I meant no disrespect to actor Vincent Spano, but sometimes you have to draw a line in the sand. He had had a pretty significant roll in the Francis Ford Coppolla directed Rumble Fish, the film that followed the other S.E. Hinton novel-based Coppolla movie The Outsiders. I frankly never liked Rumble Fish anywhere near as much as The Outsiders, but I still thought that Vincent Spano would be a cool encounter to have under my belt when he appeared at the Hollywood Show in Burbank on February 11, 2012. But it wasn’t worth $50 for the autograph/photo op combo. So it’s situations like this that I take my grumbling to the handler and see what can be done.
He suggested that maybe I’d just get a signed photo of Spano without the photo op, but I explained that I needed to have the combo for the celebrity blog that I do. That’s this one right here. My offer of $30 was accepted, so I picked out a nice photo of Vincent Spano (who starred as Steve in the film) with director Coppolla. He was very friendly from then on.
It’s always worth the effort of trying to negotiate. I had my max price in mind and it was a true take-it-or-leave it. Smart handlers like Spano’s will see that a potential $30 might walk away if they don’t take it. They’ll have one less flash (or in my case, two) in their eyes and a pen full of slightly more ink, but they’ll have lost some easy cash.
So now he’s happy, I’m happy, and I have a much more pleasing tale of Vincent Spano to tell. And fortunately, he didn’t take after Steve and say to me: I don’t know why someone hasn’t taken a rifle and blown your head off.
Celebrity encounters from the Winter 2012 Hollywood Show in Burbank will continue…
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