LADDERS

Making it ... in show biz, in dance, in theater, is ... it's pulling yourself up on a rope.

NO. It's tougher. It's making the rope -- tying Mom's sheets together, throwing the sheet rope out the window, hoping the cloth will hold ...

NO. It's harder, trickier, more dangerous. Making it is climbing a ladder. The ladder is there. Other guys climbed it and made it. Wonderful men in history, as well as men with their faces on coins, and those ancient men with their outlines chiseled into cave walls ...

You can find the ladders. You can get there. But you have to make your own rungs -- climb, put your weight on the bottom rung, hold onto the side posts, and pull yourself up to the next rung.

Today, over and over we're hearing what Michael J. did. And Farrah F. This post was written a week ago, about us, not super-stars.

JC has done it. His name is in books. When he's gone a younger generation will remember him. And when they're gone, his name will be in their books that will be looked at by the even younger, un-born coming generation.

But he isn't a film star.

The film stars we grew up with don't die. Movies -- wow --once you are chosen, hired to make one, you're on a rung that is definitely off the ground, that enables you to reach for the next one, pull yourself up and step up on it, and reach for the next.

(The next and the next ... that's like the guy who wrote the book about me ("Encore"), writing "and then she did this.. and then she did that." . The thing that's never explained on the book, the thing to write about is the hell of transitioning. Methinks all this ladder stuff is because I'm worried about JC and JD, my two guys, in transition ...

JC's at the top of the ladder. But now that the show he's in, "August: Osage County" is closing next week, what's the next step, where's the next rung?

Job ending makes most actors wonder, "Am I ever going to work again?" (And feel like a guy on the ground taking his first step.)

JC has to figure out what to do with his time, his schedule, his daily routine and then... there'll be an offer, a rung. And JD, on a middle rung that was crazy, blood, sweat and tears difficult to get to, is on the same path as his Dad.

Me, wife and Mom, safe in front of the computer where I'm the boss, with my fingers and brain having plenty to do, can only say don't worry guys. It's the biz. You've been here before. You're working actors and the next step, and the next is moving each of us, each in his own way.