My Day On Melrose Place

Me: “You look like you’ve been riding all night.”
Jake: “Yeah, I took the road up the coast from LA”
Me: “That’s a hell of a long haul, well, I hope you’re almost where you’re going man.”
Jake: “Yeah, I’m getting there. You got a phone around here?”

Oliver Bodnar In Melrose Place No Strings

Melrose Place No Strings Attached

This was an episode of Melrose Place I was in; we shot it 1994. It’s about 6 lines on page and very drab. I tried to add some character to it, but the director told me not to do anything! I sat around on set for five hours until they were ready for me…I worked for about an hour and made about $700 for the day. My scene was with “Jake”
The name of the Melrose Place episode is: “No Strings Attached”.

I had a lot of fun when I was living in Hollywood…on set and off. I was just starting to work more and then I had the motorcycle accident, click that link if you want to read more about it, then click the Near Death Experiences link in the table of contents.

Oliver Bodnar in Melrose Place, Nostrings Attached, scene with Jake
Oliver Bodnar In Melrose Place “No Strings Attached”, Scene With “Jake”

The last two things I booked were a beer commercial and a TV movie of the week that had Kate Jackson and the guy that was in that show Major Dad. Unfortunately for me, both were scheduled to shoot on the same day…I had a “manager” at the time and the only thing she managed to do was get the part in the movie cut. I shot the beer commercial, it was for some new beer that never came out…it was around when “Ice Beer” was popular, but it never went into production…I still made money on it…I went through 2 or 3 holding periods…they have to pay you the same amount they initially paid you, which for this commercial was $3,000, so you don’t do any other beer commercials. Then when the commercial airs, you get paid every time in a descending 13 week cycle, then when the new cycle starts, you are at the top of your pay scale again.