I live in LA, and for the purposes of a documentary program that is doing a piece on me and my website, I was asked to go to this Hollywood Collectors show, where they would get some footage of me looking at pinups and such.
Well, nobody warned me. This thing was both hilarious and sad… in the midst of all these dealers in Hollywood memoribilia were four long rows of “celebrities” selling autographed pictures of themselves. The variety was amazing, and some of them…well, it’s hard to be a has-been when you never were.
A partial list:
Pamelyn Ferdin (voice of “Lucy” in 60’s Peanuts cartoons, and the star child on that Star Trek spisode where the planet is populated only be children.)
“Chip” on My Three Sons. Who looks pretty good, actually.
Gary Owens - who has scary hair, and the voice is as great as ever. Tells me there is going to be a LAugh In reunion next year, including Goldie.
Lee Merriweather
George Lazenby - by far the most popular. I spoke to one fan who said it was because he was Bond, and even though he was a bad Bond, Sean Connery wouldn’t be showing up any time soon.
Julie Newmar…looking, well, really, really bad. Old, skinny, too much makeup. Yar.
And Wil Wheaten, who I talked with for awhile and who surprised me by his presence. The rest were all seriously kinda-once-was-never-gonna-be-again, but he’s a young, talented man who seems like he could or should have a career…this seems a bit beneath him.
The whole experience was surreal.
Oh yeah, Scotty Schwartz…for those who caught the recent E! True Hollywood Story… I had never heard of him before that and we kept running across it this past week, and we did watch the whole sordid thing. When I saw him I nearly screamed… I had to shake his hand just so I could call my honey and say “Honey! I touched Scotty Schwartz, Child Star turned Porn Star!”
The part that was really interesting for me was the connection I had with several of these people. I won’t go into it, it’s not all that interesting, but living in Hollywood all my life, yeah, well, it’s a little bit like you’d think.
stoid
Well, yes. Working as I do on the extreme outer edges of the radio world, I’ve seen G.O. a number of times, and scary is about it. His hair is (dyed?) so black it’s very nearly purple, as is his beard. Otherwise, he seems a very nice fellow, with a limitless capacity for stream-of-consciousness-type humor. He is considerably taller than one might expect.