If you grew up in the 1980’s like I did, chances are you’ll remember the phenomenon that was Eddie and the Cruisers. It made little difference if you had ever seen it or not; surely you’ll remember the constant commercials for it, the continuous showing of it on HBO, and if you truly were a fan you might know that it had a sequel called Eddie and Cruisers II: Eddie Lives! that was made before the decade came to a close. I’ll be quite honest: I never watched either of them.
But I did see the commercials and more importantly the clips from the movie as seen in the John Cafferty and The Beaver Brown Band videos On the Dark Side and Tender Years. Those were pretty freakin’ good songs!
In any case, I thought that one day I might just like to watch one or both of those films and bring back some disjointed memories from the 1980’s. And what better way to get excited about that by playing the actor who played the titular Eddie Wilson? Michael Paré, who also played the lead in two other cult 80’s films (Streets of Fire and The Philadelphia Experiment) made an appearance at the Hollywood Show when I attended on April 20, 2013.
He was charging a relatively reasonable $25 for an autographed photo, and that came with a free photo with him, which he extended to Carolyn as well. What was even more interesting was that his handler was none-other-than Scott Schwartz of A Christmas Story / The Toy fame. Carolyn and I ended up chatting quite a bit with him, and in the following year since have become pretty tight with him.
But that’s not the story here – or at least it shouldn’t have been. Even though we barely spoke to Mr Paré at all, the real story was that we met Eddie of Eddie and the Cruisers. The 80’s continue to mesmerize me.
Celebrity encounters of the Spring 2013 Hollywood Show will continue…
I remember him playing a “sweathog” type student in “The Greatest American Hero”.
Dave Chasteen
May 8th, 2014