From War-Torn Hungary to Hollywood: Katherine MK Mitchell on Survival, Storytelling & Reinvention

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What's going on, my good people? This your boy CJ Moneyway, and from Budapest to Hollywood, Catherine MK Mitchell's epic journey Through war, fame, and fiction. You are listening to the CJ Moneyway Show in association with Believe Network and CJ Moneyway Entertainment. Today we sit down with a true Renaissance woman, Catherine M.K. Mitchell, a novelist, former Hollywood agent, and war survivor whose life reads like a movie script. GI, the state's capital. Be looking forward to animated series coming soon, created by your boy CJ Moneyway Johnson. Is proud to amplify Catherine's voice and honor her legacy. Welcome to the show, Catherine. How you doing today?

I'm doing great. It's so good to hear your voice. You have so much charm inside your voice.

I appreciate it, Catherine. Appreciate it. So Catherine, Tell us, from Budapest to America, what memories stand out most from growing up in war-torn Hungary?

The memories, they are actually sad because the country after the Second World War was torn up and in bad shape, but the Hungarians are a pretty strong stock and started to recover until the Russians took over and we became a satellite communist country. And I was a kid in school and studying very, very hard to become— I didn't know what I wanted to become. Well, yeah, I did. I wanted to become a movie director, but I didn't know how to go about it. But so I was studying very hard because people always notice a good student. So that was one way to get to where I was heading. And I was a gymnast, a very good gymnast, nationally ranked. Which helped me develop an amazing discipline that you basically don't give up. You keep trying to get better. And I never had any money. I was always on the lower middle class level. But because I was a good student and a good athlete, I had the attention of some scholarly people because I was enrolled already in a university where I was going to go had I stayed in Hungary. Because they heard about me being as good as I was. I didn't know all that was going on because I was a busy kid doing gymnastics and being a good scholar and writing. I was writing poetry and always busy reading and writing. So when came the revolution, when the Hungarians revolted against communism and wanted out of that satellite, my brother was in the university, so as soon as the revolution was Of course, he and his schoolmates quickly left Hungary, just got on a truck, and they drove clearly over to Austria. And in those days, it was still the kind of country where the Russian soldiers who were present as the occupying country and who lived in Hungary for years and years and married Hungarian girls and became cultured, and the Hungarian culture was always high, so those Russian soldiers would not fight against us, and they had to bring in the bad animalistic Mongolian end of the Russian country, which is always a gigantic country, and way back on the other side, away from Europe, is the Mongolia that It's just a vast place with no education and, as far as I know, nothing much of anything. I don't know enough about it to say— sorry, I take that back. But Hungary never became free again until in '89 when they chose to go their own democratic way and they managed to stop being a satellite to Russia. Soviet Union was long gone. And my mother and I followed my brother after we knew that he had safely arrived to Austria. And she and I had a horrendous effort. We started to leave 3 different times before we were able to meet with our transport. She had to lie and cheat to get a pass out of the city, and I had to travel under the canvas of the back of the truck because I didn't have a pass. So when the Russians stopped us for checkpoints, they would see a driver and my mother with her pass allowing her to leave the city on behalf of the company where she worked. And luckily, we got to the border, at which point we had to walk across maybe about a mile. I tell you, you will not believe it. It was the middle of the winter, just before Christmas. The snowfield was wide and open and up to the knees. We were short people, both my mother and I. Snow was up to our knees, and we could see the Russian guardhouses on both sides of us, so they could see us. And apparently, they were paid off to let the people escape. It was daylight. It was full moon, if you can believe that. Full moon, a huge snowfield, these little figures, black figures, are crossing through the snow. My mother and I each carried to carry 2 duffel bags. And then suddenly she gives up, she lays down in the snow and says, "Oh, I can't do this anymore. You go take these bags to your brother. Just leave me here." So luckily I was a nasty little teenager and I told her that I can't carry 4 bags, so get up and keep going. And I was dragging her and the other bags across the rest of the way. And it was years later, CJ, when I realized that at that point she gave up. That was when all her war years and her concentration camp time and all the suffering that she had gone through just got her. And I became the adult of the household. And again, it was a situation that I wasn't prepared for in any fashion. But now I had no choice, so I did it. And that was truly my entire life. The situation would arise, sometimes I would cause it, sometimes not. I would never be prepared, but I had to solve it. And that's how all my education came. Going to New York, I ran into many, many difficult moments. But before that, we were in Toledo, Ohio, where I was a dishwasher in the laboratory in the hospital, and after school, and on weekends, so I was always paying my way. And in New York, I had job after job after school and on the weekends because my mother could not work very much. As I finished high school, my first job was in the filing— as a filing clerk on Wall Street. And that was paying all our bills. So I realized that you need money, you go to work. And there were no options. You have to have money and you have to go to work. And in a job, you can make more money if you learn what you're supposed to do. So I was very attentive, and that's what I say, that my whole attitude to everything whatever was in front of me had to be solved. It never occurred to me not to solve a problem. And I think that's a mental state that comes again with the sports.

Just listening to you, Catherine, it says a lot about who you are. Here it is, you said that you're a little girl, you and your mom's leaving a war-torn country and you carrying 4 bags and carrying your mom across the finish line. And so, you know, that just speaks a lot to what you've endured, what you've been through. Which brings me to this next question: life in Hollywood. Here it is, a young lady who drug her mother across the finish line carrying bags, and you said that you worked various jobs in New York, and now You're living in Hollywood. What were your first impressions, first, of where you had these many jobs, New York and then Hollywood?

Oh, backstep for a moment. I took playwright course in New York City, and I learned to write a one-act play that was produced off-Broadway one summer. And I married the leading man of my play. And that's why I went to Hollywood, because he was an actor, and the action, as they said, was in Hollywood. And he had gone to the Pasadena Playhouse on his GI Bill. So he had enough friends in Hollywood who were in the business, but not big time, you know, just actors and craftspeople that all got educated and were trying to make the big bucks, but that doesn't come so easily. But as long as you keep working, you know, pay your bills, you're sort of okay. And I, again, now being a foreigner with poor English, I realized that my husband and his friends were not working on television, and that's what they wanted. So I asked them, "Why aren't you working?" Oh, we need an agent. So I said, what's an agent, right? I don't know. Hungary didn't have agents.

Here comes Katherine.

Yeah, so here comes Katherine. So I said, I can do that.

Yeah.

Sure enough, I went through all the licensing and approvals, and I registered with all the guilds so that I could represent— oh, it was called— I became a signatory to the guild. As a result, I could do business with the signatory production companies that belong to the guild. And basically, that way, it was a pretty— well, I can't say clean. It was an understanding that you don't want your clients to work for a movie or a TV show, anything that's not a signatory to the unions. It was very strict. It still is. That's why when they went all over the world to make movies, because that was the only place out of the country where a producer could get the work done without the approval of the guild and could pay less, you know, because the guild gets you the scales that are minimum. So indeed, my husband and his friends, whom I also represented, all managed to get their first job. I figured out how to get my clients a reading. So I would go to a casting director and read the scripts every day, the new scripts coming out for the episodic television shows. And I started to figure out that as long as I go to one casting director about one part for one of my clients and get that client a reading, I'm good. Because I noticed that the other agents would make long lists and say, you know, 5 actors for 5 different parts in the same show. And casting directors liked better my system because my clients did get a reading. And once they got a reading, they most— more often than not, they would actually get the role and be in front of the camera, which means they would become members of the Screen Actors Guild. And then all the other guilds will also allow them to work in their areas. So I learned all that the slow way. And what was very strange was I was really the talk of the town because I was, first of all, nobody knew me. And agents used to be trained by agencies, you know, and they come out of another agency and they are connected already. I just walk into the studio and say, "Hi, I'm Cathy Lane and I'm an agent." That's superwoman. Yeah. And I'm wearing a micro mini skirt with the high boots and the long hair and 3-mile-long eyelashes. I am an agent, you know, and they don't know what I am. So because of that weird appearance and my accent, which was horrendous at the time, I was a point of curiosity, which allowed me to get in to see people because they were curious about me and I had a cause. So once I was inside the door, I did not leave there until I had a reading appointment for my client. And little by little, as I said, all my clients got their union cards and were starting in their career because of my tenacity, I would say. And I didn't get into too much trouble, but you see, the mentality— and you know it, CJ, you've been around every single high-gloss, big-money industry. Has the mentality of the powerful is going to exploit the unpowerful. All the new people coming in, male or female, they were always in trouble because just when you thought that you became friends with an important person, he or she would abuse you, and so the Me Too was there way before, probably forever. That somebody was always taking advantage of somebody who needed the help. And that never ends, it has different degrees, but it will never end, I don't believe, because of the nature of the beast, you know, the publishing industry, television, yes, magazines, it's all a hierarchy where the big money people are exploiting all the interns, you know, So I went through my steps as well. But you see what happened? While I was reading all these scripts, I learned what a script looks like. And I sort of found my calling. I could write a script. But of course, you can't write a script if you're not a member of the Writers Guild. So now how? You know, now what I have to do? And I went to school. I went to UCLA, took some— cinema courses, cinema writing, strictly, because it's quite different from stage playwriting. And I learned the rules and started to offer my work under my father's name, not under my agent name. I couldn't, of course, sell anything, but now I knew some producers already, and I knew some directors already. So I would go to some of them and say, "I want to do this and do that with writing." And although nobody took me seriously, one of the young associate producers himself was trying to get a TV movie on television that he would produce fully. And because he couldn't hire and pay a Writers Guild member writer because he didn't have that kind of money, and he could hire me, and I wrote the script for him, as he had envisioned. It was his storyline, and I wrote the script. And his agent— he had an agent, a legitimate literary agent— and his agent got me in and got me my Writers Guild membership because I now did work on a legitimate production for ABC, you know, the weekly movie of the week. And so now I had all kinds of rights to knock on the doors and carry my ideas for scripts or my episodes. I got episodic television behind my belt. And it was amazing how the first script that my agent— now I had an agent, too, and I was not an agent anymore. I made sure all my clients had agents when I left the agency business. But that, too, was a dirty, dirty business. I had to go see Nick Nolte. You remember Nick Nolte? He was pretty big for a while.

Yeah, 48 hours, and, uh—

Right, right. My agency— I went with an agency and stopped being on my own. And the guy that was always going to see the plays in little theater, which is all over Los Angeles, his job was to watch everything and find talent. But when he found somebody like Nick Nolte, he couldn't just come and alone sign him up for the agency. We all had to agree. On an actor before signing. So they made me go see the play. Because if I didn't sign, if I didn't agree, they wouldn't sign Nick Nolte. And I loved the play. It was called The Last Pad by William Inge and was dramatic and it was sad, all that. But he was brilliant. And I came back the next day and I said, yes, sign him. So you know what happened? And this is where the man, Nick Nolte. And you need luck. In Hollywood, you go there without luck, you're never going to get anywhere. And I was fighting that lack of luck all throughout the years. But he— the next— after, I don't know, days after we signed him, I was at Universal Studios, and the producer named Steven Butchko was producing the first episode of Griff, That was a show.

Ho-ho.

Who was Cartwright? Who played Father Cartwright in The Bonanza? The actor, big old man. Anyway, starring in his new series called Griff, and the guest starring role was perfect for Nick, some boxer out of Oklahoma, wherever. So I mentioned him, and by that time, everybody had seen him in the play. So he got the part in 5 minutes of reading, and it was all done. And I tell you, the next year, for 12 months, my biggest problem with him was conflict because everybody wanted him in his show. He worked on every single television show. And it was just really wonderful that we had somebody that good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then he went— at the end of a year contract, he signed with a woman that was— his manager, and who had a lot of money, and who was feeding him and getting him cars and everything that we didn't do. I just worked for him. So he left us, but after that, he did Rich Man, Poor Man, and I was told by the casting director of that TV movie series that he would have gotten one of the lead roles anyway. So they already had their eyes on him. But all of the industry was like that. Integrity doesn't exist. Honorable doesn't exist. I've found people lying straight into your face, and you believe it because you want to.

Yeah, it's kind of like something that's going on today in the world.

Exactly, yeah. You don't know who's meaning what they're saying. And you just want to, but— and then you don't know if you are safe in your position, and you're never safe in your position. So my message in my book called "From Budapest to Hollywood" is that anybody going to Hollywood, absolutely go, but if you have to have an exit plan. You have to know how long you will be there, how long you will try it, which directions you will take. And if it doesn't happen, don't stay there because you will just get old and used up.

Mm, man. You know what? I just got to stop you right there, Katherine. Then I'll let you go on again. And we sat here before we got on air, and you told me that, well, Diana, no, no, no. This story that you was telling us is nothing far than amazing. Just the grit and the things. And you was agent to Nick Nolte? Come on now.

His first agent.

Yeah, come on now, you know what I'm saying? That dude, he's a legend. I love 48 Hours. Then he was the coach in the movie with Shaq and Penny Hardaway, uh, the basketball movie, you know.

Great actor. Great, great actor.

Oh yeah, everybody know Nick Nolte. And for you to be associated, be his first agent, a woman who, you know, I was listening to you talk, and I'll let you get back, how smart you are too, as far as not just your grit and the things that you went through. But when we first started talking, you said that your father, he went to war, didn't come back, right? And so as time went on, we talking and everything, then you say you went to UCLA, which is, come on now, that's something, that's amazing in itself.

That was just a course. I wasn't a full-time student. I just took courses.

Didn't matter. You still went to UCLA and took courses and did what you had to do. But what was intriguing about that is what you said, and I caught that. You said, I used my father's name.

Yes.

Ah, boy, this woman, this woman here, this woman, I tell you something amazing. Okay, uh, so let me ask you, you talked about, you said, from Budapest to Hollywood. I was going to ask you that. But let me ask you about this, your novels. Yes. Yours Forever, maybe. Wasted, maybe. And Shelby's Way, maybe.

Maybe.

It blends romance and adventure. What inspired the maybe thing?

As a foreigner, I'm very fond of languages. And the English language, as you know, Many words have a lot of meanings, which is good and bad. And maybe is one of those words.

Maybe.

And I remember an old Maurice Chevalier movie where he was talking about getting a girl or not getting, and whether no, whether if it's no or if it's yes, it simply couldn't matter less. And that's what gave me the idea that all these romantic entanglements can end. And that's where the maybe comes from. So I would be used forever, but forever, what's the other song, forever is shorter than before. You know, when you play on the words as a writer, you get into all these things. And nothing is for sure, you know, you marry for forever, but then what happens? So there's always this maybe. And then I realized that wasted is the same word, is the same kind of power as a word, because it means many things. You can be wasted on drugs, you can be wasted money, you can be wasted in time, and you can waste something like garbage kind of wasted too. And that also becomes a maybe, because suddenly it's not a definition for one person, but one person can be wasted in so many different ways, good and bad. That it's a maybe because in either of them is, is none of them is defined. I'm not saying this right, I'm not saying this right, and I want to express it so clearly.

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Take time. Yeah, because you said something to me, I didn't catch the whole thing. I was trying to get my pen and paper and write it. You said a lot of things are shorter than forever.

I am going too fast, am I?

No, no, no, no, that was one to grow on right there. Some things are shorter than forever. I like to think— I got to get the book. You got to send me a book this way, uh, Katherine?

You'll have to give me that.

That sounds, you know, it puts some stuff on your mind. It definitely does that. It puts some stuff on your mind.

And as long as you're not reading with a judgmental mind, and if you read with judgmental anything, you will be in trouble yourself, not the story. But all the stories, all the novels, I did 3 of those novels, the Maybe series. I didn't do any more because I was raising a child, and I was I was busy changing locations, leaving California, going to Florida, studying, you know, getting jobs, you know, day jobs. And it was never enough time to be a full-time writer, and I never made it big. And I'm always almost— you know, I was almost there. Here, I have one for you. This will tickle you. You know Julie Andrews, right?

Mm-hmm.

Her husband, Blake Edwards, had the Blake Edwards Company, a motion picture production company who produced all of Julie Andrews' movies. And I had an agent, and I wrote a script that he took to the development vice president at the Blake Edwards Company. And I found out much later, weeks later, that the development guy really liked it and wanted to get a contract for it. And as the policy of their company was, Blake Edwards has to invite you for the contract. So he cannot, he's a development, he works for the company. Blake Edwards is the company. So the guy himself couldn't give me a contract. He had to meet with Blake Edwards and the other, I don't know who the various other vice presidents are, to approve before they created a contract. And I didn't know any of that. I just knew that it's sitting at their office, and that's a good thing because if all goes well, Julie Andrews is going to do my leading woman, and I'm going to be set for life, you know? It's very simple. And I was happy and just waiting and waiting. But by that time, I was also a paralegal again. Went to UCLA, got my degree, and I became a paralegal in an entertainment law firm. And I was working for the head of litigation department and all the complaints that came into the office, complaints against the clients of the law firm. One comes on my desk and it is from the development guy to Blake Edwards Company. Imagine that. They had a fight and they told each other off and, you know, whatever bad words and bad thoughts. Suddenly the guy is leaving the company. If he had waited a week or two until after my contract is written, you know, son of a gun, he did you like Dick Doughty.

Come on, man. Come on, man. Hey, I tell you what, I tell you what, uh, okay, I don't care if you say that you didn't make it big in Hollywood or whatever, the efforts that you put in The things that you have accomplished, the things that you have done, seen, experienced, witnessed. Like you say, how divine is that? You go back to school, get your paralegal, now you're working for an entertainment company, working in the litigation department, and you find a complaint that comes on your desk for this place that you sent the script to that almost had a deal. Man, that's crazy. Yeah, that's great.

Yeah, and I had two other scripts, the same thing, similar things happened where my without me having to do anything. They were already ready to go with my movie. And again, I was feeling that it's going to put my life on track again. And that fell apart. Like, there was one I wrote where the plot, the basic plot, was resting on the comparison between the American capitalism and the communist economy. So capitalism as opposed to communism and how people are living and working within that. So that was the bottom line inside the love story. I always write love stories. I got to write love stories. Somebody will always fall in love with the wrong person.

You are funny, I tell you. And you ain't never lie. You ain't never lie. Hey, I got to ask you this, Catherine, because I talked to you, told you about what I'm trying to do. Just give me some advice.

Okay.

What is one thing? Okay, so say like I do this script, right? I do this animated series and this and that. So now I'm trying to pitch it and sell it. What do you be aware of? What do you watch out for the most?

Well, your proposal has to go to the right place. And I go way back to where they used to say that it's not what you know, it's who you know. You can be the brightest, most brilliant creative person, like I am, and not know the right person. My thing always was right time, wrong place, wrong time, right place. You know, I was never the two together. So with your— at your level of achievement, and this is an accomplishment that you have, and you have to show the numbers of what makes a podcast large and acceptable to a large audience, and how you brought that together from scratch, and how it is doing. So it's like a report, but it's a proposal, and you have to look up the format and what a proposal entails, because it does give you on, you know, Mr. Google, all the numbers and all the order of paragraphs that you have to fill out. And if you cannot fill out certain points, it's not going to be a proper proposal. So it's a complicated distance because unless you know people, and then you do the same thing, you don't go discussing with people your plan. First you create the proposal and you have it notarized. So it is yours, it's private. I can't say copyrighted because it doesn't qualify for that. But have it, have your plan, your model, as they say, of what you want and what you are supporting it with. I can send you some notes after the show, give you some direction.

I would really appreciate that, Catherine. I told you, you are number one in my book, and don't let nobody else tell you anything different. So, Catherine, I got one more question for you, okay?

Yes.

And then I have this game that I've been playing on the CJ Moneyway Johnson Show. It's been a fan favorite. So I'm gonna ask you 5 questions and you tell me the first thing that comes to your mind.

Oh yeah, is it clean?

Yeah, it's definitely clean. See, that's how I like to get you guys. I've been getting everybody, they get a little stumbled, they get a little nervous, think it's gonna be out of bounds, but it's good clean fun. But I guarantee that you will stumble on one of these questions because everybody does. And so let me just ask you one more question, Catherine.

Okay.

You said, "Be who you are until you out of who you want to be." How did that mantra shape your story?

Honesty. If you don't like anything about yourself, change it. Only you can do it.

Mm.

If you can't reach something that you want to reach, break it down into steps and go one at a time. It's honesty. But if you're not happy where you are and you have an idea of where you want to be, where you will be happy, why stop? Go for it.

Go forward. I like that. That's the drop the mic moment right there. Go forward. You know what I'm saying? That's it. I'm finna put this as a slogan. Go forward. You know what I'm saying? Just like Nike. Do it.

It is like Nike, just do it.

Just do it. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, because if you wait and think about it, suddenly you're 85 years old and you're still thinking about it. And if you try it, all you can do is fail or not fail.

That's all you can do. You know what I'm saying? I'm telling you, boy, you've been an encouragement to me. And that was the final thing, go forward.

Go for it.

I'm going, I'm going for it, guys.

Yes, yes, yes, you are alive, you have a goal, you go for it.

I'm going for it. So let me get to this quick fire round so I can let you get on your way. Your creative mind— this woman has been through a lot, you all, but look at where she's at, she's still on top. So let me ask you, book that changed your life.

Book?

Yep. Besides your own, besides your Maybe books, trilogies, another book that changed your life?

I have actually two. The first one that changed my mind was Between Parent and Child by a guy named Haim Ginott, G-I-N-O-T-T. It's an old book. I'm an old lady, and I read it while I was pregnant, and I reread it over and over again when my child was very little. And it guided me without being a psychological book. It gave me some very basic steps of how to talk to my child, which also helped myself, and how to talk to anybody else. And the question is always, first you ask how you feel about it without telling them what they should feel. And as a parent, you know, I never knew how to be a parent, and I didn't think that I was being raised in the image of your own parent doesn't do much because 20 years later, that doesn't fly anymore. You know, it's a whole different world. So I couldn't raise my daughter in my own image, but I could raise her to think. And this book taught me to teach her how to think for herself. And she's a dynamite and a beautiful lady.

Mm, I like that. That was beautiful. That was beautiful. Taught her. This book taught you to teach your daughter how to think. Now this book taught a thinker how to think even deeper. Ah, you ain't fooling me, Catherine. So let me ask you, Hollywood moment you'll never forget.

Okay, I got it. That was, uh, may still be a restaurant called Morton's that is not even in the phone book because it was only for the insiders. And the insiders were all the old Hollywood guys. And one day, I had to go in there at lunchtime to meet Sidney Sheldon to give him a script that was my script. And he allowed me to bring it to him, and he said to bring it there. Now, imagine me going into this dark, mahogany-filled walls and very— elegant old room full of guys that are in the business, writers and directors and whatnot. And little me walks in there and walks across, and the maître d' is taking me across to Sidney Sheldon's, um, table, where all his friends are very, very big-time writers. And he gets up, I give him my envelope, and he gives me an envelope.

Ho, ho, ho.

Nobody knows what's in the envelope. And I walk away. And afterwards, I could hear the silence in there. They had to figure out that if Sidney is doing this publicly, as he is doing, it cannot be bad or wrong or the wrong color. It could not be against his wife or anything. It could not be a lover thing. And it was hilarious because the silence was so thick as I was walking back to the door. That you could cut it. And I guess probably when I left the room, they probably were all laughing. But yeah, he made it seem so dramatic because everything he did, you know, Sidney Sheldon, was very dramatic. And he was a mentor, and he helped me with some of my writing concepts. He was very good to me with that, and he was very good when he accepted to read one of my scripts. So But that was a strange and an important moment because I saw the weight that the men had in the business. They had their own little restaurant. There were no women there. And it wasn't a club. It was just a restaurant. So I don't know if that answers your question, but that was it.

Yeah, that was a good one. That was a good one. Hollywood, Hollywood.

Hollywood. And the exchange of the envelopes, and nobody knew what was in those envelopes.

So let me ask you then, tell us, what was in the envelope?

I will not tell you.

Ah, so that's like nobody would never know that secret, you taking that one with you.

Everybody knows that one of them was my script.

You know what was in one hand, but not in the other hand.

Right.

Catherine, one word that describes your life.

I'm at peace.

Mm, I like that.

Peace.

I found my inner peace.

The most romantic place you've ever been.

Whoa. I don't know.

Don't know. I think I tripped you up. Yeah.

Yeah. I tell you, probably at the young first marriage of my Hollywood actor. And we were in Arizona in a petrified forest and going through that fantastic area of the country, and it was my 25th birthday.

Mm.

And we were madly in love, and I think we spent about $6 for a full dinner and wine and beer for both of us. This was so long ago. But I think that would be the most romantic moment in my life.

Mm.

Not a fancy place.

Hey, but 25th birthday, madly in love, just a sight that you hadn't seen already. That was romantic enough, you know what I'm saying? That was romantic enough.

Yeah, the Petrified Forest and all of— oh, the Grand Canyon and all that. So it was fabulous.

So my final one, Katherine. Okay. One dream you still haven't chased yet.

In the community where I live, I was asked for writing something for July 4th holiday, and I created a play. And it's a play about two characters. One is the name of the community where I live, and the other one is July 4th. And it has to do with the life of the residents, and it's a comedy, and how it intertwines with all the famous patriotic papers. It's very patriotic and also very funny. And my biggest hope is that on July 3rd, when we do it the night before July 4th, that everybody knows his lines and the timing works and it's a success.

Hey, it's already a success. You know what I'm saying? Just that she's still chasing dreams. Are you gonna be recording this?

I think we're going to have— I'm working on making sure that we have a video recording. Either it's gonna be so good that everybody will want to look at it, or so bad that everybody will want to look at it.

Well, I tell you what, good or bad, your boy CJ Moneyway Johnson wants a copy of that tape. I want to see it. I want to promote it because I'm just fascinated by you, Katherine. I really am. And that's just me. That's honest to God truth. I'm really fascinated by your life story and the things that you have done, accomplished, where you came from, and the things that you're steadily doing. I mean, there's nothing more than Amazing. So where can we find you on social media? Where can we find your work? Where can we find your Maybe trilogy?

My website is katherinemitchellauthor.com. Very simple. And anytime you put my name online, Katherine M.K. Mitchell, all the books come up. But Amazon is the best place. And they're paperbacks, so it's not a biggie. And yeah, because some of the stores, it's called POD, print on demand. So some of the stores are a few days. While they print it for you, but Amazon will get it to you in a couple of days, so. And it's good stuff, I am very proud of it, because everything I wrote in all my work is based on the truth, based on something that has happened to me that either triggered it or was the result of an event in my life. So it's true story, the Mabys are all in California, oh no, Wasted is an international, it travels across Europe. And it's learning, it's learning about people.

So you have it here, I'm telling you right now, go get the book Budapest to Hollywood. Any of you young people out there going to Hollywood trying to do what you do and make it like Jamie Foxx or Will Smith or Julia Andrews, them, Have you an exit plan? She say know when to stay, know when to get out of there. Have you a plan? Get this book, it'll teach you some things. Cause I'm grabbing the trilogy. Yours Forever, maybe. Wasted, maybe. And Shelby's Way, maybe will be on my bookshelf. Hey, so, um, Catherine Mitchell is a living proof that reinvention is ageless, healing is non-negotiable, and storytelling is power. Her story, from surviving war to rewriting her own chapters, is an example of resilience at its finest. To our CJ Moneyway Johnson listeners, what chapter are you afraid to start? Maybe Catherine's journey is the sign to begin. Catch more real stories and rich insights only here on the CJ Moneyway Show. This your boy CJ Moneyway with my girl Catherine MK Mitchell. We out of here. Peace.

You've been listening to the CJ Moneyway Show with real stories, real lessons, yeah, and real perspective come together. Remember, move Patience, move with purpose, that is the mindset of a Panther. Until next time, keep building your legacy brick by brick by brick by brick. Music style.

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