Well, sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. In this case I did. There have certainly been times when I was rather nearsighted when it came to celebrity encounters, autographs, and photo ops. Would you believe I walked right by Fred MacMurray once in 1985 and didn’t even stop to say hello even though I knew full well who he was? Or that I got an autographed photo from Steve Allen and his wife Jayne Meadows, who were all too willing to chat it up with me in 1997, and I didn’t get a picture with them even when I had a camera with me? Those are the dumb moves. But then I got smarter.
I realized that even though I might have never actually seen a specific classic film or TV series that in most cases I would get to it eventually. I know everyone says that, but I know best. I actually do it. The case in point here being that at the time I ‘completed’ this autographed photo of the three surviving cast members of Father Knows Best, I had never seen a single episode. Sure it showed on Nick at Night in the early 1990’s, but it was one of the black and white boring-looking squeaky clean shows of which there were a seemingly endless supply. Leave It to Beaver was gold to me, but I had never taken much of an interest in the other family sitcoms of that era.
Still I started this photo quite a while back during the late 1990’s when Elinor Donahue made an appearance at a Hollywood Show. She had played the oldest sister Betty Anderson on Father Knows Best, not to mention her role as Andy’s love interest Ellie in The Andy Griffith Show. I also had the advantage of knowing her from High School U.S.A. I’m pretty sure when my friend Bob picked the signed photo up for me (probably for $5), I didn’t specify what show I wanted to represent, so he logically chose the most famous.
I hung on to that photo for many years and it wasn’t until the Chiller Theatre event on October 27, 2012, that I actually met my first cast member from Father Knows Best. Billy Gray, who had played Bud, was slated to appear, and knowing best, I brought along the cast shot and for $20 he signed it. For another $5, he posed for a photo with me.
One thing I didn’t know best about was forgetting to bring along my photo of the cast shot of the 1947 feature Curley, which was Hal Roach’s attempt at resurrecting the Our Gang series. Billy Gray had portrayed the character Sandy, and he was actually in shot that I had already gotten signed by Stymie Beard’s younger brother Rene.
But sometimes I do know best, and I remembered it while I was in his presence. He shared a couple of interesting stories. The first involved his audition with Hal Roach himself. Billy said that Roach instructed him to run directly into him as part of his test. He ended up knocking Mr. Roach over, and consequently proving his ruggedness and got the part. The second story was a bit more bizarre. Billy was sitting in one of the chairs on the set and reached into the pocket of the chair and found a condom.
Billy Gray has made it pretty clear that he thought the storylines of Father Knows Best where unrealistic and sexist, causing more harm than good in regards to the morals of families in the fifties. He has remarked more than once that “YOU know best” and inscribed my photo thusly. But he did tell my friend Peter and me about how he took the money that he earned from the show and invested it into a home in 1957, which he still owns today, now worth multiple times what he paid for it.
For the record…Top row: Rene Beard (“Dis”), Eugene Holland (“Hank”), Donald King (“Dat”), Ardda Lynwood (“Ardda”) and Jimmie and Tommie Menzies. Bottom row: Gerald Perreau (“Dud”), Eilene Janssen (“Betty”), Larry Olsen (“Curley”), and Billy Gray (“Sandy”).
Although I didn’t know best when it came to bringing my shot from Curley, I knew best in attending the Hollywood Show on January 12, 2013. Billy Gray was back and this time I did remember to bring that shot. Oddly, he however didn’t remember if the kid in the photo was him or not. I didn’t have much of a question about it, but he agreed to sign it anyway for $20 and this time pose for a picture with me for free.
But not only did I get to add Billy to the Curley shot, but I also got to add the third of the Anderson children – Kathy – to the Father Knows Best photo. After Billy had posed with me, I asked if he’d come over to Lauren Chapin’s table so that I could get a photo with both of them. He said, “sure, if she’ll do it.” I wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but when I shelled out the $20 for the autograph and another $20 for the photo op, she certainly did do it. I find it quite odd that no one else had made this request.
Lauren was perfectly friendly – even if a little pricey – and when I told her that she and I were Facebook friends and when I had seen that she had recently broken her ankle, I was worried that she wasn’t going to make it. She said that she barely did. She signed my photo with a nice inscription relating to our Facebook friend status.
Other than getting my chance to meet Elinor Donahue, I’ve gone as far as I can with the Father Knows Best cast…which incidentally I commenced watching on March 1, 2014. I quite like it, it turns out. I did know best.
Celebrity encounters from the Fall 2012 Chiller Theatre will continue…
Celebrity encounters from the Winter 2013 Hollywood Show will continue…
I have enough reality the way it is, so one of the reasons I appreciate such shows is to get a chance to escape reality. What I have to recover from is that you actually walked past Fred MacMurray!
Dean
December 30th, 2014
You’re BETTER now!!
Dad
January 10th, 2015