Hopefuls!

Four broke, out-of-work actors virtually barge their way through the front door of a dilapidated "Rooms for Rent-Actors Forbidden" pink stucco boarding house off Hollywood Boulevard run by JAMES and CLARISSA BURKE, a pair of elderly Brits who were once a twosome dance team on the music hall circuit. The actors: JOEY CICERO, 20s, a straight-talking, dark-haired, weightlifting jock from Brooklyn. MARJORIE PETERS, a pleasantly plump, good-natured, starry-eyed ingénue from the cornfields of Iowa who plays it naive, but is not as naive as she looks, as we discover in the pilot episode. VICTOR COHEN, 50s, a Jew with a floppy toupee and a know-it-all New York attitude. SUZETTE DANIELLE (the bitch from hell), 50s, a rough 'n tumble redhead with a no-nonsense demeanor, who is a rugged veteran of pawing creeps like VICTOR and of the Hollywood casting couches. Naturally, VICTOR has the perennial hots for SUZETTE, and gets the perennial brushoff. After introductions, MARJORIE receives a phone call from a pimply-looking shoe salesman whose store she had visited earlier that day, and who had followed her and is watching from across the street, asking for a date. She tells him she has nothing to wear. He gifts her some cash, which he stashes under a rock outside the place. Tells her his father is a big producer. This sets the wheels in motion for a scheme by VICTOR to pretend he's her agent in hopes of wheedling some desperately needed money out of the guy. Despite MARJORIE'S "why me?" objections, the others prep her for her date. To everyone's astonishment, instead of the pimply shoe salesman, a gorgeous hunk of a guy named BRUCE shows up at the door, with the explanation that the shoe salesman couldn't make it and sent him instead. He takes MARJORIE to SPAGO, where amusing banter ensues ("sorry, we're out of lobster" "how can you be out of lobster?" "there was a clause in their contract") and they decide to bail out and go downscale -- strictly hamburgers and beer. Happy ending.