SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CAREERS : WHERE THE JOBS ARE : How to Pay the Light Bill While Waiting to Be Discovered

There are two kinds of actors: those who are stars and those who need jobs.

Stars are the actors who make enough money to tide them over from role to role. The legions of character actors, supporting actors, extras and wanna-bes, however, find a career in acting is all too often an unconnected series of roles separated by a lot of waiting. And they still have to pay the rent.

The trick is to find a job that pays enough but won’t get in the way of acting. And that’s some trick.

Actors call the work they do in between acting stints “day jobs,” even though many are in fact night jobs. Actors waiting tables is an enduring Hollywood cliche. But restaurant jobs still work well with an acting career because they offer the flexibility to work odd hours or trade shifts with other employees if an audition or role comes up.

Jobs waiting tables are readily available in Southern California and well-suited to an actor’s skills, said Michael Van Duezer of the Actors Equity Assn. “Dealing with the public and all that,” he said. “And, depending on where you work, it can be good, quick money.”

But, with a little bit of luck and ingenuity, actors can find many other jobs to fill the bill. These aren’t permanent, full-time positions, so they rarely pay well.

There’s no one best job for an actor, said Josh Schiowitz, whose Hollywood agency, Schiowitz/Clay/Rose represents established and aspiring actors. “Everybody has his own version of the ideal job, one that’s flexible, where they know you need to take time off for auditions and jobs.”

Some common jobs for actors, because they provide that flexibility, are telephone sales, car parking and part-time work at health clubs, construction sites and offices. Many actors prefer working for catering brokers--which supply servers and bartenders to caterers or for private parties--or for temporary-help agencies. These days, temp agencies hire for jobs ranging from traditional clerical work to accounting, industrial and light construction work.

The best part of working for such agencies is being able to call in and specify which days you’re willing to work, say actors who choose these jobs.

Even with the opportunity to work several days or nights a week, many career actors find it tough going without a spouse or a roommate to share living expenses.

Todd Hansen is a 29-year-old actor who figures he needs to work three days, or nights, in a combination of jobs to earn his fair share of household expenses. Sometimes his wife, Midi, wishes he’d work more so they’d have more of a cushion in their budget, but Hansen said it’s important that he have time to devote to the theater group he started and to be available when calls for acting work do come.

Staying available for auditions puts the biggest crimp in an actor’s ability to work a day job. Sometimes the call comes the night before, but more likely only a few hours’ notice is given. A missed phone call or audition could be some other actor’s big break.

“The other day, a call came at 10 (in the morning) for a 2 o’clock audition,” said Hansen, who works for Host Helpers, a catering broker, as a sometimes-landscaper and does substitute teaching. He made the audition.

Hansen’s most steady money comes from substitute teaching in the Inglewood School District, where he can call in once a week and tell a computer what days he’s available for work.

“It took a little bit of start-up time to get the paperwork together and pass the test” to become credentialed for subbing, but it has been worth it, Hansen said. “It’s $100 a day and it’s only a day.”

Jack Robinson is a fortysomething actor who had a good career going in commercial films and minor film and TV roles in Dallas--including a small one in the series “Dallas”--when he moved his family to Los Angeles five years ago in search of larger roles. He says he lives in “eternal hope,” but until his big break comes, he has had to take a day job.

Now he works 20 hours a week, at night, reading transcripts to court-reporting students at Merit College in Los Angeles. Merit hires primarily actors and musicians as readers because of their ability to keep a measured pace while reading previously unseen material. Robinson prefers it to waiting tables, but wonders whether reading at 240 words per minute--that’s four words a second--is all that beneficial to his acting skills.

Michelle Holmes is an actor and singer who also works for a small film production company. “When all of that fails--and it’s feast or famine--when I need more work, I have one straight world job, or day job,” she said.

Holmes has parlayed her affinity for computers into a consulting job that allows her to set her own hours. Currently, she is writing computer-based training programs and appearing in a musical, “Song of Singapore,” at a Long Beach theater.

Finding an understanding boss is almost as important as finding the right job. Agents say it’s usually best to be upfront with a perspective employer about your acting career, and actors agree.

One actor recalled having to quit a job where the boss didn’t know. “After all, there are only so many times you can go home ‘sick’ in the middle of the day” to make an audition, the actor said.