She lives here but you can also see her on TV

In just 30 minutes, Eileen Carlin had to convince as many people as possible to sign a petition to pave the Key West beaches in Florida.

Carlin’s task was one of several challenges she had to complete while on the TLC reality show “Help Wanted” in 2003. She was one of five contestants selected to compete for the title of honorary mayor of Key West. Although she did not win the show, Carlin is grateful for the experience.

“It was just a lot of fun,” Carlin said. “It made you think on your feet, but basically it’s a game; it’s a show and it was just fun. And it’s also not bad to have on your resume because people in the industry know they audition for that.”

The 59-year-old Dallas woman is a former school teacher who has been acting throughout her life.

Carlin grew up in Wilkes-Barre and graduated from Coughlin High School in 1967. In college, she double majored in education and theater at Mansfield University, and then later received a master’s degree in education from The University of Scranton.

After graduation,she became an elementary teacher at Dodson Elementary School in Wilkes-Barre. She taught grades two through six during a 31-year career.

“My mother said, ‘For God’s sake, Eileen, do something where you could pay the bills,’” Carlin said. “Teaching was a wonderful career and I loved it very much. Every month we did a poem and a Broadway song.”

For many years, Carlin was active in the Showcase Theater, which was located across from Coughlin High School on North Washington Street in Wilkes-Barre. In the mid-1980s, she was asked to appear in a video for Wilkes-Barre General Hospital.

The cameraman, Ed Finn, told Carlin she should write something. She did and her children’s series “Read Around Gang” was produced and aired locally on WVIA-TV from 1983 to 1984.

In 1995, Geisinger auctioned off a background role on the television show “Frasier” to raise money for charity. Carlin was one of only two people to bid on the role and was the higher bidder, offering $190.

She flew to California and appeared seated in the background in the fictional Caf� Nervosa on the “Bad Boy Dirty Girl” episode of “Frasier,” which aired in Sept. 1995. Carlin says she and the other background actors were treated very well on the set of the show and were offered a full spread of food.

“It showed me that I had the skills to do the job,” Carlin said. “In fact, when I was there I was asked by a casting agent if could stay for another week and work on a pilot, but I was still teaching and I couldn’t.”

Intending to move to New York City after she retired, Carlin had no idea her future husband lived there.

She met her husband, Frederick Halsey, a native of New York City, at the Ramada Inn in Wilkes-Barre when he was in town for the funeral of his mother, Rose Homnick, and Carlin was attending a Friends of Education meeting at the Ramada. The couple married in 2000.

Carlin retired from teaching in 2002 and relocated to New York City. There, she secured roles in several commercials, including one for Eggland’s Best and Charter Communications. She also has appeared in industrial videos for doctors’ offices on topics, including Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and menopause.

“Sometimes I am the caretaker and sometimes I am the patient,” Carlin said, laughing.

She was also a shadow puppeteer from 2004 to 2005 at Shadowbox Theater in New York City.

“Some children started to speak,” Carlin said. “Little autistic children would call out (to the puppet).”

Carlin’s husband worked as an investment banker at Bear Stearns in New York City until June 2008 when the couple moved to Dallas; however, they still maintain their apartment in the Jackson Heights section of Queens in New York City where her husband was raised. Carlin stays at the apartment when she is auditioning in the city.

“There’s a whole different vibe (in New York),” Carlin said. “You’re pounding, you’re moving, but people are great. But here, you can still do a lot of things.”

Also in 2008, Carlin played the role of Ruth Tripp Slocum in the locally-produced film titled, “Frances Slocum: Child of Two Americas,” the story of Frances Slocum, a 5-year-old Quaker girl kidnapped by Delaware Indians from her parents’ Wilkes-Barre home in 1778.

The movie was one of 200 films featured during the New York International Independent Film Festival in late October.

“It was wonderful to be able to bring the story of Frances Slocum to the screen to give people an understanding of this incredible story,” Carlin said.

Carlin is still acting and is also an educational consultant at Club Z Tutoring franchise in Luzerne County. She has advice for young, aspiring actors and actresses: “Get the best training you can. Find the best acting classes you can. Be professional. Be persistent. It’s not a game; it’s a business and you have to treat it like a business. And have a backup plan.”

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