Retired Pageant Queen, 6, Sets Sights on Movie Stardom

Aug. 10, 2011— -- At 6 years old, Eden Wood seemed more at home on stage than on the playground.

She wowed crowds at a mall outside Des Moines, Iowa. Her mother, Miki Wood, urged her to tell ABC News what she wanted to be when she grew up.

"A superstar," Eden said.

When asked why, Eden said, "I don't know," and looked up at her mother. "'Cause I'm famous!"

Watch the full story on the "Primetime Nightline" special "Underage and Famous," airing Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET on ABC

Eden's road to fame began when she was still in diapers, on the pint-size pageant circuit. Now she has more than 300 crowns -- and a feisty attitude.

The little girl from Taylor, Ark., has become a reality-TV star after two seasons on "Toddlers and Tiaras." The hit show goes behind the scenes of child pageants, exposing spray tans, hair extensions and fake teeth.

Now, before she has lost her baby teeth, Eden is "retiring" from pageants.

"I want her to have plenty of sleep and rest and get to play with her animals and be with her dad. I had to make some choices, and her heart is really not with the big hair, the hairspray, ..." said her mother. Not that Eden is returning to normal childhood. Micki Wood has bigger ambitions for her daughter: a shot at Hollywood. "The sky's the limit," Wood said.

To that end, the pair have embarked on a multistate tour of malls and coffee shops to gain exposure. Titled "Eden Wood and the Glamor Girls," the tour was taking three little girls, their mothers and a manager to five cities.

Wood said she was doing it because it's what Eden wanted.

When asked if she wanted to be a singer, Eden nodded. "It's cool," she said, "because you get to see all the stars."

The tour hit a bump when its van got a flat tire outside Sarcoxie, Mo. None of the four women had ever changed a flat. Eden's fame rescued them, as star-struck adults at Bill's Truck and Tire asked for autographs and photos while they fixed the tire.

On Eden's Facebook fan page, Micki Wood has been criticized for living through her child, for being the epitome of the pushy stage mom.

"Pushy, no. Dedicated, yes," she said.

The girls' manager, Heather Ryan, said the hardest part of the tour hasn't been the girls. "It's been the moms."

Asked to rate them on a scale of one to 10, 10 being ultimate stage mom, Ryan said, "I would say these are about 20."

Wood said she and her husband had spent approximately $100,000 trying to break Eden into the higher levels of show business. This is more than Eden has earned, she said. "I want the American public to know we both work. Her dad works two jobs. The idea we're living off our daughter makes me want to puke," she said.

The tour, and the Woods' quest for major stardom, went on. Its dream ending, Wood said, would be "[scoring] a major motion picture. … Why not see if we can't have a Hollywood contract, a reality show. It's the American dream. It's her destiny."