Although I had met Angela Cartwright on several occasions, I had had her sister Veronica on my radar to meet for quite some time. In fact I had nearly traveled all the way to the Memphis Film Festival just on the prospect of meeting her. My friend Bob had already gotten one autograph of her for me, but that still did not satisfy my yen to have a personal encounter with Veronica Cartwright. Whey the big interest, you ask? You might say she had a triple dose of coolness leading back to her…
For starters, and probably most important to me, was that she was one of the kids from Leave It to Beaver. As a Beaver aficionado, I can tell you that I do realize that she wasn’t the first actress to play her, but for my money she was the most memorable of the two actresses to portray Violet Rutherford, Beaver’s nemesis/crush, daughter of Fred, and sister of Lumpy. An actress named Wendy Winkelman had portrayed the character is the early episode The Black Eye, but Veronica went on to assume the role for three episodes between 1959 and 1961. She even went on to reprise the role in The New Leave It to Beaver series in 1985. Oh and then that one oddball time she appeared as a totally different girl named Peggy MacIntosh. So there’s certainly that.
Next in importance was that she was in one of Alfred Hitchcock’s films, The Birds. And it wasn’t merely as one of the children along for a walk in the park, or in this case ‘run in the park’, but rather the significant role of Mitch’s younger sister Cathy.
And finally, she starred in The Twilight Zone episode I Sing the Body Electric as Anne Rogers, Age 11. I could easily stop here and you’d see how important of a child actress she was for me to meet, and I wouldn’t even have to mention roles in Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Children’s Hour, Make Room for Daddy, Dragnet, My Three Sons, Serpico, The Right Stuff, Alien, George & Leo, The X-Files, or Six Feet Under… and she’s still going strong.
As I said, I had already had a photo signed from her: the one from The Birds (seen above, which I later had Tippi Hedren signed). But it wasn’t easy picking out which additional one I’d purchase from her when I finally got the chance to meet her on October 5, 2013. I didn’t really care for the montage shot from Leave It to Beaver that she had, but I definitely wanted one from that show. On the other hand, The Twilight Zone photo was awfully nice.
So I did the only thing I could: I bartered with her to get both at a discount. She didn’t seem all that happy about it, but she went along anyway. Unfortunately I think I irritated her more when I got photos of her with me and Carolyn both. (I’m going to come clean and tell you that I uncharacteristically didn’t jot down how much I paid in total, but I do recall it wasn’t the full price).
I hope the feeling wasn’t too sour on her end, because I was thrilled with finally getting to meet her and completing the trifecta of signed photos of three of my favorite things she’s done. You may have others.
Celebrities of the Fall 2013 Hollywood Show will continue…
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