Quinn Cummings was nominated for an Oscar for her role in The Goodbye Girl and then floated around Hollywood in a few other roles before she and Hollywood took a permanent break from one another.
“I cannot say that being a child actor was detrimental to me, but I could have done without being a former child actor. To be a child is a temporary condition. To be a former child actor is a permanent state.”
She touches base on when she was acting and what she did post acting (she attempted screen writing and being an agent) but she mostly talks about her family. She has a young daughter with her life partner (who she refers to as Consort, though wikipedia outs him as Don DiPietro) and they have a life full of pets and summer camp.
Quinn and I have very different lives, besides the former child acting thing- I’m childless, so not all of her stories connected with me personally. Her writing style is also a little bit schizophrenic which makes some of the essays a bit convoluted.
Don’t finish this book before bed- there is a sad dog story as the second to last essay and if you’re a crazy person like me that will upset you for about an hour.