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Actress Rebecca Staab |
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Film and television actress Rebecca Staab recently talked to Riveting
Riffs Magazine from her home in California. The former supermodel who
was born in Kansas and who grew up in Grand Island and Omaha, Nebraska
discussed a wide range of topics from one of her passions, rescuing
dogs, to her partner in life William, to touching upon her love for home
renovations, which she warned this writer would easily comprise an
entirely different interview, to talking about how she enjoyed an
illustrious modeling career and currently is one of the film and
television industry’s most respected actresses, careers that this former
straight A high school student never had her heart set on. In this the
first part of a two-part interview with Rebecca Staab she talks about
her childhood and later her modeling career. It is our hope that our
readers will get a sense for this funny, determined, down to earth,
brilliant and engaging woman who recently starred in the ABC television
miniseries Somewhere Between,
as Colleen DeKizer, was Elizabeth Barrington in the television show
Port Charles, is currently
shooting the pilot for the television series
Manopause, appears as Camille
Richfield in the 2017 film Coming
Home for Christmas and who has appeared in a plethora of films and
television shows, some of which are still in various stages of
production.
“I was born in Kansas, but we moved to Omaha when I was seven. I just
have an older sister and a younger brother. My sister is one and
one-half years older than me, but my brother is nine and one-half years
younger. There were two childhoods in a way. There were a few years when
there was just my sister and then my brother was born when I was in the
fourth grade and that was like the second half of my childhood. My
sister and her husband still live in Nebraska. My brother is in
Colorado. My parents had moved to Colorado (and
later moved back to Nebraska),” Rebecca Staab begins.
Cut to after high school, after college and when I left home and went to
Paris and while I was in Paris, my dad got transferred to Denver. I was
like oh great, now that I moved out, now you are moving to Denver! When
my dad retired (my family) moved back to Omaha (her
brother remained in Denver),” she says, while adding that although
spread out over a few states that her immediate and extended family
still live close enough to get together from time to time.
Rebecca Staab’s love for travel played an important role in launching
her modeling career and that desire to see what else the world had to
offer began early in her childhood.
She explains, “It was always there and it started in kindergarten when
my mom got us these books in which we put our pictures and this is was
our teacher and these were my classes and these were my friends. It was
like a pre-made up scrapbook and you just added things to it every year.
I remember every solitary year that I would go back and look at that
book. From the time that I could first write, every year I wrote I am
going to travel. It was always there
and it was never I have got to get out of here nor was it I have got to
get away. It wasn’t that. There’s a world out there. TV wasn’t like it
is now and there was the rare movie in school and they would bring in
the audio visual TV thing and say we are going to watch.
Here is a funny
story and it is also from kindergarten. I had to know everything. I was
curious. My grandma had an organ and I would sit down and I taught
myself how to play the organ when I was four and five. I thought I am
going to do that. I was just that kind of a kid. What is that? What is
inside of that? What’s over there? I was not precocious, but I wanted to
know everything.
I was very excited to go to school, because I was prepared to learn
everything. I think because I like to read it opened up a lot of things
early. I loved it when they would have the book fairs at school. It was
stuff that wasn’t even in the library and these were new books that I
could own. As a little kid in first and second grade I was fascinated
with World War II. Movies influenced me of course and with the
Sound of Music I thought I am
going to go there. It wasn’t like I
would watch things and I had a two dimensional reaction. If I saw
something that interested me it was like I needed to be a part of it.
I was in kindergarten at Grand Island, Nebraska (population
51,517 – 2016) and we were watching a movie and in the movie there
was an escalator. I just remember watching that movie and when I saw
that escalator thinking someday I am going to ride one of those. (She
is really laughing) that was really a big deal. I am going to find
an escalator. I kid you not, when we
moved to Omaha and I was seven and when my mom went to get her hair done
at the mall there was an escalator (she
says in hushed tones). I was seven years old and it still gives me
goose bumps. I knew it; I knew I would ride one someday!
(She says remembering how
she felt). My mom was in the beauty parlor and she said come and sit
down, but I rode that escalator up and down and up and down. Now as an
adult I wonder how many people just stood around watching this little
girl get on and get off. I was just euphoric, because it was wow I am on
an escalator (she relives the
moment with a sense of wonderment in her voice). It is a humorous
account, but it was (always about) things that I would see or know and I
would think someday I am going to do that. I don’t know if it is the law
of attraction that nobody knew existed back in the seventies.”
Rebecca Staab also talks about people that she would watch on television
or in a movie when she was growing up and then later in life, as an
adult how she reacted and felt when she met them.
“I
did a TV series called Orleans and it was with Larry Hagman and Ralph
Waite from The Waltons. He
was the dad. He was Mr. Walton. It was so funny. I was in my thirties
and we sat down at this cast reading and Ralph Waite sat down next to
me. Literally that is when I turned into a seven year old. I stared at
the table and it was oh my God he is sitting right next to me. I could
talk to whoever is world famous and it wouldn’t phase me and yet
somebody from when I was a kid it is oh my God and it is daddy Walton
and I am going to do a scene with him. That is when the mid-west comes
out and I am like I am seven years old,” she says.
As for her
artistic endeavors as a child, Staab says, “I was a dancer when I was a
kid, so I always wanted to be in plays and to be on TV, but I was the
biggest fan of Little House on
the Prairie. When I was in the second grade my best friend and I
would write plays based on the characters of
Little House on the Prairie.
We would put them on in school. I was just obsessed with the
Little House on the Prairie
book series. When I was in Omaha and I found out that they were doing it
as a TV show I had to be Mary. I was always Mary. I am Mary.
I started out in ballet, but I am a really wicked tap dancer. It was my
forte. As a kid I always wanted to be a ballerina and when I started
dance lessons the classes that I took were tap and ballet. I was adamant
I don’t want to take tap. I just want to take ballet. Once I started tap
was really my thing. Tap is not easy. Who do you know who tap dances?
There are not very many people. I think it was really the dancing that
got me into theater.
I really I was hoping that when all the musical stuff
started to come back into mainstream (her
voice trails off wishfully), but by then dance had evolved so far
away from that kind of dance.
I was in choir in
high school and I could sing and I could dance. Our main thing at my
high school in the fall was a big musical and in the spring it was a
dramatic play. To this day every play and musical that I did in high
school I can remember every word to every song and probably the dialogue
of the entire play. You would just sit and play practice and whether or
not it was my scenes or my songs it just permeated my core. I can
probably recite from beginning to end,
Guys and Dolls. I just loved
it so much. Then when I got to college it was the same kind of a thing.
I had dance and drama classes, because I had a theater minor, but it
wasn’t because I was going to go on and become an actor. I wasn’t going
to really do that.
It was always measured along with the academics and then as happens in
college I couldn’t take fun classes anymore, because I was in all of the
honors programs and so college really became about school. It wasn’t
realistic. I thought what am I going to do be an actor? It was like I
had a greater calling and I had to do something smart.”
Rebecca Staab’s life was about to change and it would lead her down a
path that would forever change her life.
“Then it took the
weirdest turn, because I started modeling. When I was in college there
was the local stuff. It was like hey you are pretty will you do this? I
can’t even remember how I started. I was working for fifty dollars per
hour, which when I was in college in the eighties that was a lot of
money. There were local clients that I would do this for or that for. In
one of the local department stores they had a contract with one modeling
agency in Omaha and they had to use her models. They said we would like
to use you, but you have to be on her roster. I was Miss Nebraska at the
time and she had contacted me to see if I wanted to sign with her
agency. I did and it was one of those modeling agencies / schools, so at
the end of the “school year” for modeling they put on a big fashion
graduation show. It was pretty
prestigious for where she was in Omaha. She would get judges to come
from New York or sometimes Milan or Japan for this graduation /
competition. Since I was part of the agency I had to do this show and it
took place during the week of the finals in college.
I was going back and forth between college in Lincoln (Nebraska) and
Omaha for the rehearsals and to do this fashion show. To me I was never
going to be a model. I was barely five foot seven inches. I’m really
like five foot six and one-half inches. She had talked me into cutting
my hair all off and it was really short. I had all of this Barbie doll
hair and she said you have this little tiny face and you have way too
much hair for this little tiny face, so she talked me into cutting my
hair off. It was short.
Here was this big modeling show that I didn’t care about, but I had to
do it. She did it like a big New York show and there was one person who
would wear the wedding gown, but she wasn’t going to announce until the
intermission which person was going to do it. I didn’t care. All of the
other girls were really into it and wanted to be models and all I could
think about was I have an English final tomorrow morning at 9:30 and I
have to drive back to Lincoln. Back then I was a total academic and I
wasn’t even thinking they are not going to pick me for the wedding gown,
because I have short hair. I whacked off all of my hair and they are not
going to have a bride with short hair.
Here comes the intermission and she said you are wearing the gown. I am!
I became the highlight of the show. I said, but I have short hair. It
was so funny. I did the gown and I ended up winning the competition. I
was the least invested in it. The good thing about it was I had to go on
to the national leg of this competition in New York. A lot of the other
girls and guys at the agency they had already planned to go to New York.
I wasn’t planning on going to New York, because I wasn’t going to be a
model. I was too short. I was
working locally and I had to go back to school. I was in college and I
was a straight A student. Because I won the Omaha show I got a free trip
to New York. I was whoo hoo a free trip to New York. I had never been to
New York and in my mind all it was, was a free trip to New York. It
wasn’t like yay I get to be in this bigger competition. I didn’t care,
because I was barely five foot seven and I was going back to school next
week. We did the New York show and all I cared about was going to Ellis
Island and seeing the Statue of Liberty. For me I had to see everything
that I wanted to see, while I was in New York. I had to go to the Met. I
had to go to Central Park. We had
these rehearsals for the fashion show, but I constantly had one foot out
the door. I was there to see New York,” she says.
Sounds pretty
straightforward, Rebecca Staab, local girl from Nebraska wins a
competition for fashion models and gets a free trip to New York City and
eventually she returns to Nebraska to go back to College. Surprise!
Staab continues the story, “Now there were agents from all of the New
York agencies, all of the Paris agencies, Milan and Japan. I was like
la, la, la. I ended up as a finalist! I was in the top five! I was
thinking I didn’t even try. I have to go see Cats. I have to get out of
this rehearsal, because Cats is starting. Then I ended up placing and I
was, seriously? I can’t believe that they think I can really be a model.
There was a New York agent that wanted me. There was Legends at the time
and their partner in Paris was Paris Planning (Modeling Agency). All of
the New York agencies had partner agencies in Paris and Milan. They sent
all of the girls to Europe and that is where you got your tear sheets,
you put your book together and then you came back to New York. In
essence it was like they were throwing spaghetti against the wall. If
you could stick it out in Europe then you could really make it in New
York, because at that time very few girls started modeling in New York.
It was cutthroat and you had to go to Paris and get your book put
together. This agency in New York and Paris wanted me. Now I had a free
trip to Paris. In my mind it was like they still haven’t caught on yet
(that she was just interested in the free travel) that I am not going to
be a model. I had the greatest secret in the world and they kept falling
for it thinking that I was going to be a model, but I just got another
free trip.
I will never forget that I called my mom and dad from a pay phone in the
lobby of the Waldorf Astoria, because that is where this competition
was. I was supposed to go back to school in a couple of weeks, because
my classes were starting. I told (my parents) they want me to go to
Paris (she says it in a tone of
disbelief). I said I think that I should go. I talked it over with
my parents and they told me that it was a really good opportunity and to
go. They said you can go back to school next semester. If they believe
in you take this opportunity and go to Paris. I went back home to Omaha
and I packed my bags.
(Back) in New York the agency had a little group of models and we all
met in New York for about a week. There were six of us that they shipped
off to Paris together. I had French in high school and college, so I
spoke and more importantly I understood French. I could also read
French, which was an advantage very few of these girls had. I can’t say
I was at home immediately, but I even knew the city geographically. We
had studied the Metro system and I knew all of the things that I wanted
to go see, while I was in Paris. I was in Paris to model, but from a
work point of view and a modeling point of view it was not very
glamorous. It is not what people really think. There were six of us
girls in one hotel room. Then we got an agency apartment and there were
six of us girls in an agency apartment.
There was this photographer and her name was Barbro Anderson who had
been a famous Swedish model and now she was a little bit older. It was
probably my second or third day in Paris. I had this short hair and she
was looking for who the new girls were, because she wanted to do a test
shooting. She (decided) to do a 1920s Louise Brooks stylized look. She
asked me what my hair looked like if I combed it straight down, because
it was feathered back. I said it looked like I was wearing a football
helmet. She combed my hair down and I was like a little Louise Brooks.
She booked me on the spot to do these test photos.
She took the photos to Depeche Mode, the magazine in Paris
and she got the booking for the job based on the pictures that she took
with me. She booked me and I had
only been in Paris for five days. I already had a six pages editorial,
which is the hardest thing to come by for Depeche Mode.
Just this look that I had at the time it clicked or it was my innocence
and my naivety, which is what I think they liked. I had no attitude and
I was a really hard worker. I was reliable. I was older than a lot of
the young girls. I was twenty-one when I started, but I looked like I
was sixteen or seventeen. All of these other girls were young and
unreliable. I was there on time and I didn’t drink and I didn’t do
drugs. It was a job and I was going to do it well, because that is the
kind of person that I was and of course that just blossomed. That word
got around and I was booked left, right and center for the three months
that I initially went to Paris. For me it was just a trip to Paris and
for me when December rolled around I went home for Christmas thinking
that my stint in Paris was done. I had put in my time and I had gotten
my free trip. I was going back to school.”
Par for the course that plan soon changed and Rebecca Staab explains
why, “I will never forget when my agent called and said on January 4th
and on the 5th you are doing this and on the 6th and I was wait, wait,
wait, I’m not coming back. My agent said, Depeche Mode came out and you
have the cover, you have ten pages. I was like no. I had bookings lined
up one side and down the other for the next two months. My agent said
you have to come back and I was oh no I want to go back to school. Then
there was this work ethic and it was a job, so I said I would go back
for two months and I would do the bookings, but I (told him) don’t take
anymore, because I have to go back to school. I knew they were just
going (she imitates a snickering)
she thinks she is going back to school, but once we get her here we are
going to keep her, which of course they did. I went back and I worked
non-stop.
Then I told my agent I want to travel. My agent said this is the best
stuff in the world and you want to go and shoot a catalogue? I said, I
want to go to Greece and I want to go to St. Barths and they were okay.
My agents were really smart and they would book me for trips far enough
apart that I would be in Paris for two or three weeks working and then I
could go away and do a trip, then I would have to come back. They
handled it really well. I was just back and forth and back and forth.
Then I was really happy, because I could go and do my trips and make
some money and then I could come back and do my editorials. I had a
really killer book by that time. (Next) I was supposed to go to New
York. That is what everybody does. I went home to Omaha in the summer.
My best friend got married and I was in the wedding. I was going to do
my regular summer job in Omaha and then go back to school.
Now an agent that I had met in Paris called me from Tokyo. I had met her
in April or something and she asked me if I would like to come to Japan.
I said yeah, sure and not knowing (at the time) if I was going to go.
She called me on June 1st. She said we have your flight and we have
this and we have your apartment. I was wait a minute, wait a minute; I’m
going to summer school. I kept trying to go back to school and she said
we already have your ticket, (so you can) work in Japan. I needed a work
visa. To work in Japan you had to have a guarantee like a dollar amount.
When she told me what that dollar amount was to go to Japan for two
months, I said okay! Yes definitely I’ll go. Mom, I’m not going to be
going to summer school. I am going to Japan for two months, but look how
much they are going to pay me.
For me again it was ha, ha, ha, a free trip to Japan and they are going
to give me all of this money. This is incredible. I went to Japan and
Japan literally changed my life. Japan was so fabulous. I worked seven
days a week, twelve hours a day and they don’t take weekends. I was
booked constantly. It was the most beautiful…. You think at the time
that Paris or Milan were doing the cutting edge stuff, but in Tokyo it
was so artistic and creative. It was so inspirational. I loved going to
work every day, because it was like an art project every day. It was
almost like doing a play every day. What were we doing? We were creating
something. Artistically it was so exciting. Everybody worked as a team
and it was collaborative. They were so excited.
Then I started getting booked for a ton of commercials, because I was so
animated. I said I can do that, because I am an actor. When I started
doing all the commercials I was so happy. I loved doing that. I talked
to my Paris agents in the meantime and they figured that I was done,
because I had told them that I was done. I was going to go to school or
New York. Now my Paris agents thought I was happy, so they said we have
a booking for you in and I don’t even remember where. I said what? Where
am I going?
My Paris agents lured me back to Paris from Japan. I ended up staying in
Paris for three and one-half years. I would go to Japan in the summer
and it was like the perfect balance. I was in Paris and traveling and I
would spend my summers in Japan and that is where I made my money. Then
after three and one-half years the day came when I thought I am living
out of a suitcase. It was really the time to go to New York, because I
had the most incredible book put together. For somebody of my size, I
was not tall and I didn’t do the collections and it was amazing what I
had put together in that amount of time.
I was originally with Click Models in New York and Click was really
avant-garde. They were the first to go against the waspy mainstream.
They had a lot of urban looking girls and I didn’t look like a Click
model at all. I was a total Ford Model.
When I (arrived) at Click they had just started their TV and film
division and literally I was in New York for a week when they asked do
you act? I said yes! As a matter of fact I do. They said go upstairs and
talk to Mike, because we just started a TV and film division. I went up
and talked to Mike and that is where my career started as an actor. Mike
sent me on my very first acting audition, which was the ABC soap
Loving. It was a character
who was only supposed to be on for six episodes. She was this little
Punk Rock teenager. He said go and have fun, but don’t expect to get it.
He said this is what an audition is. He told me this is what you do for
an audition. I had never been on an acting audition in my life. I walked
in and I booked it.
To read part two of our interview with Rebecca Staab, as she talks about
her acting career
click on this link.
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“While
growing up in Nebraska we didn’t have money and we grew up pretty poor.
Vacations were only to places where we could drive and usually where
there was another relative, because that is where we stayed. We had
relatives in Colorado and we would go to there. It was a popular place.
As a kid I wanted to live in Colorado so bad. Every time that we drove
back to Nebraska, I would say dad why don’t we live in Colorado. My dad
said, because that is not where my job is. 
Depeche
Mode liked those pictures so much that they booked Barbro again for
another five page spread and she wanted to use me. She totally changed
my look, so that I didn’t even look like the same person. I now had ten
pages of editorial in Depeche Mode that looked (different). It was
amazing! Then when October and November came they decided to do a test
for the cover of Depeche Mode. I did a photo test with Paolo Roversi for
the cover and they booked him, so they booked me. I got the cover of
Depeche Mode and I had ten pages inside.