When I was working as a cameraman in Hollywood a couple of years back we were filming a story about a 14-year-old girl, the youngest in a family of 4 children, who wore thick glasses and if you can believe it she was ostracized by her classmates because of the strong glasses she wore. The young girl went on to become one of the first female scientists in the NASA space program, although she was pretty much an unknown person to the general public. The beginning of the story took place back in the mid-50’s and the young girl who was playing the part of April Carstairs was a 13-year-old girl named Shelly Blackwell. This was the first part Shelly had ever gotten in a movie and I felt she was a nice kid. I had no idea how good an actress she was, or even if she might possibly have star power. I think the glasses that the director had found for the girl in the movie to wear might have been one of the pairs that Hitchcock had intended to use for Marion in his film “Strangers on a Train”. They were a pair of silver framed glasses right out of the 50’s and they had very thick lenses in them, even thicker than the glasses that Hitchcock had used for Marion. Shelly made a darned cute April, and since I happen to be a lover of girls who wear glasses I was quite taken with “April.” I knew during the first day of filming that Shelly was having a lot of trouble seeing when she was wearing the thick glasses that April had to wear for most of her scenes the first day. She would take them off between scenes, and then put them back on for the retake. I thought she did pretty well if you consider that she probably couldn’t see anything very clearly. I knew from my own experiences from trying to wear a few different pairs of glasses with similar prescriptions in my past that she could likely see well enough that she would not walk into a wall or anything, and she would be able to see the outlines of doorways and of furniture, but nothing would be very clear. She did what I considered a really decent job of acting while being unable to see well. The following morning Shelly was already wearing the glasses when she showed up on the set. Shooting for the day hadn’t started yet and I was heading to grab myself a cup of coffee. As I passed Shelly, I asked her if she wanted anything and she told me that if I didn’t mind, she would like me to walk with her to the lunch wagon as she really couldn’t see very well. As we walked, I asked her why she was already wearing the glasses if she couldn’t see much. “Yesterday I took them on and off so many times that by the time shooting ended for the day I had one of the worst headaches I have ever had in my life. Today I decided I would try to leave them on and see if my eyes would learn to focus through them. I did notice yesterday that my vision with them on got a bit better the longer I had to wear them.” Shelly told me. I knew that this could be problematic as her eyes could quickly develop pseudo myopia if she wore the glasses for too many hours in a day, but for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that first she would likely develop enough pseudo myopia to allow her to wear the glasses, and then her eyeballs could actually start to elongate, and her eyes would then be myopic for real. I had no idea how long this could take, or if for sure it really could happen. But at the age of 13 she was a prime candidate for the glasses she now was wearing on her pretty little face to create a fairly high degree of myopia in her eyes. I did casually mention that wearing those strong glasses could possibly make her a little shortsighted and she laughed when she told me that over half of her classmates at school wore glasses now. She also said that if she had to wear glasses, she would just get the proper glasses and she would get contact lenses for when she was acting like many of the other actresses did. I suppose she was correct, because now no one was looked at as being different for wearing glasses and contact lenses had become such a normal thing, I would suspect that well over half of the population wore some form of vision correction. I did notice that Shelly wore the glasses for the entire day, and I found the chance to ask her after shooting ended if she had managed to avoid another headache. She told me that not only did she not have a headache, but she was able now to see fairly well wearing the glasses. The next day even though she only had a small part to shoot that day she was again wearing the glasses and she kept them on all day. After another week of her continuously wearing glasses, we did a scene where some of the other girls in her grade at school grabbed her glasses off her face and wouldn’t give them back. I had to pull the camera in close to her face and as I watched while the camera was rolling, I could tell that Shelly was not just acting. The tears rolling down her cheek were real, and her struggles to see were reflected in her eyes and her expressions. She had either become really nearsighted or the pseudo myopia was taking a long time to clear up. I suspected that the high prescription in the glasses had actually caused her to become slightly myopic. The name Blackwell struck a chord in my memory. A number of years ago I had lived with a girl named Jennifer Blackwell. I liked Jen a lot, but she was a little bit on the wild and crazy side, and I am a pretty tame person. We went to a lot of Hollywood parties, and she was never averse to trying some of the different drugs that were floating around. We finally broke up about 13 or 14 years ago, and I had not seen nor heard from her since. I suppose Shelly had been wearing the glasses now for over a week when I had a chance to ask her what her parents thought about her wearing such strong glasses. “Oh, I am not living at home right now. My mom is in court ordered rehab and I am living with a foster family, although the studio is putting me up in a hotel that they use, and I am going to classes after the day’s shooting ends with a number of other young actors. No one has said a thing about me wearing glasses yet.” Shelly said. “Do you mind telling me when you were born and what your mom’s name is?” I asked. “No, why should I care. My mom’s name is Jennifer and I was born on March 22, 2005.” Shelly replied. “I can’t remember the exact date we broke up, but back in 2004 I was living with a girl named Jennifer Blackwell. We broke up, mostly because of her substance abuse, and have not had contact since. I am not sure if that might have been your mom, but I have some pictures around somewhere of us together. It isn’t likely that it could be the same Jennifer, but I will bring them in tomorrow and maybe you can tell me if you recognize her.” I spoke. “Well, you are not likely my dad. It says Ed on your shirt and mom told me that my dad’s name was Jeff.” Shelly replied. “The Ed came from Edwards. I was working on one of my first pictures and there was another cameraman named Jeff, so the director started calling me by my last name. Eventually it got shortened to Ed. My real name is Jeff Edwards.” I answered. “Oh my God! You might be my dad. My mom always called you Jeff, But I think that she used your full name one time.” Shelly replied. “If I am your dad, please don’t be angry with me. Your mom never told me that she was pregnant, and she never contacted me for any form of support.” I answered. “How can we find out?” Shelly asked. “I will buy a couple of those DNA testing kits at a drugstore tonight and we can use them and then send them off for the results. I would love it if you were my daughter.” I said. I was both excited, and angry. I was excited about the possibility of having a child, but I was angry that if Shelly was my daughter that Jennifer had kept this from me. I knew that when we split, we were kind of like fire and gasoline, and we had some epic arguments. At the time marriage would have been out of the question as it would have ended with one of us likely killing the other – and with Jen’s attitude I think I would have been the dead one. I bought the DNA test kits, and the next day we swabbed the inside of our cheeks and pulled out a couple of hairs by the roots to send in with the kits. I sent off a rather sizeable check and hoped for the expedited results within a week. But now my attitude towards Shelly had changed. I was now the protective dad, and I suggested that it would be for her benefit if we got her eyes tested and got her glasses in her own prescription if she needed them. It took another week or more before she finally agreed that when she took the glasses off, she really wasn’t seeing much more than a blur, and I made an appointment with a nearby eye doctor. When the eye exam was over it was official. Shelly now badly needed glasses. The old glasses she had been wearing had a prescription of OD-12.00 x -1.50 x 90 and OS -11.25 x -2.50 x 90. Her own prescription ended up being OD -12.00 x -1.50 x 90 and OS -11.50 x -1.50 x 90. Other than the left eye being -0.25D stronger in sphere and a diopter lower for the astigmatism, Shelly was now as nearsighted a girl as the original owner of these old glasses had been. New glasses were also in order for April Carstairs to wear in the movie. I had seen the next pair April would be wearing, and I thought if Shelly was really my daughter, I would rather control her myopic progression. I went online and I ordered a pair of new glasses in an identical style to the brown 60’s cat eyed glasses that the director soon wanted Shelly to wear. Shelly was now being made up to look like a 17-year-old. She was ahead of her class and had graduated at 16 and was presently in first year university. The thick lensed silver framed glasses that she was wearing full time were due to be changed, as the real April Carstairs actually needed much thicker glasses by the time she was in University. The glasses I ordered for Shelly to wear would now have a prescription of OS -13.50 x -1.50 x 90 and OS -12.75 x -1.50 x 90. I ordered these new glasses to be made with the lowest index plastic lenses possible and I asked for them to be made as safety lenses with a 3.0mm center thickness. I got a note back from the online supplier saying that they could not do this because of the thickness, and they wanted me to order them in a polycarbonate material. I sent an answer back telling them that these glasses were to be worn in a movie and that polycarbonate lenses had not been available in the time frame that the movie was portraying. After a bit of back and forth emailing they finally said that they would make the lenses as per my request, but they wanted more money and they told me to expect that the lenses would be very thick. I paid the extra money as well as a bit more for expedited rush shipping. They were true to their word and the new glasses were in my hands within a week. Shelly had still been wearing the silver framed thick lenses 50’s style glasses, but she was due to wear the other pair for the scenes at university the following week. When we opened the package containing her new glasses, I hadn’t told her I had also ordered a much nicer looking pair with hi index lenses for her to wear if she wanted to, and while she thought that the extremely thick lensed pair would satisfy the director Shelly felt that she would rather wear the nicer looking pair as her daily wear pair. She had no idea that I had added a little bit to the prescription, and I was quite pleased that she didn’t really notice that the lenses were stronger than she required. She wore the hi index lensed glasses most of the time, but now it was really easy for her to change to the extra thick ones. The director accepted the thick lensed glasses as being period correct and Shelly wore them for a month or so for the filming of the next scenes. By now Shelly was able to see perfectly through the slightly stronger lenses that I had ordered. She had no idea that her eyes were so much worse than she thought they were. The DNA test results had come back, and they showed that Shelly really was my daughter. Her mom was still in court ordered rehab, and one Sunday when we were not filming, I took Shelly to the rehab hospital to see her mom. Jennifer confirmed that she had been pretty sure I was Shelly’s dad, but she said she had been doing quite a plethora of drugs at the time, and she didn’t even try to locate me. Then her own mom, who had been looking after Shelly died, and Jen had been caught for selling drugs to support her habit. Shelly had been placed in her first foster care, and Jen went to jail for a short period of time. When Jen was released, she tried to regain custody of Shelly, but the court ordered her to drug test weekly and she failed the tests, so then she was told that she needed to go to rehab, and then stay clean for a year before she could have custody again. Naturally Shelly was curious as the why her daughter now was wearing such strong glasses. You didn’t have to be April Carstairs the rocket scientist to tell that the glasses Shelly wore were a very high prescription, and all we said was that Shelly was quite nearsighted and that was how she got the part of April Carstairs as she needed very strong and thick glasses. Jen had no problem signing the papers that identified me as Shelly’s real dad, and the next step was going to be for us to try to get Shelly out of foster care. My parents were thrilled to find out that they had a granddaughter. Not a word was said about Shelly’s strong glasses and they took to her immediately. We also told them the story of April Carstairs, who Shelly was playing the part of in the movie and we told them that she got the part because of her poor eyesight and her ability to wear such strong glasses. Something happened to hold up the director’s financial backing for the movie and shooting had to stop for a while. Shelly moved into my apartment with me, and she was going to the nearby high school while we waited for filming to resume. I had some savings in the bank, and I didn’t want to take another long-term job as I wanted to again be the main camera guy when they got back to filming on my daughter’s movie. She didn’t have much longer to film, because by the time the real April finished university, got her PHD and went to work for NASA my daughter would be too young to be made up to be the age the part required. There was already another actress waiting to play an older April, and this other actress was just about as nearsighted as the real April was. Both Shelly and the older actress looked pretty similar in appearance and the only difference was the thicker myodiscs that the real April and the other actress would be wearing. I knew that the director would be wanting Shelly to wear those myodiscs for the last few scenes before her replacement took over and I wasn’t sure what I should do. I didn’t want my daughter to wear the strong myodiscs that the other actress wore that the director also wanted Shelly to wear, as I felt that they were much too strong, and they could possibly increase her own rapidly accelerating myopia very quickly. I understood the reason behind them wanting to have Shelly wear the strong myodiscs, as wearing the same glasses as the other actress would make the transition between the actresses easier if it looked like they were each actually wearing the same glasses. Shelly solved the problem for me of what to do by herself, without me even mentioning the forthcoming situational problem. She complained that her eyesight seemed to have gotten worse again in only about 3 months. I was a little surprised that she had used up the -1.50 over correction in such a short period of time, but I had also noticed while she was living with me that she read a lot and she brought her reading material very close to her face. I knew that in the late 60’s and early 70’s the lowest prescription that would normally be made in with a myodisc lens was around a -15D, but I wasn’t convinced that we could first of all get her better eye over -15D or secondly if could even find anyone to do a myodisc in that prescription. The first step was simple. We went back to see an eye doctor, but I could not take her to the same eye doctor we had first used. There was no shortage of them in Hollywood though and it was very easy to find one that had an opening the following day. Her -13.50 eye had jumped to -14.25D and her -12.75D eye was now a full diopter higher. Her astigmatism had also dropped another -0.25D in her left eye and her new prescription was going to be OD -14.25 x -1.50 x 90 and OS -13.75 x -1.25 x 90. If I added -1.75D to her right eye prescription she would be at -16D and if I added the same to her left eye her left eye would be -15.50, which was just over the minimum for a myodisc lens in regular plastic. This time I explained to Shelly what I was considering doing. She had been surprised that her prescription had jumped so much as quickly as it had, but I sort of explained that away by telling her that she was growing, and myopia often increased a lot during the years a young girl grew. She did not push the issue any further, but she did say that if she got the myodiscs she would need to wear for the movie when it started filming again, she also wanted me to get her contact lenses. This was going to be a predicament, because to order her contact lenses we would need to have an eye doctor fit them and then her glasses would not be the same prescription as her contacts. She understood this, and she finally agreed to wait until after the movie finished filming and the next time she had her eyes tested she could then get the proper prescription she needed in both her glasses and contacts. I agreed to do this for her. I didn’t think I needed to pay extra for a rush order on her glasses, but Shelly wanted to have them as soon as possible so she could get used to wearing them and I acquiesced. We had not used an optical store for her previous pair but had ordered them online and it had been difficult to explain what we needed and what the reasons were. I really didn’t like the fact that I had forged a prescription saying that Shelly needed OD -16.00 x -150 x 90 and OS -15.50 x -1.25 x 90 for her but the store we went to accepted the prescription with no problem. It was so much easier to discuss what we wanted and the reasons why in person, and we managed to find an experienced female optician that had not only worked in the film industry but also understood what we wanted. I had roughly measured the size of the myodisc circle of the other actresses’ glasses at 30 mm, and she knew just what we needed for a lens. It was going to be a regular index plastic and was going to have a lenticular myodisc lens with a 30mm bowl size and a flat front lens. When Shelly and I picked up her new glasses they were perfect, and looked like a pair of myodiscs right out of the early 70’s. Fortunately, the new glasses arrived just before the director called and told us to be on set the following Monday. Shelly had a couple more weeks of scenes to shoot before the older actress who wore similar but much stronger myodiscs stepped in We finished shooting Shelly’s 2 weeks of scenes and the director was satisfied so Shelly got a pretty decent paycheck. I kept working with the other actress until the movie was finished, and when I saw the rushes, I thought it made for a pretty interesting movie. I would have been interested in dating the actress who replaced Shelly, but unfortunately, she was married. She wore great looking myodiscs, although I was sure I would never see her wearing glasses again in real life. About a year later Shelly told me that she thought she needed new glasses again. She did, and I bought her new glasses. We did mention to the eye doctor that Shelly had gone through an accelerated progression of myopia and that maybe he should not try to cut back her prescription as her new glasses were going to be pretty expensive and we would like them to last for a while. She ended up with a new prescription of OD -17.50 x -1.50 x 90 and OS -17.00 x -1.25 x 90. I bought her a pair of glasses in the current style of the larger Ray Ban frames with the highest index plastic lens available, which was the Tokai 1.76 index. We also had the doctor fit Shelly with soft toric contact lenses as there was possibly another movie in the works for her to act in and a girl wearing thick glasses would probably not get the part. Shelly’s mom had gotten out of rehab and had been clean for a year. Jen was convinced that there would be no more drugs in her life, and since it had been the drugs that had caused most of our friction, I ended up having Jen live with Shelly and I. Everything seemed to be working out well, and I loved having my now extremely nearsighted, previously unknown daughter living with us. Because of my affinity towards myopic ladies, I was also pleased that due to having had to wear strong glasses for the part in the movie, Shelly had become very myopic. Specs4ever March 2020