Please Help

hello. i am having trouble with variables between movie clips and the like..

I have a movie clip(called MCA). which is inside another movie clip(called MCB).

on the MCA timeline i have a frame with an action declaring the variable status = "alive"

on the MCB timeline i have a goto frame action that only happens if status = "alive"

i cant seem to send the vaiables between the two levels. i am presuming it has something to do with _root but i dont quite get it.
please someone..help