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Standing Around On The Job

WANTED: HOOKERS, THUGS, lawyers and thieves.

A courtroom scenario, perhaps?

Maybe, and then again, maybe not. It all depends on what kind of scene director Herb Mandell and the Casting Company need extras for in next season's episodes of Spenser for Hire.

Last Saturday, hundreds of fame seekers, from belly dancers to commodity brokers, gathered in Government Center to try out for bit parts in the upcoming detective shows.

One woman chewed her nails nervously as she stood in line. "Shit-all these people in front of me are professional actors!" she complained to the person behind her.

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Indeed, some of those attending the tryouts were hard-core actors who brought with them elaborate portfolios and years of dramatic experience.

"As a belly dancer, I've gotten to play a lot of different parts," said Kathy Cashin, from Kingston, Mass. "One of my specialties is my Mae West interpretation," added the sometime singing telegram performer, who heard about the tryouts on WMGX radio station.

Cashin said it was only the cold weather that prevented her from wearing her gold and baby blue belly dancing outfit to the tryouts--the casting agent had to settle for a snapshot of her costume insted.

"I've had about six years of acting experience and just want any exposure," said 17-year-old Susan Bott of Masconomet Regional High School, who read an ad for the casting in the Salem Evening News and drove in from Byfield, Mass. for the tryouts.

And John Parker, an aspiring lawyer from Tobsfield, said his last starring role was six years ago, as the Bionic Man in a sixth grade play.

Another man who was auditioning said he "was almost cast as an extra in the beach scene for Jaws--this time I'm looking for a real part."

A group of bubble-gum-chewing Westwood High School sophomores said they had won a school lip synch contest with their performance of Julie Brown's "The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun."

But most of those aspiring to a moment of fame on the Sony screen had no acting experience at all. Many had not even planned to come to the tryouts.

"Well, this morning I was asleep on the couch, and my aunt said, 'what are you doing today?' She told me to come down here and try out--it was a toss-up between this and basketball--I guess this won," said Lee St. Louis of Lawrence.

"This morning I just came to work with my father--I didn't even know this was going on, but when I saw it I decided to try out," said Anthony Zaniboni, an eighth grader at St. Peter's school in South Boston. "I've never acted before, but I tried out once as an extra," he said.

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