MEET THE AUTHOR
Joan F. Wood
Author Joan Felicity Wood lives in Naples, FL. Joan was born in the United Kingdom and aspired to be an actress at a very young age which is how she found herself on her 18th birthday arriving in New York on the QE2 ready to take a bite out of the Big Apple. In her memoir ‘The Casting Couch and Me,’ originally released in the mid-1970’s she details her experiences as a young actress during the height of an era where roles were often given based on the performances on the casting couch rather than on the stage. This poignant, funny, and sometimes heartbreakingly honest story of a girl full of enthusiasm that carries her portfolio in one hand and dreams of elusive stardom in the other ultimately collides with reality and the ‘Casting Couch creeps.’
FEATURED TITLE
The Casting Couch and #Metoo
“Casting couch creeps want nothing more than a quick release. Supply-and-demand. Give-and-take. Buyers and sellers.” The bastions of show biz, these “creeps” can make or break a young actress. Enthusiastic and vulnerable, portfolio in hand, tempted by grandeurs of elusive stardom, the young actresses have one thing in common: a constant glimmer of hope.
With no elusiveness, and portfolio in hand, Joan Wood tells her story. Humorous at times, sad at others, she recalls those trying tromps through the streets from one audition to another, one office to another, one small role to another, always competing for that one “big chance.” And when it comes knowing it’s just the beginning.
She remembers those Broadway “producers” who audition their young hopefuls on seedy casting couches; the “managers” who are really pimps for visiting VIP’s; the “photographers” who specialize in getting into the act.
Joan Wood’s story is her own, but also sadly that of a thousand others. Names have been changed to protect the innocent, but innocence is hardly their specialty. Her’s is a story about those precocious, uninhibited nymphets who yearn to become stars and what happens when their dreams collide with the facts of life. Some make it, some don’t.
View all of Joan’s work.
The Casting Couch is riveting! I couldn’t put it down. Following Joan’s journey is walking the paths of every man and woman who’ve attempted to experience a breakthrough moment in the film industry, and I’m sure many other industries, as well. However, those horrific, demeaning experiences are now waning, thanks to Joan’s writing and the incredible, ‘Me, Too’ movement. Men and women have joined together to say, NO MORE. No more abuse, no more exploitation, no more control!
-Joanne Irwin
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