Backstreet Mom: A Mother's Tale of Backstreet Boy AJ McLean's Rise to Fame, Struggle With Addiction, and Ultimate Triumph (9 page)

When the press kits were done, the phone work began. One of my
very first calls was to the Mickey Mouse Club casting director who had
originally suggested that we move to Orlando. He gave me the names of
several people who would be able to help Alex break into television and
other commercial areas of the industry.

The next order of business was to find a talent agent to represent my
son. I searched the phonebook and combined my findings with the list
I had gotten from the casting director. I sent out several media kits and
resumes that first month. The responses came in quickly, but I had to
check each one out and that took time.

Finding Edna Byers was one of the most positive things that happened when we first moved to town. Edna had a great rapport with all
the casting agents for film and television in the state. She helped put
Alex's resume in front of everyone who mattered. Right from the start I
could tell that Edna was a very hard worker. During our first "get-toknow-you" meeting, she was on the phone nonstop talking to casting
companies. She was impressed with Alex and felt confident that she
could find him work.

Alex and I both had a good feeling about Edna, so we signed a nonexclusive agreement that gave her the standard ten-percent commission
on any work she procured for my son. Edna put Alex on track with a career plan for movies and commercials. She sent him on casting calls
and auditions for a couple of years. We owe our ongoing relationships
with Disney and Nickelodeon to the fact that Edna got us in the door.

Alex soon found work in all the major theme parks. He filmed a travel video for Disney that required him to ride a roller coaster. He was
scared to death, but made it through with only one or two "Oh, sh-t's!"
that had to be edited out. It was actually pretty funny to watch, because
you could see the white knuckles as he clenched the lap bar. Even so,
Alex kept his cool throughout.

Alex met the first love of his life during that filming. Stephanie was
the director's niece and she was a cute, brown-haired teen who looked
younger than her age. They were both thirteen when they met. At the
time, her parents were going through a divorce and she talked to Alex
night after night about that. He thought he could help since he had
grown up in a household of divorce, but we had been a mom-and-son
team for so long that he really did not know any other life.

Since she was in Florida only to visit her uncle during the summer,
their friendship got costly when she returned home, since they spoke
often on the telephone. The relationship went along pretty smoothly for a
while. Stephanie came to Orlando on weekends and holidays to visit Alex.
Those trips were probably good for her since they enabled her to get away
from the stress associated with her parents' divorce, but I began to realize
something was not right with the situation when Alex confided in me
about their conversations, which sometimes ended in fights.

At that point I stepped in and told her uncle that Stephanie and Alex
were having problems. Alex has always avoided conflict whenever possible, so he really didn't know how to deal with the situation. After a
while they did not speak at all.

ONE OF ALEX'S MOST FAVORITE ROLES came his way about four months
after our arrival in Orlando. He landed a supporting part in a new sitcom
that Nickelodeon was producing called Hi Honey I'm Horne. It was a spoof
with a fifties theme about a modern-day single mom with a couple of kids
who move next door to a family that appears to live back in the blackand-white television era.

As the younger brother of the lead son, Alex's character was called
"Skunk." He had to have a rat-tail hairpiece put in, as well as a blond
streak that ran down the middle of his head. At the time, Alex was attending a Baptist middle school. Needless to say, a rat-tail and yellow
stripe down the middle of his head was not part of the dress code. I had to get special permission from the headmaster for him to keep his hair that way.

Alex loved being an entertainer, but he often had to put up with a lot of ridicule from
his schoolmates. The new hairdo did not help.
One day, my mom, Alex and I were at the mall
near where they were shooting the pilot, when
some teenagers walked past us and made some
really nasty comments about the way Alex
looked.

Mom took off after those boys like a bat
out of hell and gave them a major talking to.
She was so enthusiastic that I was afraid the
teens were going to call security. As I pulled
her back, she told Alex not to be bothered by them since they were all
just a bunch of losers.

It took a few weeks to rehearse and finally film the pilot. Alex had
fun with his rebellious character. Between his outlandish hair and his
tooling around the set on his skateboard, he was hilarious. The director,
cast and crew were pleased
with his performance,
which made Alex beam
with pride. He eagerly
looked forward to continuing his work with those
same people on the series.
We thought it might be the
big break we were looking
for.

In full "Skunk" regalia

When we learned that
ABC Television had picked
the series up for one season,
we nearly jumped out of
our skins. A wrap party was
held at the studio a few days
later. It was a blast. We expected to get the details that
night of how filming would proceed. Alex and 1 were so excited I think we would have boarded a
plane right then.

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Alex with "Skunk" hairdo

Nothing was said that night about the plans. The next day, the phone
rang with devastating news. We were told that Alex had been replaced
by the producer's nephew. Alex had worked hard and had put up with
so much. The teasing in school. His friends' jealousy. He was so hopeful
that his big break had come.

I did my best to explain the realities of show business. I think he
grasped some of what I was saying, but it was still hard for him to understand. After all, when you put your heart and soul into something, it
hurts when you get smacked in the face. I think he would have accepted
the decision better if they had told him he was not right for the part or
that he was too old. It just seemed very unfair. Curiously, it all turned
out for the best. When the series finally aired, it was a flop. If we had left
Florida at that point, Alex's true destiny would have been lost forever.

Although it seemed a big setback at the time, another opportunity
quickly presented itself. I read an ad in the local trade paper about another pilot being produced in Orlando. This one was for a news show
that targeted children. They were looking for animated young people
around Alex's age to be the show's anchor team. The great coincidence
was that the writer/producer, a man named J. Michael Hicks, was also
looking for an office manager.

It turned into a two-for-one deal for Alex and me. He got the part he
auditioned for and I got the job of office manager. I thought that would
give me an inside track on learning what it took to produce a television
show. He could only pay me a small salary, but he was willing to give
Alex singing lessons for free.

Soon it became clear that J. Michael needed much more than my
office skills to stay afloat. He was running out of money for the pilot.
After some thought, I agreed to take stock options in the company instead of a salary. It was not a hardship for me since I still had some
money saved. It was enough to enable him to complete the project.

Over the next several months, I learned an enormous amount about
television production, script writing and fund-raising. We worked for
hours refining every episode into the mirror image of a network newscast. I was proud of what we had accomplished and excited at the prospect of being a major contributor to a hit television show.

Once all of the episodes were written, we started looking for our
actors. We auditioned candidates from local agents and found what
seemed to be the perfect mix. We had Alex, the animated funnyman
with energy to spare. Jennifer Pena was a beautiful, petite, young lady with an olive-toned complexion and piercing dark eyes. Jennifer's father
was understandably protective of his daughter, but he still encouraged
her to develop her talents. Tommy Cariera was the son of a local couple
who owned two successful Italian restaurants in the area. He had darkbrown hair and eyes, a dazzling smile and a great sense of humor. Amber Benson (later of Buffy fame) was a statuesque beauty with stunning
eyes and long, lustrous, blonde locks. Finally, the youngest was Rachael
Stump, who had a fabulous singing voice and elfish charm.

The kids worked as a team from the start. It was nice for Alex to
finally have some kids in the industry that he could really relate to. He
and Amber had the most experience when it came to acting. They took
the majority of the speaking parts and assumed the roles of the anchors.
The other kids aptly played the parts of field reporters who contributed
their stories throughout each episode.

It was also a nice change for me. I had finally come across some parents who looked at the business in the same way that I did. All of us had
a skeptical eye. We watched out for each other and for our children.

The cast of the children's news show pilot, including a young Amber Benson