Of note at the Hollywood Collectors Show on June 24, 1995, was my encounter with Art Hindle. He had an impressive array of film and even more television credits that included guest roles on such TV shows as Starsky and Hutch, Baretta, Barnaby Jones, and Murder, She Wrote. But it was the first two films in the Porky’s franchise from which I knew him best. He played Ted Jarvis, the Angel Beach police officer and older brother of Mickey, who memorably assists in the revenge on Porky and his brother-in-law cop, played by Alex Karras.
My meeting with Mr. Hindle was rather memorable as I spent a good five minutes chatting with him about the set of Porky’s lobby cards that I owned and he was interested in borrowing them to reproduce them for photos to sell. He gave me his résumé and added his home address on it so I could send them on to him. Unfortunately when I checked the lobby cards, he wasn’t pictured in any of them.
He was such a nice guy though that I had always regretted not following up – or getting a photo with him. My chance to rectify both items came almost 17 years later. I was happy to hear that he was going to be appearing at the Chiller Theatre Show on April 28, 2012. I brought the original 1995 autograph along with me.
Since I already had the signed photo, I only plunked down the $10 to get a photo with him. I heard Mr. Hindle question the handler for charging me; I got a laugh out of telling him that he wanted to be generous – but the handler wasn’t letting him. I then showed him my original signed photo, and we reminisced about the early days of the Hollywood Shows.
I told him the lengthy story about the time that Robert Blake was at the show in 2011, and he countered by telling me a great story about the time he worked with Blake on Baretta in Season 3. Apparently, he was a bad guy whom Baretta was trying to get information from. The script called for Baretta getting his character drunk in order to ‘spill the beans’. Art Hindle pointed out that a seasoned criminal wouldn’t be too susceptible to this, but that a cocaine user might. They re-filmed the scene with cocaine instead of alcohol, but the NBC execs ordered that it be shot without the cocaine. Naturally the story ends with Robert Blake telling the NBC execs to “fuck off”.
It was a great chat that lasted at least another five minutes during which he also told me about how he got re-acquainted with an old girlfriend from the early 1970’s and ended up marrying her. They are currently living in Toronto, where he is originally from.
He told me that he hadn’t been invited to a Hollywood Show as of late, and that’s a shame because he’s one of the nicest and friendliest guests at any show I’ve ever been. In the end, the handler gave me back my $10 so our new photo together was ‘on the house’.
Continue to the next autograph and celebrity encounter of the HCS 1995…
Celebrities of the Spring 2012 Chiller Theatre Show will continue…
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