Melani is the Message

Maybe you'll recall this scene from countless movie musicals of an era long before Alexander Haig, nuclear reactors or even I Love Lucy. An earnest, struggling starlet is making ends meet by running an elevator in a posh office complex when she hears that her favorite star--a sexy young male singer--is about to show up for his manager's birthday party. Can the starlet ditch her post long enough to meet her idol? What will happen if she bursts into song? And what will they think of the silly Phillip Morris bellboy uniform she's wearing? Sound familiar? Adjust your timing to 1981 and you have the true-life saga of Melani Martin, a bubbly young showbiz hopeful who used to run an elevator at the Berwin Entertainment Complex in Hollywood. Her life, at that time, consisted of classes--lots of them. There were acting classes, singing classes, dancing classes, all taken with one goal in mind: stardom, a classic celluloid fantasy of a young woman tap-dancing her way onto the silver screen.

And the star? He's David Lee Roth, lead singer of Van Halen and the only rook star to have announced he's carrying paternity insurance. "I (text concluded on page 192)Melani(continued from page 110) just had to see David Lee Roth," recalls Melani. "So I took the music to Music! Music! Music! and constructed a three-verse song about his manager," She got a friend to cover for her and, wearing the Philip Morris bellboy outfit given to all the elevator operators, barged into the party on the seventh floor, tap-dancing madly and singing at the top of her lungs. Although Roth wasn't there--and never did show up--her act was a success. The roomful of showbiz professionals gave her a rousing ovation, someone slipped her a S20 tip and Melani realized that she had stumbled across the one thing she'd been looking for--a way to get her foot in the doors of numerous producers and casting agents and have them take notice, even involuntarily, of her talents.

At that moment, Merry Melani's Singing Telegram service was born, a company with two important objectives--to make money and to get Melani discovered.

"I went to Paul Aratow, the producer of Sheena [an upcoming film], one day and started to sing," explains Melani. "He said, 'We didn't order a singing telegram,' and I said, 'I know, but I just heard you were casting for Sheena.' He loved it." Other producers, agents and directors, including Hugh Hefner, found themselves facing the same treatment--an unsolicited singing telegram. Her costumes varied--once she wore a gorilla suit and tap-danced on roller skates--but the songs were almost always customized Broadway tunes. For Hef, she spruced up an old stand-by into A Contract Is a Girl's Best Friend.

So far, Melani's energetic persistence has led to a few bit parts and walk-ons in such forgettable works as The Jayne Mansfield Story and Roller Boogie, but not the big break she has been hoping for Her energy is undiminished.

At 19, Melani's been flirting with show business for 12 years, long enough to know its pitfalls. Her first performance, at the age of seven, was with the street performers in San Francisco's Union Square. Her mother let her watch for hours and finally allowed her to take part. Melani would mimic the steps of the tap dancer, her first lessons in dance.

Those lessons became formalized a year later when Melani and her widowed mother moved south to Santa Monica. To hear her tell it. her life resembled a sketch from A Chorus Line, with classes becoming a refuge from an unhappy home life. "As long as I could get to my dance class, I knew I had a goal," she recalls.

That goal became all-consuming, driving an even wider wedge between Melani and her mother. She studied at Danny Daniels' Dance America and was told by her teacher that if she could learn to tap-dance while jumping rope, he could get her a job touring with a revue. "I locked myself in a room with a jump rope and didn't come out for days." she claims. With that, at the age of 16, she left home for good, setting her sights on stardom. She got close to her goal the next year with a gig as a showgirl in Las Vegas--until the fateful day that the hotel learned she was underage. "You've never seen a more upset manager put a frightened little girl on a plane so fast in your life," she says.

When the plane landed in L.A., she was alone, with no family and no job. "All my illusions about show business were shattered." she says, and she found herself back where her dream had begun, with street performers, this time in Westwood, a lively community near UCLA that houses more than a dozen first-run movie theaters. Friday and Saturday nights turn Westwood into a miniature Manhattan; throngs of moviegoers and college students fill the side walks, making it the perfect stage for mimes, jugglers, would-be singers and even fire-eaters.

"I'd get there early, put down my hat and start singing. I know more than 100 top Broadway tunes, so the show never got dull." she explains. "In four hours, I could make S60."

When a chance to get into the Tracy Roberts Actors Workshop came up, Melani had to forsake Westwood for night classes and she began working a series of odd jobs to pay her tuition. She worked as a housekeeper and sales-person before landing the elevator job at Berwin, a post she kept for a year while she sang her singing telegrams and waited patiently for her one big break. Although that's yet to happen, at least some of Melani's persistence has paid off. She finally met David Lee Roth when he boarded her elevator to take a ride up to his manager's office. "When I saw him, I clammed right up." she reports, "I bet if I got to know him, I wouldn't even like him."

"Someone slipped her a $20 tip and Melani realized she'd stumbled across what she'd been looking for."