So grateful to talk with you! You’re up to some exciting things, tell us about it.

I've been an actress in Los Angeles for almost 35 years. Over the past year-and-a-half, I've gotten into audiobook narration. Before that, I had my own marketing company, but I've always been out here in Los Angeles pursuing acting since 1992.

Wow, that's awesome. And what are some things we might have seen you in?

Earlier in my career, I had a ton of small parts on soap operas. I've done independent films. I've done stuff on stage and TV.

Exciting. I'll definitely be looking out for that. And what about the narration? Tell me about that. What does that involve?

I got into narration right after the lockdown and with the Screen Actors Guild strike, there wasn't any work, so I just thought I really wanted to be creative and keep those creative juices going. I started taking some coaching on how to do audiobook narration and now I have a home studio. And yeah, I'm currently working on a cozy mystery, so that's super fun. And I did a couple paranormal romances as well as a couple of sports romances so it's been wonderful.

Interesting. How different or similar is that from acting?

You know, I'm grateful that I have the acting part down, but I did need to learn how to act from an intimate perspective to the microphone, which is very different than for a camera or when you're on stage. I've been learning how to do that, so it's a little bit different in that respect.

Being an actress in LA, I can only imagine how Image-conscious it is when everyone's eyes are on you. How did you in the midst of this career decide to grow out your gray hair?

I was tired of living my life around covering my roots. I was tired of saying, “Oh my gosh, I have an audition. I've got to cover my roots,” or “I'm going to this event next week, so when should I plan on covering my roots?” And if something came up, like a last-minute audition, I'd have to use the spray or the powder. I felt I was living to cover my roots. It was on my mind 24/7, when I walked out the door, when I went to the store. If it was hot and I pulled up my hair, you could see my roots. I just felt like I don't want to do this anymore. 

So I contacted my manager and I said, “Hey, let me throw something by you. I'm thinking about growing out my gray hair? How will that impact my career?” I’m 59, but I was 56 at the time and auditioning, but with my darker hair, I appeared a little bit younger. So I was auditioning for younger roles… women in their mid-to-late 40s, early 50s. She said the only thing is it might jump you up a little bit and I told her I was okay with that. I'm not trying to pretend to be something else, but then I started thinking… 56-year-old women don't need to only play grandmas. And I thought, I want to be part of the change in that mindset. I want to show people that just because you grow out your gray hair doesn't mean that you are giving up or that you are old and should be crocheting in a corner, not that there's anything wrong with crocheting.

No hate to crocheting…

No, no, none at all. It’s just that stereotype, and that we are vibrant and we have so much to give this world and I just wanted to be a part of the change and so I grew my gray hair out and I just recently got my new headshots that include my gray hair and I'm ready to go.

And so have you had any one cast you yet with your new look?

Yes, I'm currently shooting a TV pilot presentation called Hometown.

That’s exciting! The work is still coming even though you've made this transition…

Things are slow in Hollywood right now for actors but yes. And I also think that people need to start seeing me differently because people who know me from before are now seeing the new me and I am thrilled about that. And my reps, they love it. As a matter of fact, my agent has grown out her gray hair and she said, “You inspired me to do this.” I mean, how much do we love that when we Inspire other women? That’s what it’s all about. 

That’s really cool. What method did you use to grow out?

When I spoke with my manager, she said, “Yes go for it, but you have to look like your head shots,” and the problem is my head shots are brunette. And I thought, how am I going to do this? Headshots are super expensive, and I wasn't going to get headshots with just a tiny bit of grow-out. I would need to get new headshots all the time during the process. So I thought, how am I gonna do this? I researched and came across something called the “dye strip technique” and I was like, this is perfect for me. 

If you don't know the dye strip technique, it’s when you take just the amount of hair along your part, just a small bit upon your part and you dye that part and I had it done with semi-permanent color. When you lay the hair down, it covers everything else, so it's all growing out underneath the strip. When I had an audition or a meeting or whatever, I just parted my hair where a strip was and it covered all of my grow-out underneath, but if I pulled my hair up or parted it on the other side, you could see all the grow-out underneath, so it worked for me. That's the way I did it because of the industry that I was in and what I had to do, so it worked out great. I would just get the strip touched up whenever the normal time would be to dye my whole head.

You're the first person I've ever actually spoken to who did the strip method. It seems like an ideal compromise in many ways.

It was good, too, because when I was having doubts about am I really gonna do this? I was able to cover the gray and have a day where I didn't have to see it. I was like, I don't have to look at it today, and then other days, I would just flip my part to the other side and show it all because I was like, today I'm showing it all, today I feel good. So it was really great for me. And I think I did the strip method for about seven months of grow-out. And then I wanted to get new headshots so I had it gray-blended — it was right by my ears by this time so from there down.

I loved getting it blended, but the only problem for me was that the toner didn't stay in my hair and so it washed out and looked yellow. I went back to the hairdresser and she said we can lift that again and I thought no, it felt damaged to me after the first time lifting it so much and I don't want to do that again. I don't want to lift it anymore. I'm taking care of it. I'm keeping it healthy. So I've been kind of just dealing with that. It's almost all cut out now, but I didn't touch it after that. 

I had a toner done the day before my headshots, so it looked all fresh and vibrant. 

So you basically have to grow out the strip.

Once it was grown out enough and I was no longer doing the strip, I just flipped the part to the other side. So then the strip grew out underneath the rest of the hair instead of the gray hair going out. 

Did you ever have any situations where people wanted you to put your hair up for a role or was it totally fine with the strip?

No, because I wear my hair down. That's a really good question, though, but I didn't come across that luckily enough. I didn't have a point where somebody said they wanted me to put my hair up. I did have one audition after I'd stopped with the strip, and funny enough, I had to be brunette because I hadn't gotten my new pictures taken yet, and they wanted to see this brunette. So I took out the spray and I sprayed my whole head, and I went downstairs and my entire family was there and I was kidding around and said, “Hey, remember me?” because I was brunette, and my entire family was like, “No Mom. Please don't ever dye your hair again.” Yeah, they loved it. They’re like, don't do that anymore, your gray hair is beautiful. 

That's great that they're really supportive. Sometimes you hear about people’s kids not liking it…

Yeah. Yeah, no, my kids are great about it. They have always been great about it. 

That's so good to hear. Now you’re through it, but what were your feelings or emotions as you went through this? Or did you just decide, okay, I'm gonna do it? What were your emotions?

I thought about it for a long time before doing it because as I said earlier, I couldn't take the maintenance anymore. It was a lot and I finally decided one day I was going to do it and once I got the okay from my manager, I was like, man, I'm gonna do this. I think I went through all the emotions that most of us probably do. Days, like, what am I doing? Am I going to like this? Am I gonna hate this? What are people gonna say? How am I going to be judged? Sometimes I'd walk by the mirror and I’d say I don't even know who that is. I can't look at that person right now today, and I think we all go through those times of being unsure, but I promised myself that I was going to do it for at least six months and if I didn't like it, I could always color it. It's not a forever sentence. Then once I got to the six months, if I had a bad day, I'd say, “I didn't come this far to give up now. I'm seeing this through.” 

This was a lot of hard work, but one thing that I think surprised me the most was how much I grew as a person. How I became a little bit thick-skinned about other people's opinions of gray hair. I got defensive for women who wanted to grow out their gray hair. I understood, and I didn't understand the judgment and I got so strong through this process as a woman in her 50s, as an actor. It's a blessing. I wouldn't change it for anything. It was the biggest growth I've had, I think, ever in myself and I'm really proud to have gotten to that place.

How old were you when you started dying your hair? Were you gray in your 20s? 

My 20s.

Wow, so you colored it for a long time… 

I want to show young women out there today that it's just a hair color. It should not have a stigma to it. It is just a hair color. It happens to all of us and it's okay and it's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing. 

What have been your biggest surprises?

The fact that I love it. The confidence it has given me. And the other women who I've inspired. I have women come up to me all the time and say, “My goodness, I love your hair. How did you do it? I'm not strong enough to do it. I don't think I could ever do it…” I love talking to women about it. I spoke to the receptionist at my doctor's office about it one time. She said, “Can you talk to me about growing out my gray hair?” I said, yes, let's talk about it because it should be okay. Again I don't like the stigma it puts on women because men don't have that stigma. Men are silver foxes and men are distinguished and men are so handsome, but women can't do that and I understand why that exists, but I think we need to change that. And by the way, I think men are handsome with their gray hair and I also think women are beautiful with their gray hair.

I think so too. It’s very interesting. There are a lot of women at different ages with gray hair — we just don’t see it. It’s hidden under hair dye. Any advice for women in your industry considering this approach?

It can be challenging. I wish more women would do it because it needs to change as a society and it needs to change in films. I love when I see a film with a strong female character who has gray hair and she's not perceived as old and weak and tired. She's kicking butt and I love that. I want to see more of that. I want it to come to a place where it's not even a thing. It's just this woman's a brunette. This woman's a redhead. This woman's a blonde. This woman has gray hair. I want it to be a non-issue.

Yeah, I feel like at least now, you do see women with gray hair, sometimes they're in their 70s or 80s. And Jane Fonda… it's okay for an 80 year old to have gray hair. And I hope the age bracket will move down.

I agree. I think a lot of the fear is being judged because we've all had the comments on our posts. You look old. It's aged you 10 years. I'll never forget when I first started growing out my gray hair, somebody left me a comment and said, “My God, you're gonna look 50.” My response to that comment was, “I'm going to be 55 in July…” I’m long past 50.

I would like the stigma to change. I think a lot of women are afraid of the negativity that comes with it, and it does, but we're changing it by putting ourselves out there. Some people are never going to change their minds. I think some women are just so afraid of the negativity that may come with it and they just aren’t going to do it. It is such a personal choice. If someone wants to dye their hair, please do that, and we support you. But that needs to come back around — we're not going to dye our hair, so support us, too. 

There's definitely that cohort of people who are very much like I'm gonna be buried in my coffin with dyed air and that's fine, that's fine.

It's definitely not for everyone. but it was right for me and it's right for a lot of other women, and I love seeing everybody's beautiful faces and everybody's posts and I've recently started seeing new silver sisters. I'm starting to see them on tiktok. And I love supporting them like, my gosh, yay! It's so good, and let me know if you need anything! I’m here for you. I’m here to support you on your journey.

What else can I tell you? I just think it's really important what you're doing and there are women of all ages growing out their gray hair. It is not an old-lady thing. There are women I see on TikTok in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s who are all growing out their gray hair and I hope to change the perception that gray hair equals old because it doesn’t.

I want my daughter when she's old enough to not even think about it. If she wants to dye her hair because she wants to, that's great. I don't want her to feel any pressure that she has to. It's a choice. A personal choice. Every woman should have the right to make that choice for whatever is best for them. No judgment anywhere about anything.

I love that vision. And I hope that vision comes to fruition.