Showbiz Mom Gets No Respect

Shame on you, Jena Malone.

So you’ve taken your mother to court to protect your money? I’m a showbiz mom, too, although my 15-year-old daughter has made only the tiniest fraction of your $1 million. But I’m aware of the expenses: 10% to the agent, 15% for your manager/publicist, up to 50% in taxes and such (as a kid you have no deductions to speak of). Take $500,000 right off the top.

Gee, let’s see now. What on Earth could I be missing?

Business expenses: I can’t imagine what you might spend, but I know what a year’s activity cost us. More than $4,000 in gasoline alone driving to auditions and appointments, not to mention money spent for parking, photographer’s fees and printing of 8-by-10 glossies, designing and copying resumes, telephone calls, faxing dialogue for auditions, postage for publicity mailings, gifts to business associates, regular acting and singing classes, private coaching for the biggest auditions, fast food on the run, a percentage of car repairs and insurance and registration fees commensurate with business mileage, purchase and maintenance of business machinery (copier, printer, computer), coverage for any gaps in travel expenses and accommodations, specialty clothes and makeup for the really unusual character auditions.

Deduct another 20%; all this couldn’t possibly require more, right? Leaving, of course, around 30% remaining for your trust account under the Jackie Coogan law.

But where is it, this $300,000? I only see $80,000. Oh, the horror: What did your spendthrift, greedy leech of a mother do with the missing funds? She must have taken it to the casinos of Monte Carlo, slurped it down in rare vintages, bought up entire Beverly Hills boutiques, lounged in the lap of luxury, right?

I’ll tell you what your mother did. She gave up her own chance to earn any money (I hope you have a dad who pays the bills) and made you her job. She slogged you to God only knows how many agents before one took you, piled armloads of clothing choices into the car for photo shoots and spent hours on the freeway in rush-hour traffic nearly every day of the week getting you back and forth to auditions. On the way home at 7 or 8 p.m., she prayed silently that some guardian angel had cooked dinner and cleaned the house so that she could go to bed before midnight. You see, she hadn’t gotten to those tasks yet because she spent the morning home-schooling you. For thrills, she obsessively analyzed every project offered to you. Would it enhance your career, present you in the best light, gain the attention of the right people, contain subject matter appropriate for a child?

In the meantime, she gave up all hope of a personal life. She sat by the phone and always carried her cell phone and pager because you might get called in for something. The plans she did occasionally make for herself usually ended up postponed or canceled. It was a logistics nightmare even to keep a doctor’s appointment. Along the way, she picked up the all-important survival skills of crossword puzzles and crocheting. This whiled away the mind-numbing hours spent sitting in the car while you took lessons or kept other appointments where her presence was not desired. These skills also came in handy when spending months on a movie set, where people really preferred her to be silent if not invisible. Any other members of your immediate family were short-shrifted during these proceedings.

Now that I think on it, I see your point. No one could possibly need to use or deserve to have the $40,000 or so per year that went missing. Take ‘em to court and make ‘em pay.

Eighty thousand dollars. Interesting sum. Just about enough for private college. I don’t imagine anyone ever lay awake at night trying to figure out how to tuck that aside. Or wondering if you were happy. Or dreaming big dreams for you.