Once Upon a Star - Celebrity kiss and tell stories

  Once Upon a Star

  Celebrity Kiss and Tell Stories

  PEGGY TRENTINI

  Once Upon a Star - Celebrity kiss and tell stories

  Copyright 2011 @ Premier Publishing House©

  All rights reserved.

  P reface

  I had gone back and forth with the idea of writing this book for many years. It was actually a therapist friend of mine who suggested I write a journal. Journaling can be a wonderful tool to help better understand yourself and the world that surrounds you. It provided me a wonderful sense of self-discovery and personal growth. I wanted you, the reader, to feel like you were reading my diary, because, basically, you are.

  My family and friends encouraged me to share my journal with the public in book-form, so here it is. I hope you enjoy my adventures as I provide you with glimpses of what it was like to live and play in Hollywood's private inner sanctum. I started my modeling and acting career in the late 80's and moved to LA in 1989. All of these stories happened over a fifteen-year period. What a ride! Join me as I walk you through my exciting Hollywood escapades.

  For more inside news and photos go to

  www.PEGGYTRENTINI.com

  D edication

  To C.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to my Mom for sitting up with me endless nights, listening to me cry over all my boyfriends.

  My eternal devotion to Dad and Nanny for giving me the love and courage to follow my dreams.

  To Rose Blacque, who made the book come alive with her talented prose!

  Thanks to everyone at Playboy for allowing me to be part of your family for all these years.

  I would also like to thank the unrivaled Gene Simmons, who featured me in his magazine.

  Kudos to my wonderful editor, Mikaela Pederson

  Love and thanks to all my girlfriends - because without you, my life in Hollywood would probably not be worth writing about.

  And a heartfelt thanks to all the loves in my life...

  About the Author

  Peggy was born a native Californian and grew up in Newport Beach. She started modeling right out of high school when scouted by an agent. She soon landed full time accounts with companies such as JC Penney, Nordstrom's, Frederick's of Hollywood, Clairol, Macy's, Olga lingerie, Catalina Swimwear and many others. The acting bug bit at an early age. Her first acting gig being Garry Marshall's first feature film, "Young Doctors In Love" was followed by twenty-something other films including National Lampoon's "Up the Creek", "Ghoulies V", Tales of the Crypt's "Demon Knight", "Poison" and "Human Desires" to name a few. She also did many commercials. One of the more famous was a member of the "Swedish Bikini Team" in a series of spots put out by Old Milwaukee Beer. The popularity of the commercials led to a celebrity cover and pictorial in Playboy's January 1992 issue. She became a "Carson Art Player" on the Tonight show in 1985 where she acted alongside Johnny Carson for three years. She has made appearances on shows such as "Happy Days", "CSI", "Miami Heat", "Three's Company", "Baywatch", several episodes of "Married with Children" and many others. Peggy moved to Hollywood in 1989 and quickly became engulfed in the shrouded, celebrity inner circle. Peggy has spent fifteen years in Hollywood before earning a bachelor's degree and obtaining her real estate license. She majored in business and minored in English literature. She now owns her own real estate company in Orange County where she currently resides.

  Contents

  Preface

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  1

  The Early Years

  Heeeere's Johnny

  Young Doctors in Love

  2

  Sylvester Stallone

  How we met

  Our First date

  Demolition man

  The Close call

  The Trial

  The Tabloids

  Casa Stallone

  3

  Vince Neil

  Bikini Team

  Bar One

  The Bel -Age Hotel

  On Tour

  The Tragedy

  The Strip Club

  4

  Billy Idol

  More, More, More

  Booty Calls

  photos

  5

  Mick Jagger

  Lady Jane

  The Concerts

  6

  Nicolas Cage

  The Whiskey Bar

  7

  Johnny Depp

  Up on the roof

  The Viper Room

  8

  Jack Wagner

  Blindsided

  What happens in Vegas

  9

  Kevin Costner

  No way out

  The phone call

  10

  David Cassidy

  I Think I Love you

  The betrayal

  11

  Mark Messier

  Midsummer night's dream

  Canucks vs. Coyotes

  12

  Bret Michaels

  Every Rose

  Sanctuary

  13

  Sting

  Tantric Magic

  14

  Sean Penn

  The Awakening

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  The Early Years

  I remember sitting at the vanity in my mother’s bedroom, staring at myself in the mirror and crying quietly. My mother was out for the evening, and she kept hidden in her drawer the only makeup I had ever seen. I just wanted to be beautiful...

  I was raised in a very Catholic home and the stoic nature of our household was a stark contrast to the world outside those walls. We lived in Newport Beach, California, home of the beautiful and privileged. As I got older, the disparate elements of these worlds began to tear me in separate directions. My mother insisted that I remain as plain as possible, never teaching me about makeup, hairstyles, or allowing me to wear anything above the knee. The girls at school wore mini-skirts and their biggest problem was how to prolong their tan through the school year. I yearned to be like them. I prayed nightly that something would change my mother's mind and allow me to access some hidden beauty in my stick figure frame and bright eyes. It wasn’t long after that night, in front of her mirror, that the wheels of my life started turning in a very different direction.

  Lisa sat next to me in English and we became friends because I was a straight-A student and she always seemed to need my help. I didn’t have many friends, so I was always happy to help. Over the course of that semester we grew to be very close. At first, I was apprehensive of her friendship because Lisa was one of the most beautiful girls at our school. She literally had boys falling over, waiting in lines to ask her out. I was fascinated by her presence. Everything from her walk to her cherry lip balm told me that being pretty was so much more fun. So Lisa and I agreed one day over lunch that if I taught her Shakespeare, she would teach me everything from mascara to push up bras.

  Lisa taught me all she could within the confines of our school day. She brought me high heels to try on and taught me how to use makeup during our lunch hour in the girl’s bathroom. It was all so much fun, but it killed me that when that final bell of the day rang, I had to go back to plain Jane and hang my head the whole way home. Finally, on a bright spring day, Lisa looked at me and she said, “I’m coming home with you and were going to talk to your parents together.” And we did exactly that. Lisa said things to my mother that I could have only dreamt of saying. She begged for their permission to give me a modest make over. She told my parents how the other girls made fun of me and how the simplest c
hanges could make me so happy. I think my father was so thrilled that I had a good friend who cared about me in this way that she could have said just about anything and he would have agreed. My mother was a bit harder to convince, but by the end of the conversation, we had not only her blessing, but also a pocket full of money for going shopping. It was exactly what I had prayed for; it was a bona fide miracle.

  Looking back, that afternoon should have music playing behind it, cut into a montage of classic make over moments. Lisa took me to all the coolest stores I never went to and then we hit vintage boutiques to round everything out with accessories. Lisa was quite the budgeter for a teenager; she set enough money aside to take me to her aunt's salon where they waxed my eyebrows and cut, highlighted, and styled my hair. I was watching the transformation slowly take place as I sat in the chair of the salon. It reminded me of my mother's vanity as the woman slowly pulled out tools I had never seen, performing women’s beauty rituals like some ancient rite of passage into my new and happier life.

  School the next week was some of the more interesting days in my life. I learned a lot about people that day, a lot about the way the world works. Everyone was paying attention to me. I wasn’t sure if people literally had never seen me before, or if they were amazed by my makeover. All I knew was that at sixteen, being pretty meant that everyone knew who you were, and that everyone wanted to be your friend. Over the course of the day I developed this strange opinion of everyone who now wanted to know who I was. Where were these people before? I was still the same girl. The truth was staring me back in the mirror and the strange perceptions of the people around me contributed to my decision that I would remain, against all odds, who I was in my heart of hearts. I might have looked different from the outside, but I wouldn’t let this change who my mother had raised me to be. I found strength in my ability to coexist in those two worlds that, at one point, had seemed to sever me down the middle.

  I spent the rest of high school managing this fine balance between life at home and life in Newport Beach: the pretty people who now all called me by my first name, picked me up on Friday nights, and invited me on weekends to their vacation homes. It was right around graduation that I was scouted by a modeling agency. I was flattered, but really didn’t give it much thought at the time. I had never considering being a model. I had planned on going to college after high school and pursuing a career as a writer. I wanted to sip tea and write short stories about women living in the south. I always had an overactive imagination and I wanted to capitalize on these hidden talents I had etched out in myself over the years in high school.

  Heeeere's Johnny

  I was in the kitchen brewing coffee in an oversized white t-shirt and ratty slippers when the phone rang. I juggled the idea of letting it go for a moment, but heard my mother's voice in the back of my mind saying, “You know opportunity usually knocks before noon, up and at um!” So I reached for the phone and tried my best to sound like I was well into the swing of things. Another point for my mother, because she was right - it was my agent, Judy, calling. Judy had this way about her, maybe something in the tone of her voice that always sent me running. She was a very kind woman, but when it came to business she was all hands on deck. She told me The Tonight Show was looking to contract Carson art players. I had seen the show, of course, but even still I didn’t know what that meant. I felt like such a child asking a million questions all the time, so I just went along and pretended like I knew everything, jotting down the audition information on the back of a Macy’s bill.

  The audition was three days from the phone call and I hadn’t really thought about it all that much. I was going on so many modeling auditions that they just became a routine, like doing my hair. I went looking pretty and I left feeling there was a good chance they would book me, though at this point I hadn’t seen much action.

  I found myself on yet another cattle call audition. Every audition is different, although, they are, in a way, the same. There are two main types: auditions in which they know you and know you are coming along with maybe three other people, and then there are cattle call auditions, in which the place is filled, literally filled, with people. Sometimes everyone looks just like you, which I always found so bizarre, and sometimes, like this one, there are people of an incredible range. I was one in what felt like a million people there, and I was starting to think the whole thing was a waste of time. But I stayed because I had already taken the time and the gas to get there, and there is always that little voice that tells you, “Yes this is the one, this could be the one.” A very kind-looking man named Dick Manley called me into the office. He handed me a script and asked me to read it with him. I just about barfed in his lap.

  “You mean like acting?” I nervously replied.

  He said, “Yes like acting.” He was trying not to laugh at me. I had no acting experience at all besides a few drama classes in high school. I had just turned eighteen and was wondering, “What the hell am I doing here?”

  I made an ass out of myself by reading like a third grader. He saw the terror on my face, as all I wanted to do was run out of that room.

  “Let's try that again,” he kindly offered. “This time talk to me like I'm your best friend.”

  I pulled myself together and decided it couldn't get any worse. I did it again and this time it was pretty good, dare I even say funny! Just as I finished, the man himself, Johnny Carson poked his head around the corner and said, "Not bad, you should hire her.” I just about barfed again. Thank God he didn't show up two minutes before! Dick winked at me and told me I would be hearing from him soon.

  Two days later I was booked on the Tonight show. I called everyone I knew to tell them the good news. I was filled with so many conflicting feelings, excitement, anxiety and most of all, fear. I was to be at Burbank Studios at twelve thirty.

  Upon arrival, I was greeted at the gate by a smiling security guard who handed me a sought after all access studio pass. I felt ever so much like a VIP. I made my way through the maze of building to the one that housed The Tonight Show. I was ushered into a small room that resembled a motel six; not at all what I would have expected from a legendary show such as this. I was handed my mini script to study while I sat through hair and makeup. I tried not to let anyone see me shaking inside. The makeup artist was nice and made me feel very comfortable. Just then, Dolly Parton came in to have her makeup done. She was so sweet and lovely, but swore like a sailor. She kept us all entertained with her latest quandaries. She could see I was nervous and said, “Missy, with a bod like yours, you have nothing to be nervous about. Go out there and just have fun!” She was so down to earth and, to my eighteen year old self, she was an angel glowing with hairspray. I wish I could have put her in my pocket for this ride of a lifetime I was about to take.

  As I finished up, I returned to my small dressing room. The PA knocked on the door and asked me to follow him to wardrobe. As I entered the room there was Johnny in his underwear waiting for the seamstress to iron his pants. He had the most adorable look of embarrassment on his face. He actually turned a full shade of pink.

  “I normally don't meet pretty women this way,” he mused, “At least not on the first date.”

  I liked him immediately. He was so commanding in his presence. He was comfortable in his own skin and charming beyond belief.

  "I'm Johnny,” he said.

  “I'm Peggy; nice to meet you,” I said as I tried not to look down. Sharon, the wardrobe lady, hurried with her pressing and couldn't help but have an ear-to-ear grin. As he pulled his pants up, he shyly said, “I'll see you soon.” Sharon quipped, "I think he likes you." I blushed "No, he's just being nice."

  I was hurried out to the main stage to rehearse my lines. I only had two, thank god. There was Johnny, Ed, Doc and the band, just like on TV. How surreal this all was to me.

  The nerves really started to kick in as the clock ticked. Johnny was playing an airport ticket counter guy and I was supposed to come up and ask for a ticket. When
he asked me where I was going, I was supposed to say, “I don't care, anywhere’s fine,” in my dingiest blond accent. We ran through it a few times and it wasn’t bad; I didn't pass out, at least. The production assistant then informed me the show was taped live and that there would be no retakes. I started hyperventilating as he showed me to my room to lie down. After a few moments, Johnny knocked on the door and asked to come in.

  “I heard we have a nervous Nelly in here,” he said with a grin.

  "I am so embarrassed... it's just that I have never done this before.”

  He sat close to me and put his arm around me. "We all have to start somewhere".

  I regained my composure and replied, "Well, how many people get to start here with you? I really am so grateful."

  He kissed me softly on the forehead and assured me I would be great. He was right. I went out there, I delivered my line, and the audience laughed. The sound of that laughter is something I will never forget. It was the most relief I had ever felt. I was on top of the world.

  A few days later, my agent, Judy, called me into her office. I thought I had done something bad, as I was always missing auditions. I gave her so many lame excuses that it's a wonder she never dropped me. One time in particular, I remember telling her my Grandmother died and that's why I’d missed the audition. I didn't have a grandma, so it was the perfect white lie. She came back with, "How many times is your Grandma going to die?" I’d forgotten I had used that one already. As I walked in, she seemed to be in a great mood.