Taking the Gamble

As an actress of very little note I have played a number of very silly parts. I have been the proverbial rear-end of a donkey (at school). I have been the mutilated victim in a zombie movie, but most famously (so far) I have been soundly spanked with a coal-scuttle, across my white bloomers by a famous actor.

After three takes, none of which the director found believable, I said to him (the star) just do it for real and that will work and he did, oh boy did he! He flipped me over his knee, pulled up my gingham dress revealing my knee length bloomers, and spanked the daylights out of my up-thrust bottom. The director was pleased, and thankfully so, because I was not in a hurry to get more of the same from this macho actor, well not until the bruises faded anyway!

Well one thing led to another and I found myself auditioning for the part of the heroine in a mummy movie, needless to say the director’s latest squeeze got the role, but I at least got offered a part. Not one that I thought would lead to any great career boost, but a part is a part, and it was to be five days worth of work and pay, with perks, ie free food etc.

Make-up is the actors nightmare, sometimes you can be in and out in half an hour, but if the movie calls for special effects then make-up can take hours, and becoming a mummy takes a lot of hours, which is why they decided that I could ‘short film’ or rather, do all my shots one after another, and thus only require make-up once.

To become a mummy is not simply getting a few bandages wrapped around my body, not by a long shot! It starts with a metal back and crutch brace, this is a metal frame that is strapped around your forehead, and has a collar built in to it, then more straps fit beneath your breasts and on downwards to your waist. Then a metal rod passes between your legs and up over your belly to be strapped to the back-brace by a wide belt at your waist. Everything is then tightened, and becoming a mummy can finally begin.

White cotton bandages soaked in Plaster-of-Paris are added around the hips and up to the neck, thus making your back ridged and fixing the frame into place permanently. Next bandages are wrapped around your legs from foot to groin, it is at this point that an extra thick nappy is fitted, just to avoid accidents showing through the bandages, as removing any of this get up for so silly a reason as the actress wants to take a leak, is just not going to happen!

More bandages are wrapped around the waist until the nappy has vanished, then they start again from the ankles up, covering over everything they have done before. It is quite a strange feeling when they cover your naked breasts, naked because a bra will show through! Now comes the head piece. A round ball with a centre breathing hole is placed in your mouth, thus making speech impossible, a tube is poked in to the hole and two more up your nose (bloody uncomfortable I can tell you). Bandages swathe your head, leaving only slits for you to see through, and then only directly in front of you! Finally you are a mummy, you look like one and believe me, you feel like one!

The director then shoots his shots, as walking is impossible you are wheeled around on a trolley, propped up where necessary, hung from ropes when required, and generally used as a back drop to the real actors. This went on for three days and then my shoots were over for half a day.

With nothing to do for nearly three hours ‘because the star wants to get some time off’, so the director sidelines me and I have to wait.

I am left propped against a warehouse wall, unable to move, forgotten by all, and done with for a while. Or that is how it should have been for me!

I was kidnapped, stolen, removed without permission by a couple of young thugs. They carried my bound self to a crate and placed me inside on a bed of deep straw, then they covered me over and put on a wooden lid before nailing it down. I was helpless, I could not even grunt much, let alone scream! The box they then carried to some sort of vehicle, I heard the door close after they placed me inside and then it started up, I felt the van or lorry vibrate as it accelerated away from the film set.

Three hours later I am carried from the van, propped against a wall and the crate is opened, to reveal three men looking at me, as I look at them.

“Perfect, well done lads, here is your money and goodbye!”

An hour later I am placed in a display of Egyptian relics on a raised Dias behind glass, with hundreds of relaxed people walking around, playing at card games or pulling the arms of slot machines.

If you look carefully at the display, if you ever visit this casino, I can’t tell you which one it is because I do not know, you will see that one of the mummies behind the glass is not quite what it should be. You might even see a little something if you look at the crotch.

The End.

04.06.10