A Shortage of Vision

Regarding “Help Wanted: A Few Good Leading Men” (by Paul Brownfield, May 2):

What casting directors and network executives are in fact looking for, yet unable to find, are not “talented leading men” at all but “names” that appear on lists of their own fabrication, not always but far too often of actors that possess very little if any real talent.

This town is overflowing with handsome and talented actors, often with very respectable credits behind them, that cannot even get an audition for the very casting directors who are doing the complaining, only because they don’t have a “name” that makes them a marketable flavor-of-the-week commodity.

Perhaps I am just one of the cringing, struggling actors that the article mentions, but this has certainly been my experience, ever increasingly of late, and I personally know a sea of other talented leading men who concur.

GRANT CRAMER

Los Angeles

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Hey, Sandy Grushow, Peter Golden, Judith Weiner and Julie Pernworth, get a copy of the Academy Players Directory and look at the leading men category. You’ll find me listed with about 600 other unknown, 30- to 40-year-old leading-men types, not stars mind you, but artists who would be willing to give it our best shot at your auditions.

Just pick up the phone and call our hard-working small or mid-size talent agency representatives and give us half a chance.

MICHAEL POSS

Hollywood

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Talent shortage? No way. There is a shortage, though, among producers and casting directors--a shortage of vision and the guts to take a chance.

MARGIT AHLIN

Los Angeles

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The mentality espoused in Brownfield’s article explains perfectly why the networks’ share of the viewing audience gets smaller every year.

RICHARD VIDAN

Lawndale