Maybe for a while now you've been wondering why Gladys was bald. Or maybe you haven't. Maybe you're a polite sort of person who figures Gladys's scalp is really her own business. (Or maybe you've been curious why the mogul's driver was bald. That, I can't tell you. Suffice it to say he was one of those guys who could totally pull it off, like Captain Picard, or that mixed martial artist from that action movie.)

Here's what happened with Gladys. She'd dyed her hair black for Man of La Mancha, and then black again to try out for West Side Story. Both times the lead went to National High School Musical Theater Award winner Ana-Lucia Garcia (also prom queen, National Merit Scholar, and mathlete), but Gladys got to be in the chorus, which was fine enough by her. Mama, on the other hand, was not happy. Mama said she was tired of these immigrants stealing all of the good American jobs in high school musicals. Gladys said that actually she was pretty sure Ana-Lucia's family had lived in California since, like, before there was even an America, and furthermore, Ana-Lucia was, like, amazing and had been accepted early-decision into Tisch and had even recorded a demo. But Mama was hearing none of it. Knowing that Gladys was one of the only blonds in her whole class, Mama petitioned the school to do Oklahoma! next, in the interest of diversity.

But when West Side Story ended and it was time to audition for Oklahoma!, Gladys's hair resisted all efforts to bleach it blond again, turning greenish-grayish and frizzy and generally Einsteinian. Then it started breaking off in clumps. The kids that Gladys babysat nicknamed her "Dandelion Head" and kept asking if they could make a wish. Finally, Gladys got fed up and shaved her head. Which horrified Mama-until being bald landed Gladys a background part on a soap opera as a cancer patient.

Gladys couldn't have been more perfect for the part. All her life she'd loved TV shows about hospitals, and if you came down with an ache or a sniffle, she could tell you a dozen rare fatal diseases it might be. Mama was sure this was Gladys's big break, so she coached Gladdy to always, always remember to use her big pageant smile, and somehow find a way to sing a bit and show off a few dance steps to make sure she really got noticed.

Well, Gladys did get noticed, by the director, who reminded her that she was supposed to be dying-so could she please stop tap-dancing with her IV pole a la Fred-Astaire-with-a-hat-rack, and get back in the damn hospital bed.

When Mama learned that Gladys's character was not just a little under the weather with cancer but actually dying, she was ecstatic. She told Gladys, "Don't you realize? Dying is the role of a lifetime! Dying is every actor's dream!" Mama had Gladys practice dying over and over until she was as good at dying as Wile E. Coyote.

So, when the director called "action," and the handsome doctor-with-an-evil-split-personality began confessing his love to the beautiful nurse-with-an-evil-twin-sister, Gladys (in the far background) bolted up in bed, clutched her chest, and reached up as if trying to touch heaven, or at least the klieg lights. Then, with a gurgle and gasp, she flung the back of her hand against her forehead and collapsed, with her eyes crossed and her tongue hanging out. The director bellowed "cut!" and sent Gladys and Mama home. According to Mama, it had been a spectacular performance, and surely an Emmy for "best performance by an extra in a daytime drama" lay in Gladys's future.

But for some reason when the episode aired, the scene had been re-shot. Gladys had been replaced by just a bed with nobody in it.

Maybe it was a nepotism thing. Maybe nobody knew the director.