My great friend Alexandra Billings (notably, the first transgendered person to actually play a transgendered person on network television) has been cast in a recurring role in a new series called Transparent – an Amazon original series, with a helluva cast: Jeffrey Tambor, Judith Light, Gaby Hoffman, and others. Alex has been busy getting her Master’s and becoming a tenure-track professor, which basically means I have not spoken to her in months, beyond our agonized “I miss you” texts. Super proud of her. She hasn’t updated her blog in a while, but you can check her stuff out here. She wrote a piece for my site a while back about her idol, Lucille Ball. Anyone who has read me for a while knows of my adventures with Alex. We get into trouble when we are together. We strolled right through the immediate aftermath of a gangwar murder, for example. Totally by an accident of timing. We have tried, on numerous occasions, to get recruited into a certain … sketchy and notorious organization. We can’t seem to stop. We spent an entire day in Los Angeles visiting with … “organization” members and lying our way into private tours.
Best moment of lying:
Gatekeeper: “And what do you do?”
Alex: “I’m an accountant.”
Gatekeeper: (interested) “Oh! Who with??”
Alex: (after a pause) “A corporation.”
Smooth.
Alex’s wife Chrisanne is used to this nonsense, but did say to Alex during our insane “field trip” in Los Angeles, “While Sheila is visiting us … why don’t you take her to the freakin’ Getty Museum, for God’s sake…” Hilarious. Every time she and I see an opportunity, we leap at it. We got pretty far in at one point, in New York, so far in that we both actually almost joined the … organization … in order to get the hell out of there. It was a close call. Our friendship is something I treasure. Her life is exploding with awesome-ness right now. I can’t wait to see Transparent!
Great news. I liked the pilot quite a bit and the addition of Alex to the cast seals the deal for me. Can’t wait for the series to resume.
Can’t wait to watch – maybe later today! Glad to hear you liked it, Amy!
Always excited to hear good things about Alex. She’s a ‘peach.’ I still remember how excited my son was to watch “Daddy’s friend” on ER.
DBW – a peach, indeed! That’s sweet about your son!!
She’s been in the cloister of grad school – which I totally understand – but she and I are long overdue for some kind of ridiculous adventure.
Very excited to see this! Thanks for the heads up.
Love the gatekeeper conversation. “A corporation.” Ha!!
We are lucky if we have a friend like Alex, who is our compadre in things we wouldn’t do alone!
“A corporation.”
Alex is a brilliant improviser and that’s the best she could come up with?? hahaha We still laugh about it.
Great news about the show. I hope it is good. I wish for Alex tons of complex, affirming, humanizing television and movie roles. For her, obviously, but also for the species. We need to see it.
She’s an amazing actress! She was on a great episode of Grey’s Anatomy, too, playing a transgendered character with beauty, warmth, and humor. She’s awesome. One of my favorite partners-in-crime.
She will appreciate your words, Heather!