On the morning of Saturday, April 24, 2010, my friend Bob and I rode the elevator down to the lobby of the Burbank Marriott Hotel and Convention Center with a very friendly gentleman, who we later realized was Spider-Man in disguise – and we all know what a sucker I am for superheroes. Nicholas Hammond was one of those actors who was on my list because of the iconic nature of his accomplishments, but whom I wouldn’t recognize on the street if he came up and bit me…or flung a web around me. And his work on The Amazing Spider-Man television series for 14 hour-long episodes from 1977-79 was just part of his legacy.
Of ultra-significant note was that Mr. Hammond played Friedrich von Trapp in the Academy Award winning classic The Sound of Music in 1965. And if none of that impresses you, he also portrayed BMOC Doug Simpson in the episode of The Brady Bunch when Marcia gets her nose caved in my a football.
As nice as Nicholas Hammond was in the elevator, he was equally as greedy at the dealer table. The $20 for the Spider-Man picture was reasonable enough, but he also charged $10 for a picture with him. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to bring my two Sound of Music cast shots (that had already been signed by other von Trapp kids), so I had to purchase on of those too. He didn’t have them with him at first, and by the time he brought them down, he had upped his price to $25 each.
Some of this can be forgiven, since he had paid his own way from his home in Australia to be here. But I have to say that I wasn’t too pleased to have dropped $55 for this Big Spider on Campus who once wore curtains.
Celebrities of the Spring 2010 Hollywood Show will continue…
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