Selling Stardom portraits

A check for $4.09 that actor Darryl Green received after winning a Small Claims Court case against Pinkerton Model & Talent Co.  (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Sharon Faley-Harvey said she filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau after Pinkerton Model & Talent Co. failed to pay a $450 fee that her son Riley, left, was owed for a photo shoot it booked.

Actress and model Aylya Marzolf said that agent Lynn Venturella kept about $6,600 she was owed for six photo and commercial shoots, leading her to file a complaint with the California Labor Commissioner’s Office.

Actor John Doman, who starred in HBO’s “The Wire,” at home in Brooklyn, N.Y. Talent agent Peter Strain pleaded guilty to a felony charge in connection with the theft of earnings from Doman and two other clients.

Aspiring actress Krupskaia Gutierrez was asked for money after she read monologues in front of a woman at One Source Talent. “We need the money,” Gutierrez recalls the woman at the company saying.  (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

“We are trying to be the light in the darkness of Hollywood,” says Chloe Sebest, 14, at a seminar hosted by Actors, Models & Talent for Christ.   (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

First-time filmmaker Pradeep Rawat said he bought a $21,000 “Oscar Qualifying Package” from Cinemaflix Distribution.  (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)