DATE: Saturday, September 20, 1997          TAG: 9709190090

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E4   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LORRAINE EATON, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   94 lines

ROAD TO FAME HAS BUMPS, TURNS

IT'S HARD TO imagine a lower rung on the ladder to stardom than the one where Dee Collins stood five years ago.

There she was at the train station in Los Angeles, $150 in her pocket and a suitcase in her hand, searching for the stranger who had promised to make her a star.

Dee and a friend had been dancing with a rap act in Chicago nightclubs when they spotted an ad in the newspaper: Girls and guys! Want to make big money doing videos? They dialed the 800 number, and the man on the line said, ``Meet me in L.A.''

``We believed him, we were going to be in videos, we were going to be stars,'' said Dee, now 24, whose stage name is Almond Summers. ``We were gullible.''

But stardom is Dee's dream. As a child, she sang her heart out into a hairbrush-turned-microphone. As a student at Azalea Gardens Middle School in Norfolk, the desire to perform grew stronger whenever Norfolk schools' Performing Arts Repertory put on a play. As a student at Lake Taylor High and a member of the Repertory, she lived in the theater.

``So I stayed in L.A.,'' Dee said recently. ``I was just like young and stupid.''

Dee didn't know Los Angeles or anyone in it, and she checked into a hotel in East L.A., one of the worst sections of the city. She did, however, know where the glamorous part of town was, and she was hired at the Express store on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Rodeo Drive, an exclusive shopping district.

Days later, Dee moved into a small room in the crowded house of a family in a slightly better neighborhood. She paid a month's rent in advance and then went off to sell clothes. One night, the family told her that the landlord wouldn't allow them to sublet the room. They refused to refund her rent and said that she had never paid it.

This was the first of many tough lessons, lessons that she kept secret.

``Not once would I let my mom and dad know that I was out there struggling,'' Dee said. ``I didn't want them to worry.''

But what parent wouldn't? Dee's mother, who lives in Chicago, had fought against Dee's move to L.A. Her father, who lives in Norfolk, encouraged her to try. Just in time, they both sent money.

``Sometimes she didn't have food, I know that now,'' said George Collins, Dee's father. ``It brings tears to my eyes.''

Dee moved in with a woman from work, but after three months, the roommate split without notice, leaving Dee with a $641 phone bill and imminent eviction. She found another roommate and set her mind on show biz.

Sylvia Harmon, who owns The Actors' Place in Virginia Beach, doesn't like for her students to leave for L.A. too soon. She prefers that they have experience, an agent and a Screen Actors Guild card, which opens doors and commands union wages.

Dee had none of the above.

When Dee went to make an audition tape for MTV video producers, she was wary. It was a private residence. But there were so many other women there, and the casting director was a woman. Dee decided it was OK.

She had no idea how to audition for an MTV video, but she knows how to dance. And by then she had learned that part of the fame game is exuding confidence. She faked it and got called for her first video job on ``Foe tha Love of $'' by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. It paid $200 for a day's work, plenty more than the $7 an hour she got at Express.

``Once you do video, you're hooked,'' she said. ``The money is so easy.''

L.A. still had a few hard lessons to hurl her way, however. One morning a man from a management company stopped by her apartment. She thought it was odd, because they were really no more than on-the-job acquaintances. He raped her.

Dee called the police and the man was arrested. Shaken, she still wasn't going back home. She was going to make it.

Dee got an offer to join an agency representing dancers that could get her even more exposure. Things started moving. She landed parts in videos for Montell Jordan and R. Kelly.

Dee did commercials, including one for a Suzanne Somers' exercise video, and she played a cheerleader in the movie ``Sunset Park,'' which earned her a union card. But she felt she was failing.

``I gave up hope,'' Dee said. ``I decided to go to school and be normal.'' She signed up for college classes. Bored with the books, this summer she decided to give show biz another go. Dee changed her hair, cut her nails and revamped her makeup. And just like that, things started to happen. She got calls to audition for 10 agents, and all 10 wanted her to sign with them.

She got jobs, including one for Miller beer. Now, she's on billboards all over L.A.

None of that felt quite right. Dee started remembering how right it felt when she used to sing into her hairbrush microphone.

After three months of three-times-a-week voice lessons with a coach, she's planning to cut a demo tape to shop around to record companies.

It might catch, it might not. Dee's self-imposed success date is age 32.

``I should be set in my career by then,'' she said. ``If I'm not, it's time to rethink some things. I'll have to think of another way to be in the limelight.'' ILLUSTRATION: AP Photo

Actress Almond Summers. KEYWORDS: PROFILE LOCAL ACTRESS

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