by Katherine MK Mitchell
The memoir entitled From Budapest to Hollywood: Searching for the Promised Land, depicts an endless series of failures and recoveries, over and over again. It is sad but it is funny at the same time. Look at Page 47. At about the age of six, I was discovered as a super-talent and potentially a most famous future ballerina at the Hungarian Opera. The moment of truth came, the medical examination prior to entering the Company. Lo and behold, the doctors did not approve of me. I was destroyed in every possible sense. Stopped talking and introverted into my dark mental corner. It was months later that I found my new world in competitive gymnastics and worked hard every single day to reach national ranking. That was my first but not the last time of “When one door closes, another window opens." My emotional and mental recovery did follow in due course.
That dramatic moment was not the only one. As time passed, there was beautiful uplifting love in my life, child and family, but that was destroyed by infidelity and dishonesty. I was not OK at all but able to hold on to my job, my income, my child. Another complicated long recovery took over my daily living.
As a screenwriter, good fortune smiled on me in my thirties when my agent took an original film-script of mine to the Blake Edwards Company. The Development Vice President liked it for a leading role for Julie Andrews. I was in seventh heaven! I made it! I am going to be a famous writer in Hollywood! Weeks went by and still no contract offer came my way. I was stunned when I learned that the Development Vice President who was bringing my script into the production cycle had a falling out with the Blake Edwards Company which was followed by a lawsuit. My script went by the wayside with the exiting Development Vice President. Again, this took my breath away, my mind went into a seemingly permanent knot. If it weren’t for the demanding responsibilities of having a child I would have gone on a drinking binge, on an eating binge, on a reckless unprotected bad-girl binge and who knows what else. But, I did not. After all, God gave me a beautiful child and that face, those eyes, that sweet voice were built into my system forever. And that’s who saved me.
Taking care of my parenting duties and my day-job demanded my attention, was more important than the terrible professional failure I had suffered.
Looking back now, years later, I can still feel that pain. I can still feel the many sharp stings of my failures and the deep urge to find a way to give up all that was tearing at me. Just give up everything and walk away and curl up in a dark corner and cry and never come out. Those were the visions playing in my mind.
As an agent in Chapters 28 and 29 and a writer in Chapter 30, no matter how hard I studied and worked, the career I needed never came together. I never became a famous Hollywood writer but I was working in show-business and loving the creativity and discipline of it all. The Chapter on Page 301 of FROM BUDAPEST TO HOLLYWOOD recalls the times when I almost made it big again and again. I had no luck, it’s that simple.
Clearly, I had to leave the town where nothing went right for me and find a way to survive, to like myself. Working on my self-recovery, self-empowerment, self-confidence, self-pride, became my full-time occupation. I had to find who I was, find all the good qualities I possessed and start to build on that. And today, I love myself, I love the inner-peace I have attained and I give talks at women’s group events on how it can be done and should be done. Yes, we can find our way to be our best.
Connect with Katherine
Comments