By Ashley Burns
Musician Jesse Cutler asks the ultimate question in StarLust: The Price of Fame, his autobiography and life lesson for aspiring child stars
STILL ROCKING: After taking time off from show business in the 80s to spend time with and concentrate on his family, Jesse Cutler is back with his autobiography StarLust, in which he offers advice to children and their parents on how to succeed with stardom at a young age.
Jesse Cutler’s childhood was nothing less than extraordinary. As a teenager, his band, The Young Executives, played parties for the jet set elite, including a birthday party for Sammy Davis Jr. and even a VIP club party at which they played Beatles covers... in front of the Beatles.
Watching his cousin Paulo play “Love Me Tender” on the guitar gave Jesse his first glimpse of his musical passion and what would essentially become his life. In his new autobiography, StarLust: The Price of Fame, he’s using his life lessons and experiences to return the favor to the millions of kids who haven’t realized their dream of stardom and the parents who encourage that desire.
Pageantry magazine: Tell me about The Young Executives. What was it like being a teenage musical act in 1963?
Jesse Cutler: It was a tremendous amount of fun and a great difference from being a regular junior high school kid. One day you’re on TV shows—at the time it was Wonderama, Hullabaloo and Shindig!, which were the big shows. You’d come to school the next day and they’d say, “Oh you’re a big star now, you don’t want to talk to us.” That was the usual reaction. But it was just as much fun because I had a three-piece band. It was one of the original three-piece bands in history. We were a national act with a national label doing national and local TV shows. It was a ball but it was a lot of work, too.
enal experience, because my parents were supportive of me and I had that family environment and positive dynamic that is very important for young kids, to feel good and to not be pushed too hard, but to be supported when they’re in the public eye.
PM: Your mother wanted you to be a doctor, yet your father was your band’s manager. How did that difference of opinion play out?
JC: Around 15 my mother told me that I should be a dermatologist, and around that time I ended up in prep school. I arranged with the principal to allow me to skip second-class gym and get a free pass to put on the assemblies every Wednesday. So I became the producer, director and writer of the assemblies every week. That was the point where I had to sit down like Simon Cowell and audition the kids and then I would create a show by designating everyone a position. I got out of a lot of classes to make sure all of the shows were really good and I eventually got a lot of great recommendations and I got a scholarship to Stanford, St. John’s and Columbia, based on that extra amount of effort I put in for the school.
In the book, I write about how the tension wasn’t so much her wanting me to be a doctor and him wanting me to go on. My father saw the potential in me. The only problem that existed was the fact that my father and I were gone most of the time, and my mother and sister were left behind, because we were on the road traveling with the band. We’d come back home and I thought that
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