Advice to Strangers

A 'disaster' of a boyfriend, a mother who had committed suicide when Lola was just a girl, a father who, back in Boston, defended corporate criminals, and who believed money was love, in fact better than love---how could Lola ever hope to give advice to others about love, life and relationships? She tugged at the Wal-Mart, faux diamond bracelet that Richard had given her, as she worried herself into a mood as empty and abandoned as a junkyard refrigerator. Who did she think she was, writing an advice column at LA 29? She felt like an impostor.


Of course, Lola's failures, her 'train wrecks' and imperfections were not really the professional liabilities that she feared they were. On the contrary, these were the very things that perfectly prepared Lola to give advice to strangers, the very qualities that made her an actress that could reach the emotional depths that, sadly, Hollywood rarely needed.