Back to blog

One time, 1982 I believe, spurred on by my love of money and the vegetable itself, i accepted an audition for a McDonald’s commercial TO BE SEEN FOR THE PART OF AN ARTICHOKE. …yes, an artichoke! Because McDonalds was thinking about starting a line of fresh fried vegetables that might more closely resemble actual food than the thing they used to make their infamous french fries. My agent assured me i did not have to go to the audition dressed as an artichoke. Of course, no actor i knew, no matter how versatile, had any vegetable costumes hanging around in their commercial clothing closets anyway, so the closest thing i figured i could do was to dress all in green, with maybe a flouncy sweater that could possible be mistaken for the petals of the spiky veg. So, i walked into a 35th floor Saatchi and Saatchi agency waiting room on Madison Avenue filled with the most varied shades of humanly inhabited green clothing i had ever seen…that anyone had ever seen!!! The more ambitious among us had shaded our outfits with tones of purple (I actually went out and purchased a fresh artichoke on my way home from my commercial rounds the previous day, id studied the method at Northwestern and was determined to become an artichoke)….ANYWAY, cutting to the chase, because i seemed to have the face that would win the hearts of artichoke lovers everywhere(since that was the only part of my body that would actually be showing, i was generously informed), i booked the gig.

And was flown out to LA to do the shoot, the following week. They put me and my husband artichoke up at the Beverly Wilshire, but picked us up at 5:00 am the day of the shoot to drive us out to one of the specially built Mickey D buildings in some central valley or other, constructed for the prime purpose of shooting their multitude of commercials.

I’d had artichoke fittings in the City before Id flown west, so i knew what to expect once i got to the location. Bathroom breaks would be an adventure but the day was filled with what you might call many adventures in fried green eating as well.