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My interest just grew and grew, and I continued doing that until I was about 17, by which stage I had made and put away enough money to put myself through drama school, because I wanted to become an actor. My father, who was an opera singer and an actor, didn't really want me to go that path. But I was determined, so I used my "ill-gotten gains" from the antique market and put myself into the Lee Strasberg theater school and continued my way in doing that by still buying and selling. Unbeknownst to me, those years were really the training ground for who I am today. It taught me where things come from, it taught me how to gather, and it really gave me the foundation for my interior design career. AN: Tell me more about your early acting experience. How did you transition to interior design? MLB: I have always loved interior design and never thought that it was something I could do. I thought you had to be trained and you had to go to school, and by the time I realized it could be a way to make a living, I had passed that stage. When I was 22, I moved to L.A. to continue following my initial passion to be an actor. Like everybody else, I thought I would go to Los Angeles and become a movie star! I ended up working in a coffee shop like everybody else. Eventually, I got cast in a movie alongside Eartha Kitt. e producer of the movie and his girlfriend came to this tiny apartment I was renting at the time, which I had decorated with goods from the local [flea] market called "e Rose Bowl." ey loved what I had done with the small space and asked me to come and decorate their new offices. ey absolutely loved it. I had just completed this when I got a phone call from a lady, Liz Heller, who worked at a record company, asking if I could come and look at her offices in the Capitol [Records] building. is was so crazy. I'd always wanted to be a pop star and I thought if I decorated her offices, she'd make me into a pop star! I met with Liz, we fell in love — she is still one of my closest friends — and I started to work for her. About a month into doing her project, she was getting married at home, and her wedding planner overdosed a day before the wedding — true Hollywood story — and Liz called me in a terrible panic [saying], "What am I going to do?" I jumped in, went to the flower market, bought big bags of rose petals, flowers, a staple gun, and I helped put her wedding together. She asked me to stay for the wedding and sat me next to a lady named Cheryl Tiegs. I had no idea who she was; I thought she looked like an actress from Charlie's Angels. By the end of the evening, it turned out that Cheryl was the world's first supermodel and an American icon. She hired me to do her house! Within nine months, the house appeared on the covers of six magazines around the world. I was declared a new design star, opened my offices, and that is how my business started 23 years ago. 323.655.5080, martynlawrencebullard.com Indulge design << ranchandcoast.com 64 FEBRUARY 2024 RANCH & COAST MAGAZINE MARTYN LAWRENCE BULLARD PORTRAIT: PHOTO BY HOPE ROLLINS