At the Hollywood Show in Burbank held on October 8, 2011, was a reunion of the gals who had played Angel, the avenging streetwalker from high school, in the first three entries in the series. If you were a fan of the films (which I was not), it might have been cool to meet Donna Wilkes, Betsy Russell, and Mitzi Capture (listed in the order in which they played the role). Turns out, I had an interest in two of the three for other reasons (see the Betsy Russell posting here). Donna had kicked off the series playing the fifteen-year old at the actual age of 25. (Incidentally, if you are a fan of the series, you might enjoy the posting detailing how I met the guy who played the psycho necrophiliac killing all the hookers).
My interest in Donna Wilkes was much more innocent. At the age of 20, she had portrayed yet another fifteen year old in the sitcom series Hello, Larry. Yes, I’ll admit that series was pretty much crap and has since become a euphemism for failure or bad quality, brining it a notoriety in its own right. But I do fondly remember that the series shared a number of crossover episodes with Diff’rent Strokes. And Donna Wilkes, who played Larry’s daughter Diane in the first season before being replaced by another actress in the second, sure was a cutie – even if she was twice my age.
Since she was at the show as part of the Angel reunion, she didn’t have any photos from Hello, Larry on display, so I asked if she had any. Turns out she had brought along one copy of a portrait of herself from the show. Even though she couldn’t give me the last one, she offered to knock $5 off the price and allowed me to take it to a vendor at the show who would make prints from photos for that amount. It was a generous deal, so I took it.
Unfortunately, I apparently had had a miscommunication with her handler about the free photo op, as he insisted that it was an additional $10 – and I responded that I never would have bought the photo without the photo op included. In the end, Donna herself made the call to pose for the picture with me. She was a little rough around the edges, but I appreciated the gesture to appease me.
In the end, the encounter was a little shaky, but it really didn’t have to do with Donna herself. She was perfectly pleasant and I’m glad I got to meet her.
The celebrity encounters from the Fall 2011 Hollywood Show will conclude in the next posting…
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