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IS A BLUR OF MEETINGS, CALLS, TRAFFIC, PHOTOS, KLIEG LIGHTS, AND MORE. THROUGH IT ALL, THE SMILE MARCHES ON... This looks easy. She is just gliding through it, as if this were some kind of dream, an impossible fantasy. But it�s all true, another unlikely chapter in the young life of Kim Smith has now delivered her to this big, flashy house, overlooking the Hollywood Freeway. She smiles, she laughs, she pouts on command, but mostly she�s quiet, uncomplaining, as she�s slowly transformed into a Seventies disco queen, dressed up in a series of colorful, revealing outfits that are fabulous and unreal. Fabulous? Yes, it is a look, a stare, a presence that�s been proven to sell blue jeans and magazines by the millions, even if the outfit is utterly wrong for that American history class back home in West Texas. The contrast hardly seems to faze her at all. Kim Smith is a fashion model, so she�s accustomed to all the people now swarming around her, the photographer, the stylist, the hair and makeup artists, the assistants, the agent, the magazine editors, the publisher, the video crew, capturing her every twist and turn. The camera is always kind. That isn�t why this young Texas girl has been spending more and more time in Los Angeles. The ultimate manifestation of everything that can and will be �Kim Smith!� is not contained in this house built at the tail end of the Seventies boogie fever, with its plush space age d�cor, all mirrors and rounded corners, the vintage hi-fi loaded with cassettes pumping out disco and pop for a mellow mood. Her destiny is bigger than that, and it can be summer up in three simple words: model-turned-actress. Which is why this afternoon she will be on a Burbank soundstage, dressed again as a sexy young thing, starring in her second music video for that boy band of the moment, �N Sync. This is more difficult that it sound. Successful fashion models have frequently attempted to cross over into film and television, and most have failed. The pressures and expectations are different. Talent helps. One must emote, after all. Young Kim Smith understands. So it was with some nervousness that she arrived for her very first script reading for a possible film role last March. She was expecting a camera. At least that would have been comforting. All morning, she suffered quietly, riding to her various appointments in L.A. with a script in her lap, reading and re-reading the same scene from a film to be titled Getting Over Allison. And when Smith finally arrived, there was no video camera, just a pair of bright lights, two mail crates filled with photos of rejected actors, and two casting directors eyeballing her every move. All smiles. And Smith looked good, composed, chatting pleasantly under the lights. Rather that the lead role, she actually suggested that she read for the smaller part of Kelly, the nice girl. The casting directors agreed. So Kim read twice, the first time quietly, the second time with attitude. The scene in question was emotional, dramatic, and ended in an argument between two teenagers, punctuated with a good, solid �Fuck you!� The she finished, and there were no hugs or applause. This wasn�t a fashion shoot. Just a nice handshake and some quick goodbyes. It was over in 10 minutes. She is just 17, a small-town girl, out there in West Texas. It�s not exactly The Last Picture Show, but think flatlands, tumbleweeds, oil pumps for miles, a place where the high school football team is damn important. Kim Smith is a junior in high school, a member of the golf team. She�s no cheerleader, but enjoys a strange kind of celebrity just the same. It�s the kind of fame that�s rare out that way, unless you�re George W. Bush going bust in the oil business. Now she has a website that tracks every step of her career (nearly 120,000 hits so far on kimsmithmodel.com). In her town of barely 95,000, young Kim Smith becoming a supermodel is big news. This whole career has come about without plans or warning. Barely two years ago, Kim accompanied a fried who was hoping to be discovered at a statewide model search. Kim was discovered instead, plucked right out of the crowd, introduced to dozens of would-be modeling agents who saw great possibility in her. It wasn�t something she�d ever imagined for herself. She�d wanted to be an architect or an interior designer. Now she was being transformed into the latest �Guess? Girl,� a dark-haired, statuesque object of desire on an endless series of magazine covers. Lingerie makers Victoria�s Secret is now watching the clock, waiting for the moment she turns 18. Her parents approved, but not without some concern. This was their little girl being paraded in front of a crowd of strangers no one in their right mind would trust. Her daddy had heard the stories, the young girls left alone in the big city, turned into casualties of fast living, or worse. Sex, drugs, all of it. So he had a long talk with fellow Texan Ty Kilinc, who was hoping to work with his daughter. �I don�t want my daughter to be hurt. You�ve got to promise me that never happens.� Kilinc gets choked up about it even today. And so he promised to protect young Kim from all those dark corners, or what he likes to call �the scum of the business.� That explains the dual existence of Kim Smith today. She hasn�t quit school, hasn�t packed up for the big move to Manhattan. She remains just another high school student, but one with and unbelievable hobby. It hasn�t come without a price. Her career has out a bizarre twist on her school life at home, exacerbating the already intense social dynamic of high school. For the first time perhaps, she has enemies. �Some people really like me, some people don�t,� she says. �I don�t let it bother me. I�m used to it.� Her 19-year-old brother is more protective than ever. So she�s safe for now. And she�s got big plans. With her growing fame, impossible dreams now seem very possible, like the fantasy of becoming a film actress. She�s had the same movie dreams as many other young girls, but it wasn�t until her success as the �Guess? Girl,� and the phone calls that began flooding Kilinc�s office, that she began to seriously consider such a career. The possibilities are floating right there in front of her, maybe a role in the new Jesse James movie, a guest part on a popular teen soap opera, perhaps her own weekly TV show with Kim herself as the host, � la House if Style. But the reality is never as glamorous as the fantasy. It�s work. Her fame as a model and pin-up opens many doors. She gets private meetings � no cattle calls. And she absorbs the attention and expectations and inevitable pressures with a cheerfulness that makes no sense at all. Kim is talking to producers and directors and casting agents, and she isn�t even a member of the drama club back home. Her life has taken on a momentum of its own. Fame feeds on itself. So you will not find her waiting tables en route to her big break. You will not find her standing by the gate of the Warner Bros. Studios holding a sign reading: �Will Act For Food.� Her shot at Hollywood stardom will be aided by the current trend toward romantic teen movies, comedic melodramas with which Smith can identify. Age is not a factor. It is the way of things now. Sixteen-year-old guitar heroes. Fourteen-year-old Internet moguls. Seventeen-year-old supermodels on the verge of something else, something big, maybe too big. But nothing is guaranteed. During her visit to the big city, Kim Smith wasn�t the bikini bombshell posing on rocks, in the water, at then beach. She was another actress looking for a gig. |
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