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teacher-turned-prolific-actor is also an internationally acclaimed speaker who knows a thing or two about perseverance -- when she booked her first of more than 200 commercials, she had only $4 in her bank account. “I left for New York, and my mom thought I’d be a goner in a week,” she said on the talk-show circuit following the release of ET. Instead, she went on to make 130 films, author five books and, now, grace the stage of TEDx Cape May. You likely know Dee Wallace as Mary -- aka, the mom from Steven Spielberg’s ET: The Extra-Terrestrial. (Ahem, the woman who knocked America’s favorite alien with a refrigerator door.) But this Kansas-teacher-turned-prolific-actor is also an internationally acclaimed speaker who knows a thing or two about perseverance -- when she booked her first of more than 200 commercials, she had only $4 in her bank account. “I left for New York, and my mom thought I’d be a goner in a week,” she said on the talk-show circuit following the release of ET. Instead, she went on to make 130 films, author five books and, now, grace the stage of TEDx Cape May. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx