I don’t need a whole lot of reasons to go on a road trip, but if I was a bit on the fence about attending the Superman Celebration in Metropolis, Illinois, over the weekend of June 11-12, 2011, it was the celebrities that were in attendance that pushed me to the side of going. It turns out that all of the parts of this whole made the entire experience a great one – but nonetheless, five of the highlights of the weekend were the five actors who had appeared in Superman related films or TV shows. I’ll cover the first three of them here.
Tracy Roberts (Darla) and Sherman Howard (Lex Luthor) from The Adventures of Superboy
Of the five, the most obscure was Tracy Roberts (now Tracy Lewis, above). In fact, if you believe the Internet Movie Database, she died in 2002. She was very much alive and present at the Superman Celebration – having starred as Darla, sidekick to villain Lex Luthor in 12 episodes during the last three seasons of the syndicated TV series The Adventures of Superboy. Other credits for Tracy are pretty much non-existent, but it didn’t matter. We got to see the two part episode of Superboy entitled The Road to Hell, which was quite fun. Since she was a bit obscure, I thought twice about buying one of her photos instead of just having her sign my program, but ultimately decided to get one.
With Tracy Roberts
No one seemed as impressed as I was to have Mark Pillow present at the event. Admittedly Superman IV: The Quest For Peace was the weakest in the Christopher Reeve Superman series of films, but here Mr. Pillow had portrayed Nuclear Man, the last villain that Reeves ever battled as Superman. His career also stalled after the film, and he got out of the acting business after Superman IV. But he was a very pleasant guy and I had no qualms at all about picking up one his signed photos.
Mark Pillow as Nuclear Man from Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
With Mark Pillow
The two celebrities I just talked about were the two lesser stars of the show. They did their signings at the Artists Alley & Writers Way building on both Friday and Saturday (we got them on Saturday), had virtually no line, and didn’t require any kind of tickets to see them. But it was like unlocking Fort Knox to get to the other three celebrities of the show. It required that my friend Dean and I get up at the butt-crack of dawn on Saturday morning to get tickets to get in the line for them, then when our time came, to stand outside in the blazing sun, then wind around another long line inside the local bank where to actually get to them. I’m always up for any challenge, but it was a bit much.
The first of the three ‘biggies’ was Alaina Huffman. She portrayed Black Canary (aka. Dinah Lance) in the awesome TV series Smallville. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen the last few seasons of the series, so I hadn’t yet been exposed to this character. However, I knew that it wouldn’t be long before I would be catching up in the series. All of the celebrities of the show would sign the Celebration program or local newspapers for free. Official photos that the show offered were $15. Getting other items signed was significantly more costly. I opted for the $15 option for each, plus had them all sign the program (two signatures was the limit for each person).
Alaina Huffman as Black Canary in Smallville
Alaina Huffman was very personable and friendly. I despised the layout of having the celebrities sit behind a long row of tables so that it was impossible to get photos next to them, but Alaina made it fun – as she would actually hop up on the table for each and every photo with the fans. She kept a smile on her face for everyone and when nature called, I saw her almost spring to the restroom and back, in order not to keep the fans waiting longer than they needed to. Was it a bird, or a plane? No, just Black Canary. But she was a sweet one.
Alaina signs my photo
With Alaina Huffman
So far so good. The remaining two Superman celebs will be covered in the next posting…
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