Cold case, Part One

            I did one day of Cold Case, January 13, 2006, the same week I did Rocky Balboa. I had gotten the call to work on it while I was sick in bed. Needing the work, I said sure and made my way into Philly the next day, armed with my usual array of costume changes and props. Nicole Agostino was our PA that day, and while this was not the first time I’d worked with her (I can’t remember the first time, though it may have been on Invincible), it was the first time I had heard her name. I’ve been trying to learn the names of the people I work with, and Nicole was the first one I’d actually memorized.  I’ve gotten better at it, but it is a skill that needs work. I tend to remember details about a person’s life rather than their name. It is kind of nice to be rattling off the names of several people when I walk into holding, and they seem to appreciate that I’ve tried to learn their names.

            Cold Case is set in Philly but shot in LA. In order for the series to get that local flavor they come in a couple times a year and shoot the exterior scenes for several episodes at once. This day was no different. That day we first did a street scene in Philly while Thom Barry and Tracie Thoms were talking to each other. I got to work a lot on that one. Dressed in my three-piece and London Fog raincoat and carrying a briefcase, I looked very much like a businessperson on his way to somewhere important. The PAs liked that look a lot, because they kept pulling me to walk from different spots. So much so that at one point I could hear them say over the walkies, “We’ve SEEN him already!” I remember there being a couple of street musicians on set, but I don’t think they were part of the hired crew.  I remember being able to hear the guitar player across the street but not hearing the horn player close to me. Ukee Washington from KYW-3, the CBS affiliate, showed up and was hanging out with Thom after his scenes were wrapped and Thom had changed clothes.

            From there we drove over to the suburbs in Germantown to shoot a scene where Jeremy Ratchford and Danny Pino are heading to a house to interview someone. Since my car was what they needed me for, I didn’t think to wear clothes that weren’t fit for being in background myself. When I got there it turns out that they wanted me to be walking in the neighborhood, but everything else that I had would not work for the scene, and they sure didn’t want to see the guy that they just left in Philly. I wound up sitting in a car with Michael W. Jones and a woman whose name I can’t remember, watching as a background guy named Marvin drove his car through the scene. A few takes and we were sent home.

Now at this point I didn’t know where the hell I was, but one of the crew gave me directions on how to get out of there. It turns out that we had been shooting right near The Stagecrafters, a theatre group whose shows I’ve seen several times. Doris Lange, a woman I’d dated for a while, was involved with them and I knew the theater well. I also knew that they had an ice cream shop next door to the theatre and I really could’ve used a cone right then and there. Unfortunately the shop was only open seasonally, and this was not the season. I drove home disappointed, but at least I knew where I was at that point and could safely get back to bed and shake off this cold.