For the Love of Money (64 page)

However, the hype machine had already started. I was being interviewed by magazines that I had never heard of before, and they all took on a certain “spin,” as they call it in the journalism field. I was the young 'hood sister that had caught Hollywood off guard with her street sass and sexiness. That was my story.
Period!
Few of the articles brought up my master's degree in English, or my three years as a scriptwriter for cable and network television. They had what they wanted to run with, and they all ran with it. I wasn't media savvy at the time to
spin
things back to what
I
wanted to say about myself, as opposed to what
they
wanted to write about me. I was simply answering questions as I was asked, but I caught on fast enough. Even my parents called me up to complain about it.

“How come all of these stories only talk about how sexy and street-smart you are?” my mother asked me. “What did you do in this film?” She hadn't seen it yet. “They don't know that you went to college and got a master's degree? What the hell is going on? Did you ask them to write this way about you?”

I answered, “Of course I didn't, Mom. They write whatever they
want
to write evidently.”

I called up Susan and said, “You know what? I have an idea. I don't particularly
like these interviews I'm getting, so I think I need to write a sequel to my book to let everyone know how I
made
it out here, because these interviews are getting ridiculous, and the movie hasn't even come out yet.

“What are they gonna write about when it
does
come out?” I asked rhetorically. “I don't want to become another black version of Madonna. We have enough of that shit going on with these young rap sisters.

“And by the way,” I added, “the
original
Madonna
was
black.” I was slipping into a fight-the-power mood, and the black magazines
loved
to report from that spin: The Hollywood sister tells of dirty laundry; either that or, The Hollywood sister counts her riches.

Susan said, “I agree with you, and I feel partially responsible for some of that, because I was the one who sent Jonathan a copy of
Flyy Girl.
I guess they all went overboard with that. But they
do
have the rest of your résumé. They know what you're capable of. They act as if your screenplay was pure luck, and as if you can't really write.”

She said, “I don't like the spin on these interviews either, and I think that a follow-up book idea would be good to set the record straight. The media has a penchant for sensationalizing the women of Hollywood, black, white, or whatever; you're either the sex symbol or the bimbo that they want you to be, or no one wants to know you.”

She added, “I warned you of that when we first began to shop the script.”

I said, “Yeah, but I didn't know that I would be starring in it at the time,” which was hypocritical of me because I was admitting that I was fully willing to allow another woman use
her
body in the role. I was having to swallow my own medicine.

“Would you like me to make contacts to ask about the sequel book idea?” Susan asked.

I said, “I was thinking about writing this one myself.”

Susan paused. “Do you have the time to write it? This is a lot more time-consuming than writing poetry.”

I said, “Not really, but I'll
find
time.”

“I don't really know about that idea,” Susan responded. “I mean, it would be great to write it yourself, but even better to get a follow-up book with Omar Tyree, since he wrote the first one. That's who people are connecting your story to as a writer. I mean, you would almost have to reintroduce yourself to the literary world, and many stars have not done too well in the book business. Everyone just assumes that Hollywood stardom will push you straight through the book stores, but it doesn't always work that way.

“However, if you had another
combined
effort introducing the new
Tracy Ellison
Grant,
as told by Omar Tyree, I think it would sell a lot stronger in the literary market,” she told me. “After all, he
has
built up an audience now, mainly off of
your
story, and I wouldn't want to count that connection out.”

That conversation took place in late November 1999. I nodded, while thinking everything over. I didn't want to say that I couldn't write a book myself, but Susan had a point. Bookstores were different from movie theaters and vice versa.

I finally conceded to it and said, “Okay. Let's make that deal then,” only to have many of Susan's phone calls concerning my sequel fall on deaf ears.

In the meantime, Susan and I had found a steal of a three-bedroom house up on the hills of Marina Del Rey, next to Culver City. Some down-on-his-luck producer was vacating the house, dirt cheap, to pay off outstanding credit bills. I was able to take the place off of his hands for well below what it was worth. Talk about being in the right place at the right time with the right money, I must have landed on the other side of the rainbow. This house was the
shit,
with a hell of a hillside view! I was screaming about it for
days!
The neighbors were probably ready to call the cops on me already.

As far as my Toyota was concerned? I drove that thing back home to Philadelphia to attend my brother's graduation ceremony in June, and I handed the keys over to him as a graduation present. I replaced the Toyota when I arrived back out in California with a black, 1999 convertible Mercedes, loaded and with a car phone. So, outside of the media's spin job on my imagery, in late 1999, I had few things to complain about. I guess my girl Raheema was right: I was
born
to be a star!

Sounds simple
enough of a quest
until you find that
some want more
and others want less.
So you settle in the middle;
in the middle of nowhere
with nothing of value,
while beautiful,
thousand-year-old candles
are snuffed out
inside of small, barren closets,
replaced by electricity;
electricity to appease the masses,
who learn to take the flick
of a switch, or the press
on a button for granted,
with no more strikes
of the match, or rubs
of the fire wood.

And then, when the power goes
on that electricity,
so simplistically gained,
we ALL end up in darkness,
searching,
searching,
for those candles
that the PEOPLE
ignored.

Copyright © 1997 by Tracy Ellison

R
oad Kill
was a much different movie from the independent feel of
Led Astray. RK
had blockbuster potential if we could market it right and get a good deal of buzz going. The main obstacle was for us to get two thousand theaters or more to premiere the film the following summer.

By mid June, we were shooting scenes back out in California. I had a bunch of scrapes and bruises from doing a lot of my own stunts, but I wanted to step it up and earn my keep toward making the movie a success. I had even turned Paully into a fan. He kept asking me, “Are you
sure
you want to do this scene? You really don't have to.”

As long as the stunt couldn't kill me, and I was still making two million dollars
before
the film ever released to the theaters, I said, “Let's do it,” and kept going. I had stopped taking interviews for the time being, because all they were doing was throwing off my concentration. I needed to focus more on Alexis and not Tracy. So when Susan visited me unexpectedly on the set, she ended up having to wait several hours before I had a break to sit down and talk to her.

I stepped inside of my trailer with her. I said, “Well, this
must
be important, because you're still smiling even though you just wasted four hours of your day by
not
calling me first.”

Susan said, “It doesn't matter. I took the whole day off just to give you the good news in person.”

“What good news?” I had nothing on my mind but
Road Kill.

Susan smiled and pulled out a faxed document with Omar Tyree's signature on it. “He finally agreed to the deal, just as we wanted it,” she told me. “I told him when you would be finished shooting, and he said he would fly out
to California right after you wrap up. He said he'd spend a full week with you to get the sequel all on tape recordings, and then transcribe it to text.”

I grinned. It was finally going to happen, a sequel to
Flyy Girl.

“And what did he say about the poetry?” I asked.

Susan hesitated. “Well, he called me back personally, and we actually talked about it for a while. And he made it perfectly clear that
without
the poetry he wouldn't have been interested in doing the book.”

“Why not?” I asked her out of curiosity.

Susan was still being choosy with her words.

I said, “Come on, girl, you didn't come out here to waste my time. You always give it to me straight, that's why I like you. So let me have it.”

Susan clasped her hands together and said, “Okay, Tracy. Well,
I
never even asked you what happened with your relationship with Victor Hinson, because
I
just figured that
you
were in college and
he
was in jail, and to be honest with you, I just didn't see much of a future there. However,
Omar
seems to think that the young fans of your book
obviously
hoped for that, and he said that unless your sequel would reconnect you with Victor in some way, a lot of the
Flyy Girl
fans that you've amassed wouldn't want to hear about your rise in Hollywood.”

I did my usual thing and remained calm in the beginning. I said, “In other words, unless I get my man back, they don't give a fuck about
what
I'm doing? That doesn't make any sense,” I snapped.

“I'm just telling you what he said,” my girl responded. “That's why we were on the phone for a while. I didn't particularly agree with that.”

I sat there and thought about it in silence for a minute. I said, “I had an interview out in Nevada where this young sister from
The Black American
ranted that she thought I was selling out by coming to Hollywood and not picking the right movie vehicles to star in. She also talked about this Victor situation. Then she asked me to produce
Flyy Girl
the movie.

“But if what
you're
telling me is the case, from Omar's standpoint, since I'm not getting back with Victor, then my fans wouldn't be interested in
Flyy Girl
the movie either, because they would know that it wouldn't end happily ever after,” I added.

Susan smiled. “You wouldn't have to put that in the movie, you just end it exactly the way that the book ended.”

“By leaving them hanging?” I responded. “But if they read this sequel, then they'll
know
what happens with Victor, and that would spoil the movie idea.”

Susan broke out laughing. The whole situation sounded like some kind of a jigsaw puzzle.

I shook my head, feeling a headache coming on. I said, “See,
this
is why I need to concentrate on finishing this movie, because this shit is pissing me off. Mary J. Blige said that we have to wake up from the dream and move on, and they
still
buy her music.”

Susan said, “Yeah, but from what
I've
been able to hear, it seems like every one of her songs is about losing another man.” We broke out laughing again, but the shit wasn't funny.

Just to be clear on things, I said, “So, Omar is saying that even
young
sisters are more concerned about their man than they are about their own futures? I thought that was Terry McMillan's crowd, all strung out over some man. I didn't know that the
young
sisters were strung out too. Damn!”

Susan smiled real calmly and responded, “
You
were.”

I took a deep breath and thought about it. I said, “So
I
can't grow up, and that means that
they
can't grow up.” I was really hurt by that. I shook my head and added, “That's a damn shame.” I felt like crying for the young sisters all around the country who couldn't see past their confused passion for a man and get on with their own lives. Not that
I
still didn't want a man myself, but I was only twenty-eight years old, and still good-looking. I had time. I still didn't have any kids or anything.

I decided to tell Susan the painful truth about myself and Victor.

I said, “Susan, I wanted Victor so badly that I went back home for my girlfriend's wedding and tried to sleep with the man, even though I had just met his wife and two sons that same afternoon in their family-owned health food store. And he played me like an absolute
fool,
just to show me how
sick
I was.