Cosmetic Perjuries: Confessions of a Hollywood Makeup Artist
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 As a kid growing up in a small town in Middle America, my favorite thing to do was to get out my colored pencils and give makeovers to whomever was on the cover of the National Enquirer. I made tough guy Robert Stack into Joan Collins, Kirk Cameron into Ursula Andress, and thanks to me, TV tomboy Kristy McNichol was able to discover her inner Sophia Loren. Now, some 20 years later, I basically do the same thing-and get paid for it.
I love working as a makeup artist in Hollywood, but I have to admit, there are moments when I wish I were still coloring tabloids instead of re al-life tabloid fixtures. My worst subject by far, in terms of diva behavior, was the aging blonde glamour-puss who had a mile-long list of special requests: Only use distilled water on her famous tresses, and dry them naturally, no irons. Now, I don't mind if people have unique needs-they can dip their hair in the Nile, for all I care-but come with it already done that way in the morning. And then I didn't have the exact shade of "wedge" eye shadow she wanted, so we had to send a messenger for it, and then sit and wait. Hair and makeup took four hours for what turned out to be a postage-stamp-size photo in TV Guide. She now heads what I like to call my "Life's Too Short" list.
Also making the cut is the B-list actor-turned-plus-size model who blew cigarette smoke in my face, and the party girl starlet who kept an entire Rolling Stone crew waiting for hours while she tearfully broke up with her talk-show host boyfriend via cell phone. Then there's a certain indie ingenue who l'd happily do again, just not at the pigsty she calls home. I went into her bathroom and thought, I'm getting pinkeye in here. I wiped my feet when I left her house.
Some stars aren't really disrespectful as much as just plain nutty, like the sci-fi movie goddess who insists on doing everything-hair, makeup, even interviews-with her annoying dog on her lap. Then she says, "Can you get some water for him?.. No, that's too cold. He'll pee more if it's cold. I need room temperature." Speaking of dogs, one actor totally wrecked the eye shadow l'd done on her when she started crying over her dog that had died... a year earlier! I didn't know what to say. I was like, "Maybe you should get a parrot."
Of course, a little eccentricity is not surprising considering these people work in a business that values youth and beauty above all else. It's hard enough for nonactors to deal with body image and aging, but imagine doing it when your face is 20 feet high on a movie screen. A beauty pageant hostess once said to me, "Can you do some dark shadow to make my arms look thin?" and I just thought, Yeah, we're going to draw two big dark stripes down your arms, and you'll look so thin. Then there was the photo shoot I worked on where a former sitcom star took one lo ok at the test Polaroid, screamed, "I look so old! This is career-ending!", ran upstairs, and would not come down until the lighting was changed. The next time I worked on her, she'd dearly had a little nip and tuck.
What am I talking about, a little? She had a whole new head, but hey, she looked fabulous and ended up being in a big hit movie.
Plastic surgery sears don't even phase me anymore, but I am sometimes surprised by the way that someone who I've seen in the media at a distance looks without makeup. For example, one up-and-coming rock cheek has a large port-wine-color birthmark on her cheek. Who knew?
I guess what has surprised me more than anything about the world of celebrity is how many huge stars exhibit zero personality. I thought everyone was going to be bigger-than-life glamorous like Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest. Boy, was I wrong. I understand I'm just there to do makeup, but it still surprises me how many big stars just don't give you anything. One Emmy winner did a crossword puzzle while I made her up. Another star fell completely asleep and didn't wake up until I was gone. I can think of two recent Oscar winners I've worked with more than once who don't say anything to me the whole time I'm there, not one word.
Of course, I'm not there to chitchat. "Be friendly, not mends" is my motto. I know one makeup artist who used to do coke with his favorite movie-star client, then after cleaning up her act, she saw him as an enabler and he was out of a job. If someone is feeling talkative, I never ever gossip about other stars I've worked with. Even if you tell them a little morsel and they seem to love it, in the back of their mind, they're thinking, He's gonna talk trash about me, and never use you again.
Listening to gossip is another story-I'm only human. Once I was working on a super A-lister when another star's name came up. I casually said, "Oh, she seems sweet," and she goes, "There's nothing sweet about her. She's the kind of girl that would screw your boyfriend. I know because she screwed my boyfriend." I was just like, "Oh." I say, "Oh," a lot in those situations. You can't really say anything more than that without getting into trouble. Oh, and on the subject of boyfriends, I can't tell you the number of starlets who have talked my ear off about how their new boyfriend is "just the greatest guy ever," and then you me et him, and he's like this slacker dude who's playing video games with his grimy feet up on the coffee table. It's so weird that the girls don't see it.
My friends always find it interesting that my favorite stars to work with aren't natural beauties who look good no matter what. I'd rather do sort of cute or average women who can really be transformed with the right makeup. One of my regulars is a TV drama mama who can look like a typical soccer mom, which she is, or like a supervixen Bond girl, which she enjoys being on special occasions. Once you really transform people like that, you're joined at the hip and they request you all the time.
As for my pet peeves, lately I've been getting a lot of stars who say they want to do the J.Lo less-is-more thing, but they don't really want to do it. Before we're done, they're darkening the brows and lips and are looking just like they would have anyway. Or they say they want to try something different, then change their minds after the fact. One TV star said she wanted to do her hair a la Kim Basinger in L.A. Confidential for a big benefit. After I finished, she starts crying because she doesn't like it. So I just blew it all out toward her face, Jennifer Aniston-style. So much for L.A. Confidential glamour. No matter what they say, stars just want to look young and pretty. That's what they all want.
And you have to be prepared for that. You have to be prepared for everything if you want to be a successful makeup artist in Hollywood. You cannot miss a beat or the stars walk allover you. Just recently, I spent an afternoon working on an Oscar nominee for an awards show. Later that night, I get a panicky call from her publicist. "Her frownie is coming off! Help!" (A frownie, FYI, is an aging actor's secret weapon, an elasticized contraption with adhesive tabs that is attached under the bangs and pulls the brows up for an instant face-lift.) The publicist literally wanted me to run down and meet the limo on a street corner. I said, "Look in her purse. I put two extra adhesive tabs in there." The publicist was like, "Oh, my God. Thank you."
The truth is, some celebrities are grateful and gracious and some are total nightmares. You never know who's going to be what. The most condescending star I ever worked with-and I use the term "star" loosely-was a newcomer who, at the time, had just landed her first sitcom. She was critiquing me every step of the way, saying, "That's making my eyeball look smaller. I mean, you should know that," and by the end I was thinking: I hate you and your stupid show! It was really upsetting.
The night after I worked with her, I remember commiserating with a fellow makeup artist and he said something that has stuck with me. He said, "Her vibe is, 'Aren't you lucky to be working with me?' but the opposite is really true. The reality is her series will be over soon, she'll do a couple of Lifetime movies, and then she'll be gone. We'll be around for years."
Source: Confidental Magazine
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