgrade,’ meaning that instead of $93 I’d get maybe $125. I was told it was up to the director. As for my part, the script said, ‘He gets in a cab. Dustin Hoffman dressed as a girl throws him out.”

“Hoffman and I improvised, yelling at each other. It’s only 20 or 30 seconds on film, but it’s a big laugh. The director, Sydney Pollack, came up to me afterwards and said, ‘Willy, we’re going to sign you to a contract.’ That’s more than an upgrade, that’s a person with lines, and you get $250. Then they said they’d give me $500. Every three months to this day I get a small check for my work on ‘Tootsie.”’

In his “bohemian period” before his halcyon days in dinner theater and his current contentment in movies, Switkes used to do odd jobs. “I spent a couple of weeks once fixing 12,000 shirts from Chicago that had the wrong label.” He drove a tour bus at the New York World’s Fair.

“In the last 15 years, I haven’t taken any job outside of theater or movies. I’ve been lucky. I live in subsidized housing for performing artists. I can collect an Equity pension when I’m 60 in three years. I think I’ll retire, though I’ll always be available for work.

“I’ve reached my goal in life: making a living in the theater. I grew up in a grocery store in Washington, D.C. I could have been a dentist, like my brother. But I followed my dream. I couldn’t have done it alone. God has given me a wonderful life. I just thought I’d mention that.”