Plain Jayne

I had been in the entertainment business for eight years at that point, and I was completely aware that auditions were very unpredictable. It could be a long, drawn-out showcase where you would really get a chance to make your mark, or it could be a total bust: “Hi. I’m Jayne Kennedy.” And they’d say, “Thank you very much.” Wham-bam, thank-you-ma’am, and you’re out the door.

It just so happened that Don King and Caesars Palace were throwing the International Sportsman Ball on June 8, 1978, the day before the Ken Norton versus Larry Holmes fight in Las Vegas and the Thursday night before my Sunday CBS audition. Leon and I were going to the ball, and I planned to leave for New York after the fight Friday night. So, we decided this was a perfect opportunity to gather some interview footage. Once we arrived, we borrowed a camera and crew from our friend Jim Hill, a CBS Sports anchor in Los Angeles, so that I could record some interview footage to take along with me to the audition. (Remember this was 1978—VCRs, camcorders, and cell phones were a thing of the future. Even in the early 1980s, people were only just beginning to have personal camcorders.)

I first asked Don King if he would be willing to be interviewed for my audition. I knew Don from many years back, and I had even assisted him in landing an interview with the press from Hong Kong at the “Thrilla in Manila.” I had no doubt that his answer would be “Of course.” Then I saw Julius Erving, and he also said yes. The great Minnesota Fats was sitting behind me at the ball, and I asked him for an interview as well, and when he agreed I was three-for-three. Jim Hill, Leon, and I put together the quickest interviews that you could ever imagine, and after the fight I raced to the airport and jumped onto the red-eye to New York with my unedited interviews tucked under my arm.

When I arrived at the Essex House Hotel in New York, there was a package of instructions and information for the audition, which would take place on Sunday at the CBS Studios on Fifty-Seventh Street. I spent the day researching and reviewing the packet outlining the process. The audition would be in three parts: some on-camera repartee with Brent, a segment reading teleprompter copy, and an in-studio interview with an NFL player TBD. CBS decided to give all the women who were auditioning equal time and access in preparation for the interview, so they didn’t reveal the name of the player we would be interviewing until late Saturday night.

When I got my interview pack, it had a name, a position, a team, and a sentence that said something about the player working with children with disabilities in the off-season. That was pretty much it—a few statistics, but not much to do an interview. Libraries were closed on Saturday night, and this was long before the internet or Google for doing any last-minute research, so there were zero resources whatsoever.

My NFL player interviewee was Clyde Powers, a strong safety who I did not know. All during dinner, which I ate in my room, I kept going back to the feature I had just seen on life in the NFL trenches—the kill-or-be-killed war mentality required to do the job well. I decided to make that the focus of our interview: How did he balance his game head with his desire to help people with disabilities?

Just before I went to bed, I called my friend ex-NBA player Ron Allen. I asked him what he thought were my best qualities. He never hesitated: “Jayne, everybody I know always talks about how unassuming and unpretentious you are. You’re so easy to talk to. You make people feel like they can open up to you without being threatened. However, when they first see you, they see your beauty and they are intimidated, but then you speak and you’re so warm, with your feet on the ground. That’s why guys like talking to you. They don’t expect it because of the way you look, and then when you smile, it’s like the smile of an old friend. It doesn’t matter who you are interviewing or what the interview is about, if you can make that person tomorrow feel like that, then you’ve got it made.”

I thought about that all night. I had never realized any of that before, and the information helped to calm me down quite a bit, even though it all came as quite a surprise.
Sunday morning, I walked into the CBS Studios fully prepared to do my best, and if I didn’t get a chance to do just that, I still had the taped Vegas interviews in hand. I felt very good about this whole thing, even though I still hated auditions. This was my dream job, and I was ready.
As soon as I walked into the conference room, all my hopes and dreams went down the toilet. There were about fifteen other girls there for the audition and they all had blonde hair. There was no way CBS was seriously considering me. Here I was again, the token Black girl.

I didn’t know what to do. It seemed like such a waste of time and energy. But since I was there, I decided to just relax and have fun with the day and chalk it up to another one for the books. All that morning the girls were racing around furiously, trying to get their act together for their scheduled appearance on the set. I sat and watched. It was Miami all over again—Miss Ohio sitting on the sidelines because the Black girl’s not going to win. I ate some potato chips, which I never do before I go on camera, but I wasn’t worried, because I was not going to get the job. When the three guys scheduled to be interviewed walked into the makeup room, they were swarmed like bees to honey, everybody trying to get a tidbit of secret information. Each of us would have a chance at one of the three. I sat back and watched, amused.

When all the girls left the makeup room headed for their dressing rooms, only the guys were left, waiting for their turn in the makeup chairs. Ever since I started in the industry, I almost always did my own makeup, so I was already done. I kept thinking about what Ron had told me the night before, to just be myself and make a friend. Earlier, I happened to see a backgammon board in the corner of the room, so I introduced myself to my interviewee and asked him if he played backgammon, and his eyes lit up. “Yes, I do,” he said.

The question wasn’t as odd as it sounds. At that time, everyone was hyped about playing backgammon. There was even a very ritzy dinner/dance club in Beverly Hills called PIPS where the Hollywood elite played backgammon every night. It was a private club, so Marc Gordon, then manager for the 5th Dimension and my very first manager, would often take Leon and me, and we would play for hours while we networked. On any given night when Lamonte was in town, you could find Leon and me playing backgammon at Lamonte’s estate high up in the hills of Encino, often until five o’clock in the morning.

I knew I’d be comfortable playing with this guy while we waited, comfortable enough to make a friend. By the time we got to the set, we were old friends, and we had a blast finally getting a chance to talk about football, about maintaining your dignity, about the fine line professional athletes walk in the struggle to realize the important battles in life. At least that’s what I remember . . . and it all went great.

I was almost the last girl to be interviewed. I had completed my teleprompter reading, and my interview with Brent, and now I had just ended my interview with Clyde. I remember Brent immediately standing up and leaving when I finished, and then I left the studio.
I went back to LA pleased that I had performed well, and I was so hoping and praying that I would land the job, though never actually believing I would. I was truly shocked when I got the call from CBS a month later.

Leon and I were standing in our dining room with the phone held between the two of us, struggling to hear every word. We jumped up and down laughing, hugging, and crying like little kids who just won the pee-wee league playoffs. This was huge, and we both knew it. We had crossed another important barrier. It was meant to be. I remember it was July 11. 7/11. Lucky me.