red carpet burns by georgia cassimatis - chapter sampler

7/29/2019 Red Carpet Burns by Georgia Cassimatis - Chapter Sampler

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GEORGIA CASSIMATIS



About the Author

Georgia Cassimatis grew up in Sydney and studied arts and jour-

nalism at university. She thought writing for womens’ magazines

and editing a children’s magazine was her calling, until fate, rather

than any of her degrees got her a ticket to the world’s entertain-

ment mecca, Los Angeles. Since then she has written and produced

for many media outlets worldwide.



v

Dedicated to any girl who has followed her heart for ‘the one’.

For Mum and Dad

And, of course, for Nan



1

Chapter 1

Accidental LA Tourist

If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

– Woody Allen

It’s our Year 12 graduation day and my riend Giulia and I are

waiting on the verandah or our fnal French class to begin. It’s the

beginning o a hot, sweltering summer and much to the chagrin o

our religious studies teacher, Miss Manwaring, our school uniorms

are quite a ew inches above our knees. We’re covered in toilet

paper and ace paint, making the most o our dark green uniorms

in trying to vaguely resemble emale soldiers on our last day o

school. As girls screamed in excitement, teachers yelled and girls

had tears or each other; Giulia turned to me and asked ‘George,

where do you see yoursel in ten years time?’

‘America,’ I say, without hesitation. ‘I’ll be living and working

in the USA.’

Growing up on a diet o American pop culture I believedthat the United States was where everything cool in the world



2 Georgia Cassimatis

happened: rom The Brady Bunch to The Cosby Show to The Flint-

stones, even my avourite movie Grease . As ar I was concernedAmerica was king. I was also obsessed with Madonna and I was

inspired by her. Being hal-Australian, hal-Greek I identifed with

this cool, sassy Italian-American who reused to be held back by

racial stereotypes. I also had a vague idea that I wanted to work in

entertainment because working in entertainment was the perect

oxymoron, wasn’t it?

Even though I declared the United States to be my antasy desti-nation, I never really planned to go there, ever.

Despite all o my school girl dreams, I ended up living a nice,

sae, one-dimensional lie in Sydney. Ater school I took a year

o to study dance, assuring my parents that this was the equiva-

lent o the ‘gap’ year in the United Kingdom where kids take

a year o ater school to do something completely dierent

beore settling into their degrees and chosen proessions. I had

an overly optimistic belie that my hour weekly dance classes at

Johnny Young Talent School would translate into my becoming

a proessional dancer.

Failing miserably, with the beginnings o an eating disorder

rom training too much due to being sel-conscious about my

Greek gal curves and eating two meals a day, which consisted o

an orange and coee or breakast and a sandwich or dinner, my

remaining sanity urged me back to what I had been doing or the

past fteen years: I chose to go back to university to polish o

my education and gain urther security in the big, wide world,

where a basic arts degree meant I could later springboard into

other careers i I had the desire. I went to university and did a

Bachelor o Arts majoring in English literature while also working

as a singing and dancing waitress, putting my Johnny Young Talent

Time skills to use, as Carmen Miranda and Nurse Penny Cillan atrestaurant chain called ‘Bobbie McGee’s’. I fgured that i I had to



Red Carpet Burns 3

waitress while studying I’d nd places where they it was un. I was

also an eighteenth century drunken harlot at The Argyle Tavern inThe Rocks in Sydney. My ace was smeared in red lipstick, I wore

a hideous black wig and had to talk as though I was completely

smashed. At one stage some Japanese tourists actually complained

about how dirty I looked. I did, however, make it to the cover o

a tourist magazine called Where , dressed as a harlot with my black

tooth and one-eyed wink. I then moved on to the Dendy Cinema:

another place that oered a un waitressing-while-studying jobbecause it was associated with cool, independent lms, which I

could see or ree. I actually ended up putting together the Dendy

Cinema foat or the Gay Mardi Gras, which made us get an up

close appearance on the ABC Gay Mardi Gras Special . During

that time I was part o the Sydney University Dramatic Society

(SUDS) and The Arts Review where, in one stage production, I

walked across the stage naked. (To this day I still bump into people

who only remember that skit.) I travelled to Bali, Italy, Greece and

Ireland, had a couple o boyriends where each break-up ended as

amicably as possible, won a university writing competition about

a sitcom set in a gym and then, ater a ew years, ended up in the

real world.

I had so ar managed to successully avoid the world o a nine-

to-ve corporate slog or a ew years but my time doing this ran

out. I put all my skills into a metaphorical big bowl, mixed them

around and came up with – journalist. I started a masters degree in

journalism to hone my skills urther, joined the temping division

at Australian Consolidated Press (ACP), scored a job as Kerry

Packer’s assistant or two weeks, during which time the Cosmo-

politan magazine Editor-In-Chie called me to see i I was inter-

ested in being her personal assistant. Within two years I graduated

to editing Barbie , a magazine or tweens (or girls between eightand twelve).



4 Georgia Cassimatis

I was still on my nicely conservative trajectory established in a

career I enjoyed and the fnancial set-up was pretty good too. Itwas a trajectory and career that I elt I’d be in or the next twenty

years or so.

Then I met Simon.

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