Being a former movie projectionist, I've been asked if I ever desired to be in front of the lens... at least, doing more than shadow puppets to appease theatergoers when the film broke. I've more than considered it. With my 6'4" height and pear-shape frame, I was usually typecast as a heavy and/or an eccentric in local dramatizations. Rotund ones are never the romantic lead nor the action hero... which is fine with me. Nude scenes would require a wide-angle lens and my nose does all my running.

My stints in amateur productions and on local television, most of which were never recorded, have, fortunately, been lost for all time. Regrettably, one such parody video resurfaced. In it, I played both a TV anchorman and a horny pervert in a Sperm Bank of America commercial. I also have the 'distinction' of being a former horror movie host at a local Ozark station. On my résumé is a nine month stint as a 'professional vampire'. It still gets me odd looks.

Although I have performed before lenses and done live comic skits, there was a twenty-six year gap between my treading the boards in school productions, something I initially swore I'd never do again. Twenty-six years between the times I acted before a general audience that contained my parents. Why? Well, that first acting job involved that infamous 'F' word. The one which causes the fainthearted to swoon and the strong to blush. That ghastly four-letter term considered the most obscene utterance in the English language. A word which altered my life forever.

Once upon a time, there was a Christmas pageant...

It was the late 1950's and no nine year old boy should be forced into being an elf. Girls, they didn't mind. Females like dress-up games. But boys? I didn't know words like 'homosexual' or 'queer' back then but I knew what 'uncool' was. I remember staring at my reflection in the full-length backstage mirror before dress rehearsal. Red tights which bagged around my toothpick legs. Green triangular jersey that, with the wide belt, gave me the appearance of having breasts. Red sagging conical hat with a gigantic jingle bell on the end that kept smacking me in the nose every time I moved. Green pointed slippers with smaller yet equally noisy bells. Whenever I walked, I sounded like an ice cream truck.

The final humiliation was the make-up. Pink cardboard pointy elf ears rubber-banded to my head. Hair daintily trimmed. Green eye shadow, pink rouge and fire engine-red lipstick so my features would stand out and be more 'attractive'. To this day, I have no idea whether I had a brush with pedophilia ("Such a pretty, pretty boy!") or an introductory lesson in becoming a drag queen.

I remember with abject horror how cute the teacher thought I was. Cute? Fierce, tough, savage, maybe... but cute? Boys are never supposed to be cute. At that moment, my first taste of pure paranoia gripped my soul. My parents and the elementary school system of Joplin, Missouri had conspired together to transform me into a horse's ass.

And they had done a mighty fine job, indeed.

My shame was shared by other male fourth-graders. One had an uncle who wore similar attire when he bought men drinks in bars. The uncle had also been known to wear stockings and eye make-up... but he wasn't playing an elf. We lads were too young to get drunk. So, like real men, we got out our BB guns and shot up little green army men. (They had it coming.)

As Christmas pageants go, that one was exceptionally lame. The Plot? One kid attired as Snidely Whiplash bounded onto the stage and cast an evil spell onto Santa Claus' Christmas tree at the North Pole. (Santa must have had a bad year. The tree was cardboard with green construction paper stapled to it. Yuletide road kill.) Touching the tree caused that person to stick to it. With limited space under O' Flattened Tannenbaum, if anyone touched an elf glued to the tree, he or she would adhere to that elf. Eventually, long chains of pre-pubescent red & green dorks ended up linked to that green cardboard monstrosity, all copping feels with each other on stage. (In rehearsal, I squeezed a girl where her breasts would one day be. I felt nothing until she stomped on my toe.) That travesty concluded when Santa made his entrance and shouted, "Merry Christmas!" The spell was broken and everyone was set free... except the villain. He was attracted to the tree like paper clips to a magnet. Once stuck there, he would scream in agony as if the Marquis de Sade was massaging his genitals with a cheese grater. The stupid horny elves would then have Happy Holidays while the mustached villain would suffer excruciating mindless tortures that would make Satan wince. Ozark Christian ethics at their finest.

I was one of the last elves to be thrown out onto the stage. My lines were, "Santa Claus is coming! Santa Claus is coming! Santa Claus is coming!" (It took me three weeks to memorize them.) I would then grab the nearest girl who wouldn't yell, "Rape," and hold on tight.

Hell, it was a speaking part.

Anyway, that's how it went in rehearsals.

Grade school theatrics leave a lot to be desired in the first place. What do eleven year olds know about King Lear? Oedipus Rex made us kids wonder if our Moms bought us BB guns so we would put our own eyes out. Does 'regression therapy' ring any bells?

As bad as those play selections were, our production was worse. We were to perform the Christmas fiasco at 3 P.M. in the gymnasium on the 'stage', a platform raised one foot higher than the basketball court. Usually, that's where the Band practiced. (The Band was two clarinetists, four trumpeters, seven drummers, five accordion players and twenty-three kids with their own triangles. There was more tinkling on that stage than in the bathrooms.) Every time the curtains were moved, clouds of choking dust billowed from them. The audience of seated disgusted parents and teachers had to endure this kiddie torment in wooden chairs designed for tots. In other words, their chins rested upon their knees. Could it get any worse?

As a matter of fact, yes.

The pageant was grinding along at a snail's pace when it was my turn to perform. I darted out onto the center of the stage, looked out at the audience... and froze in horror! Everyone was staring at me! I could see them strikingly clearly in the bright afternoon sunlight which flooded the gymnasium. All their eyes appeared to be gigantic saucers, five times their normal size. Unblinking lidless orbs as big as tennis balls watching my every move. My mouth went dry as the remainder of me became drippingly moist. I could hear myself breathe. Hear my heart pounding in my ears. Hear every blink of my eyelids. My childhood body was being painfully pierced by their hypnotic ogling. Numbness became all.

My lines were supposed to be, "Santa Claus is coming! Santa Claus is coming! Santa Claus is coming!" Instead... I said... at the top of my lungs, "OH, FUCK!!"

Time stopped.

How long I stood on that stage, I do not know. Never before nor since have I ever heard quiet like that. Nobody breathed or moved. From behind the curtain, the teacher's arm appeared, stretching out like a sea monster's tentacle. It grabbed me by the back of my collar and yanked me off stage, my dangling feet not touching the floor like an unstrung marionette. After that, I only remember pieces. Mental illness is like that.

The curtain cables squeaked closed. Santa never arrived. The villain never punished. Elves continued to fondle each other in forbidden places. My parents crawled out of the gym on their hands and knees. Yuletide theater was dead with a stake of holly through its heart. That grade school has never had a Christmas pageant since.

Later that evening, my father cornered me in the living room. "Where in the motherfucking hell did you learn such God damned shitty language? Jesus H. Christ!"

My mother calmly interrupted him with, "I think I see the problem here."

When I returned to school, the teachers wanted nothing to do with me. Little girls cried, "You wrecked the Christmas pageant," and ran away. Well, not all the little girls. My sister, who was in a grade behind me, slugged me for making her life a living hell. I did that a lot and, thus, she punched me continually. The biggest bully in the sixth-grade, however, came up to me, lightly tapped my shoulder with his fist and winked, "Cool." That was the first time I became a rebel by accident. It wouldn't be the last.

That should have killed any chances for me being in any school play ever again. I don't know what was written in my permanent record but it was enough to make my future drama teachers blanch. However, when I returned to Missouri Southern State College after a ten-year absence to complete my Fine Art degree, Dr. Duane Hunt asked me to be the borderline insane Indian medicine man in Johnny Moonbeam & The Silver Arrow. Typecasting... and a bit odd, considering I was an art major. I told him the woeful tale of the Christmas pageant and why I hadn't performed a straight role on stage since. The head of the MSSC theater department mischievously smiled, "I know the legend. That's why I picked you."

I did Johnny Moonbeam so successfully that the theater majors were stunned by this art student's relaxed composure. Even when a special effect went awry during one performance, I covered it with an appropriate ad-lib. The audience never knew it wasn't part of the play. I was cool. My father and sister were more relieved than I was when I pulled it off. My late mother would have been proud.

A childhood demon was finally slain... and Dr. Hunt had provided me with ample armor and a sword. Why? I'll never know his motivations but, as the years trudge on, I become increasingly grateful that he did.

How did I do it? Tell the Corrington Secrets to Acting? Let me think about that for a minute...

The courageous professor suggested that I should change my major to from art to theater but, hey, what's the future in that occupation? Acting is hard work. True, the dialogue is provided but the proper levels of emotions are not. Under emote and you're wooden. Over emote and you're a ham. Finding the proper yet ever changing balance is different for each character. So, instead, I got my B.A. in Fine Arts... and almost literally became a starving artist. Still, I doubt I could have succeeded as a professional actor. My temperament is eccentric at best.

I've portrayed a vampire, a pregnant man, an over-the-hill hippie, a gunfighter, a newscaster and a clown. I won an amateur acting award, the coveted Golden Toad, for sound effects for the Olympic Farting Competition and acting as a pervert. (I've learned to hide that painted plaster froggy so guests don't use it to pry out my thespian 'successes.') I've even once been in drag... but never will I forget being drafted into playing an underage transvestite elf. Some sins can never be forgiven.

Still, though, I sometimes wonder if I couldn't have been a damned good fourth-level actor. That's movie projectionist lingo.

• A first-level actor is one with his or her name above the film's titles, like Arnold Schwarzenegger in True Lies or John Wayne in True Grit.

• A second-level actor's name appears below the film's title. In the end credits, their characters have entire names such as 'Bill Williams' or 'Lt. Jack Anderson'.

• A third-level actor's ending character's credits usually consists of only part of a name, like 'Bob' or 'Mr. Wilson'. Sometimes the actors are listed in the beginning of the movie, sometimes not.

• Fourth-level actors are lucky if they are listed in the ending credits. Their characters doesn't have names. They are listed as 'Woman With Crying Baby' or 'Thug #3'. Their lines are usually just one line... if that. Sometimes all they utter is a single word or a bloodcurdling scream.

One line of dialogue? That, I could handle.

The Corrington Secrets to Acting? Oh, all right. If you insist...

• First, without my glasses, I can't see the damn audience or camera. I might as well be playing to a black curtain that periodically applauds or burps. How can I be afraid of something I cannot see?

• Second, no matter what goes wrong, it will never be more traumatic than that Christmas pageant. I have no place else to go but up.