Glori Gold: Hot Springs Hotel

     March 3, 1998
     A Valley Girl by birth, Glori Gold was minding her own business, studying speech communication at Pierce Junior College and speculating on an education at UCLA. But her voyage to the halls of Ivy was abruptly derailed. A friend’s mom turned out to be producer Marilyn Vance, who was casting EMBRACE OF THE VAMPIRE. The erotic thriller’s sapphic love scenes afforded the topbilled Alyssa Milano some latitude to lose her saccharin image. Gold, on the advice of her chum, auditioned for a role. To the ingenue’s surprise, she was cast as one of a tribe of female vampires who indoctrinate a victim into the milieu of the undead. “I thought it was so much fun,” says Gold, “that I decided to concentrate on acting. I had no real ambitions as a child. I was more into being a kid and growing up, and hanging out with my friends. All of a sudden, I decided I wanted to be an actress.
     “I played a wood nymph in EMBRACE OF THE VAMPIRE (’94). Martin Kemp’s character is in this enchanted forest one night, and one of my wood nymph friends spot him ad we turn him into a vampire. I was like the leader of the wood nymphs. It was an interesting experience, and an important role because it was symbolic. I was the one who turned Kemp into a vampire, and they kept flashing back to it throughout the movie. That was my first nudity in a film. Actually, I was only topless.” (A behind-the-scenes chronicle of EMBRACE OF THE VAMPIRE is printed in FF 3:4)
     A beguiling hybrid of Danish and Russian heritage, Gold dropped out of college. Enrolling in acting class, she adapted to auditioning routines. The voluptuous, green-eyed beauty didn’t have trouble finding berths for her burgeoning career. Appearing in THE BIG BANG THEORY, THE GARBAGE MAN, FATHER’S DAY and PHAT BEACH, Gold admits an impartiality to FOX HUNT because “I love action movies and I’d love to be a Bond girl. That movie was a campy comedy takeoff on a 007 film. It was really funny. I played a Bond-girl type in a ski lodge. The James Bond clone comes into my cabin and starts making jokes, and then we start making love which you don’t see. There’s no nudity involved. It was a silly little fun part.”
     Sampling the TV medium, Gold was cast in episodes of HEAD OVER HEELS, MARRIED WITH CHILDREN and other sitcoms. She was also cast in LOIS AND CLARK “in a brief ‘innocent bystander’ role. There is a bus accident and Superman runs into the bus and saves the bus driver. I’m standing there watching.”
     Upon learning that her friend, Traci Britton, was directing a BAYWATCH episode, Gold made a pitch for herself. “Traci got me a role and brought me to the show, and introduced me to everyone,” Gold recalls. “That’s a great show to work on. I did a couple and hope to do some more.”
     Marilyn Vance hired Gold for two episodes of her late night, HBO series, EROTIC CONFESSIONS. In “The Business Trip,” a traveling business woman (Monique Parent) prefers the distraction of eavesdropping on an amorous couple in the hotel room next door. Naturally, she finally volunteers to expand the soiree into a menage a trois. Meanwhile, a neighboring occupant—The Listener, played by Gold—is drawn to the sounds of unbridled sex. The starlet was central to the scenario of “Coming Clean,” her second episode of the series. “I was a college student in that one,” she grins. “It took place in a laundry room where this guy would fantasize about the girls who come in. I was just sitting there with glasses and a ponytail and sweats. He starts having this fantasy and sees me as this very strict librarian. Then I let my hair down and do a little dance for him, and we end up kissing passionately. Then he comes back to reality.” The nudity quota on EROTIC CONFESSIONS proved unrestrained. “It was very intense,” notes the actress, “but it was a closed set, and everyone was very professional. I feel very comfortable with showing my body if it’s done in a tasteful way.” It was hardly incumbent upon Peter Gathings Bunche, who directed both her episodes, to furnish Gold with pointers: “For ‘The Business Trip’ segment, he told me to act like I was listening and then start touching myself, as if I were really enjoying it and really getting off. Basically that’s what he told me.”
     She recently landed a recurrent role in a Showtime sitcom, HOT SPRINGS HOTEL, which Gold Describes as “my TV series.” The producers are contracted for 15 half hour episodes (the show debuted last June). Gold was cast while wrapping a guest spot on a series shot at the Sunset Gower Studios. During a lunch break, she sauntered over to a local lunch counter and was spotted by a producer whose office was across the street. Introducing himself, the executive delivered a line that’s routinely ascribed to Hollywood myth: “You’re perfect for this role. Can you come in and audition for it?” Initially startled, Gold agreed to a meeting at the end of the day. “I went over there and I read for one of the producers,” she says. “He stopped me in the middle of my read and said, ‘You’re perfect. You’ve got the part.’ He brought in one of the other producers and I read for them. They asked me if I was available to leave that weekend for six weeks to go to Palm Springs.”
     During the next month and a half, Gold resided in Desert Hot Springs, a small town just north of the celebrity community and a stone’s throw from the Colorado River Aqueduct. “They used Desert Hot Springs because it’s a more isolated area and they wanted to rent and shoot at the same hotel that we stayed in,” explains gold. They needed a more isolated hotel. We shot from the beginning of August until the middle of September. It was incredibly hot at that time of year. But it was a lot of fun there. It was a very good experience for me. My character, Lacey, is very quirky, very animated. She has big hair and is very sexy. She’s a very smart businesswoman, but she’s the type of woman who you don’t want to cross because, if you cross her, she’s going to get you back.” Lacey manages the Hot Springs with her best friend Kat (Samantha Phillips) and Kat’s brother, Randy. “They inherit this hotel from their aunt, and she brings me along to help them run it,” says Gold. “The series is about all these different things that they encounter, like people trying to shut the hotel down. It’s a sexy comedy with lovemaking scenes and partial nudity. It’s very campy. It’s like THREE’S COMPANY but with adult situations. There were two directors, Jim Dudelson and Anna Clavell.”
     Between acting assignments, Gold pays the rent by working as a model. Her long legs and voluptuous figure (34D-24-34) qualified her as a shoo-in for cheesecake photography. She’s posed for spreads that have surfaced in Low Rider, Car and other magazines. Gold, in fact, often fluctuates between a preference to show more dramatic aptitude than tan—and vice versa: “Acting is my love, I’m concentrating on that. When nothing is going on, then modeling doesn’t hurt. I would do some shoots trying to build up my book. I met people who were doing bikini contests and print work. They hooked me up with agencies that do that kind of stuff, and that’s how I got started in modeling. I’ve done a bunch of bikini contests. I won a lot of them. You usually win cash and you’ll get a contract or something. For instance, one contest I did was for Roy Morales, who puts out a bunch of different calendars. Not only did I win a cash prize, but I won the chance to be featured in one of his calendars. I did a lingerie-type calendar. I’ve also done one about tools and construction working. I won a bikini contest where I also became the spokesperson for Better Bodies Fitness Gyms. I was also Miss Hot Skins Fitness and Miss Billboards. There’s always some thing like that going on.”
     “I think Playboy is very tastefully done, and it’s always been a dream of mine to be in the magazine. But, right now, I’m concentrating on my acting. I don’t have a problem with showing my body, but I would like to get more into the mainstream of acting. I haven’t done nude modeling, so Playboy would be my first.”
     She’s somehow unaffected by the competition. Let’s face it, there’s a zillion Glori Gold clones sunbathing on Venice Beach, five miles northwest of Hollywood. “My life consists of going to acting class, and constantly updating my pictures and resume,” nods Gold. “I have to keep up my looks with facials, manicures and having my hair done. I also have to be out developing new crafts. Next week, I start my training in kick boxing. The more you can do, the better off you are. It’s a lot of work. Everything is about going on auditions... twice a week if you’re with a good agency. It’s a hectic schedule but I like to be busy. I’ve been really bad and haven’t worked out for a while, but kick boxing should be a good workout. I’m pretty spontaneous and I find everything interesting.
     Though her stage experience is limited, Gold was cast as Lisa in the Open Fist Theatre production of A Boy’s Life. But “live theatre” hardly proved addictive. “I love film because it’s such a different experience,” Gold insists. “You can go to different places and create different characters. If it’s television, you do one character for a long time.
     “I can’t see myself doing anything else but being an actress. I’ve done several shows where I’ve been topless or have simulated love scenes. I don’t have a problem with that, but, at the same time, I don’t want to be typecast and not be able to do mainstream work. That’s extremely important to me. There definitely is a lot of competition—and it’s very tough. But if you believe in yourself and you have the tools then eventually everyone gets their chance. It’s what you do with that chance that either makes you or breaks you.” □