In Jeannette McCurdy‘s new memoir “I’m glad my Mom died” we get to hear a bunch of insider information about what it was like growing up as a child star on Nickelodeon and it wasn’t all glamorous like one would think.
She says of her family life that she grew up Mormon in what she calls a “Hoarder House” in Garden Grove, California, and that her Mother before her had wanted to be an actress but that her parents (who seemed to be heavily involved in Jeanette’s upbringing) wouldn’t let her so she passed on that dream to Jeanette in the most exacting way ever. Deborah McCurdy became a stage Mom to the extreme.
Who submarined Jeanette McCurdy’s directorial debut?
That being said, it did seem that she loved her kids, but loved them in all the wrong ways, specifically Jeanette, whom she all but bred a full-blown eating disorder into. While most Mom’s are teaching their daughters how to french braid their hair or ride bikes, Jeanette’s Mom was teaching her about the art of calorie restriction and how it would keep her young looking for roles.
Something that would plague Jeanette until she left acting a few years ago. It seems that Jeanette’s Mom only wanted her daughter to follow the dreams that she herself couldn’t accomplish, but there was one dream that even she couldn’t manage to squelch, one dream the managed to sneak past all the others that Jeanette held fast to.
That was directing.
It didn’t happen on iCarly, she was too young and still a minor, but after she had completed almost an entire season of the spin-off Sam and Cat the creator (as he is referred to in the book) agreed to let her sign on to direct one episode.
Jeanette was, in her words, a good sport and up until then had jumped through every hoop they had required of her, but on the day that she was supposed to direct this one episode, she noticed that on the director’s roster, the names had been changed to “N/A” and did not get an explanation other than a quiet, “We’ll talk about it later.” from one of the producers.
Poor Jeanette agonized over this for what seemed like ages and went into full emotional breakdown mode at one point because she felt so betrayed. Finally, after a lot of runaround from the crew, she got her answer, a producer came to her trailer to tell her that someone that worked on the show, someone rather big, really did not want her to direct and had even threatened to quit if she was put in the director’s seat. “We can’t afford that.” said the producer simply.
Gee, I wonder who this very big person could have been who didn’t want Jeanette to direct? Whomever it was was a loss that Nickelodeon was not willing to undertake, so one wonders who on earth that could have been? At the time Sam & Cat boasted some pretty big star power, one cast member in particular whose single played on practically every radio station all across the US and even though Jeanette didn’t go as far as to name the person in question, we think we know why a network as big as Nickelodeon “couldn’t afford that”.
Ahem. Now, this is just speculation, it could have been someone totally different, but the arrows point in one particular direction here.
It was really tragic the way Jeanette’s dream got shattered, and even though she has left acting, we hope that one day she can maybe realize her dream of directing. Her memoir is a wonderful, poignant, and painful look into the life of a child star and it would be a good read for anyone who wanted an inside look. Welcome to the writer’s room, Jeanette. Stay tuned!!!
