Perfect Casting

I launched my acting career when I was 82. But it didnt take off until I was 90

- Dorothy Steel

“CINDY, I’M NOT INTERESTED,” I said, trying not to sound too irritated at my agent. “I’m not auditioning for some dumb comic-book movie.”

“Ms. Dorothy,” she said. “I wish you’d at least think about it. It’s going to be really big.”

“Nope, not doing it,” I said. “Besides, I don’t have the faintest idea how to do an African accent.” I hung up, anxious to return to my baking. My grandson, Niles, was coming over, and I was making sweet potato pie, his favorite. Ten years ago, if someone had told me that at age 90 I’d be arguing with an agent about a movie role, I would have thought they were flat-out crazy. Me playing a tribal elder in some makebelieve African country called Wakanda? Who’d ever heard of such a thing?

It was enough to make me think about retiring from acting. I’d had my fun, been in some commercials—even a soap opera, Saints and Sinners, for a season on Bounce TV; a short film, Black Majik; a full-length movie called Daisy Winters; and a made-for-TV movie, Baby’s First Christmas. That was plenty. I’d never planned on being an actress in the first place, never in a million years.

The whole thing started one day at the senior center when I was 82. They were putting on a play called It’s Christmas and looking for volunteers. Why not? I thought. I figured I could squeeze in the rehearsals between my bowling leagues, church and cooking special meals and desserts for Niles and my son, Scott. They might be grown men, but I never tired of spoiling them.