I Can Do This
The Bloody Mary Story
by
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One afternoon in 1993, about a year after my husband left, I sat in the hair dresser's chair at the salon, a black nylon cape around my shoulders, pouring my heart out to my stylist, Dean. I was lamenting to him that I didn't know how many more times I was going to be able to afford his high-priced salon services. "What am I going to do now? I'm no kid," I said as Dean colored my hair. "I have to get a job. I have to work, and I don't know what to do or where to begin." The hair dresser at the next chair had overheard my cries of desperation. "Go to makeup school," he said casually. "What?" I asked. "What are you talking about?" I didn't know the first thing about makeup; wasn't even a fan of it. I'd always bypassed glossy tubes of colorful lipstick for Chap Stick or medicated lip balm. "Go to makeup school," he said again. "With your personality, you would be great." I wasn't buying it. "You want me to learn how to apply makeup on someone like me?" I asked in disbelief, almost humored by the thought of making up customers at the mall. "Work at Saks Fifth Avenue or Macy's and apply makeup to women who live in Beverly Hills?" He shook his head. "Oh, my God, no!" he said. "Go to learn makeup for the TV and film industry." "Are you kidding me?" I asked again as I stared at him blankly, still imagining myself spritzing perfume and dabbing blush on the women I'd once played tennis with. My only real experience with serious makeup application had been much, much earlier in my life. An awkward teenager suffering from very low self-esteem, I'd entered a few Miss America-organized beauty pageants at my mother's unshakably strong urging. I'd gotten my face all made up, put on some pretty clothes, plunked a Barbra Streisand song on the piano, and I'd usually finished as first runner-up, winning a few scholarships here and there. I'd hardly given beauty pageants another thought for 25 years. And now to be a part of the "beauty world?" "I'm not kidding," the stylist said again. "Where do you go for this?" I asked, relenting and admittedly curious. "There are three schools," he explained. "One in Paris, one in Toronto and the Joe Blasco Make-Up School in Hollywood." I'll never know what made me do it, but I stood up immediately, walked to the pay phone in the back of the salon and called information. I took a breath and dialed the number to the Joe Blasco Makeup School.
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About the Book
At forty-six, Bobbie Weiner found herself divorced and penniless, and something that was even worse—identity-less. On a whim, she enrolled in makeup school and soon found herself applying gory special effects makeup to the actors on Hollywood sets. Her work on the horror film Pumpkinhead II earned her the nickname “Bloody Mary,” which would become her new identity. After she helped create the dead, frozen corpses in the Oscar-winning film Titanic, her life would never be the same. With just an idea and a hunch—and no financial help from a single bank in the world, since none of them would give her a loan—she launched her line of Sports Fan Face Paint and sold it to colleges around the country. The US Department of Defense took notice and hired Bobbie to develop camouflage face paint for soldiers. Each success led to another, and today she supplies face paint to hundreds of major sporting events, militaries around the world, the movie industry, and the haunt industry. Throughout her career, Bobbie’s entrepreneurial spirit, her passion, her persistence, and her willingness to make sacrifices have helped her turn a bad break into a prosperous life. I Can Do This tells the story of how Bobbie turned her “Bloody Mary” nickname into a multimillion-dollar business.
About the Author
Bobbie Weiner, a.k.a. “Bloody Mary,” is the owner of Bobbie Weiner Enterprises LLC. Bobbie is the top supplier of camouflage face paint for the US Military; her face paint also frequently appears at sporting events, used by fans to show their team spirit. She has licensed the comic book she created in 2002, Tales of Bloody Mary, to Universal Studios and Six Flags Over Texas. She supplies her famous F/X Makeup to many studios in Hollywood and to Broadway theatre productions. She currently resides in Dallas/Fort Worth with her big old cat, Camouflage.