One nice thing about being on California time is that – despite the incredibly long day I spent on Saturday – I was up bright and early on Sunday morning, October 5, 2008, having felt as if I had slept in even though it was only 7am. This left me plenty of time to get ready and load my stuff back into Bob’s car – and still make our breakfast meeting at 9am. Bob and I meandered down to the restaurant in the Marriott hotel lobby area for a nice big breakfast buffet. Generally, almost all of the celebrities from the Hollywood Collectors Show stay in the hotel – and we spotted a few of the in the restaurant. Among them was Margaret Kerry, who was not only in the restaurant, but sitting at our table and eating with us.
Margaret Kerry was a child actress who appeared in a few of the Our Gang / Little Rascals movies, at which time she went by the name Peggy Lynch. In the 1940’s, she had changed her name to Margaret Kerry and embarked on perhaps her most famous role – that of Tinkerbell in the 1953 Disney film Peter Pan. Actually she was the model that performed the actions of Tinkerbell as the animators sketched her for the film. While Bob and I engorged on the bacon, eggs, biscuits and gravy, toast, and fruit, Margaret ate her tiny meal and regaled us with tales from her movie days, how she settled on her stage name, the book and blog she is working on, and various other tales, jokes, and anecdotes from her life.
Breakfast with Peggy Lynch aka Margaret Kerry
After breakfast we headed back over to the convention area of the hotel for the second and final day of the Collectors Show. I had basically gotten almost all of the autographs and photos that I needed, but one celebrity, Christopher Atkins, was only there on Sunday – so I grabbed a picture with him (to be included on the Hollywood Collectors Show posting trail). Below are a couple of others celebrities whom I have met before, but posed for pictures with again since they were nearby.
With Noel Neill, TV’s Lois Lane from The Adventures of Superman. See our previous encounter three years earlier here
With Scott Schwartz, child actor from A Christmas Story, Kidco, and The Toy. See our previous encounter also three years earlier here
Mostly Bob and I just spent this time browsing the various dealers. I had spent enough money on the celebrities themselves to avoid too much additional spending. I did grab a $3 DVD of The Killing Fields before stumbling onto one dealer that had a magnificent array of vintage signatures. He made me a killer deal on three autographs that I was interested in. The first was a nice signed 8×10 photo of Charles F*rrell. You might recall that I had once acquired his signature in the mail – only to lose it when I sent it off to Gale Storm (more details here). The second was a rather crummy little 4×5 signed photo of Joe Yule Sr., the actor father of Mickey Rooney who had had a mall part in the Laurel and Hardy film Nothing But Trouble.
Finally replacing a long lost autograph
An interesting acquisition
The final signed photo that I found was a dual-signed photo of George and Olive Brasno, midget sibling actors who had starred with the Little Rascals in Shrimps for a Day and Arbor Day. I had met Olive Brasno in 1995 (see here) and again in 1997 – but her brother George had passed away in 1982. This photo was particularly cool because it had been signed to their make-up artist in 1936, the same year as their second Rascals appearance. Unfortunatley, the bottom corner of the photo had been torn away, but jeez – what are the odds of someone like me finding a signed photo like this? But afterall, this was the ‘dreams come true’ tour!
I am fully convinced that it is fate that makes items like this fall into my lap
We left the show not long after noon. Our next destination was in Valencia to visit with Lois Laurel Hawes, wonderful and long-time friend of mine – and daughter of Stan Laurel. She and her granddaughter Cassidy and great-grandkids Tommy and Lucy had moved not long before, so this was my first visit to their new home. Also joining us for the afternoon were the Wileys and the Duffs. We arrived just after 1pm.
Cassidy had arranged for her father-in-law Denis to prepare a fabulous meal of ahbetz for our little crowd. According to Cass, ahbetz is Italian slang for homemade pizza. After sitting around, chatting and socializing for a while, he began to prepare his special pizzas outdoors on the grill with a mouth-watering variety of ingredients: vegetarian, artichoke, and sausage & red peppers. This went wonderfully with the homemade salad and a nice glass of red wine. We were all eventually stuffed as the great pizzas just kept coming and coming.
Janet and John Duff stay awake for Bob
Bob has Stan Laurel’s great-great-grandchildren Lucy and Tommy autograph his Laurel and Hardy books
Me, little Lucy, Big Jimmy, Little Jimmy, and Medium Kris enjoy the salad as we wait for the pizza
Jimmy, Kris, and Janet: three butts in two chairs
Bob eyes the sausage and red pepper pizza while Lois enjoys lunch
Cassidy and me and a li’l bit of wine
After we were nice and filled up on the pizza, Cassidy brought out an awesome and very thick cake – which was actually a birthday cake for little old me. I wasn’t completely surprised since the day before she had asked what my favorite flavor in cake was – but I was extremely grateful and appreciative of the gesture. It was decorated with little toy Indiana Jones finger rings, of which I kept one as a souvenir, cookies, and nice big lone candle – which spared me having to recall my 37 years. As it got close to 5:00, Bob and I took off, leaving the Duffs and elder Wileys to continue their visit with Lois into the evening. It was a great visit and as always, it was wonderful to see Lois and her family. I’d see more of Cassidy a couple of days later though.
Cassidy brings on the giant cake
The delicious Indiana Jones/Brad cake
Me and Lois
Jimmy had had to leave a bit early from Lois’ so he could go pick up his girlfriend Ellen. The two of them and I were going to be seeing Wicked that night at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. Because he left early, Bob said that he could take me to the theatre to meet up with them. He and I had tried to stop off at the nearby Summerhill Villa assisted living home to visit with former silent Our Gang member Frank “Junior” Coghlan on the way to Lois’ house, but he had been out for the day. So we tried again after we left her house and were lucky to find him in. More details on Mr. Coghlan can be seen here.
On our way into Hollywood, we made a quick stop at Forest Lawn cemetery in the Hollywood Hills so I could visit the grave of Stan Laurel and pay my respects as I always do when visiting California. And naturally, as I walked to Stan’s grave, I always must say hello to Buster Keaton. It is so amazing that two such giant comedy legends are buried just a stone’s throw away from one another.
Saying hello to Buster
Visiting with Mr. Laurel after visiting with his family
Bob dropped me off at the Pantages Theatre at about 6:00. It worked out well because Jimmy and Ellen arrived about ten minutes later as I was scoping out the stage door entrance and the show began at 6:30. Naturally as a huge Wizard of Oz fan, I was very interested in seeing Wicked anyways…but the fact that David Garrison was playing the Wizard sweetened the pot even more. David Garrison was the actor who portrayed Norman Lamb in my all-time favorite sitcom, the short-lived It’s Your Move – and I was hellbent on meeting him after the show. I had even brought along my cast photo from the show for him to sign.
At the Pantages, getting ready to get Wicked
I really enjoyed Wicked a lot. The music was great and the plot was fascinating. Not only did some of the action take place concurrently with the action as seen in the Wizard of Oz film, but it went a long way to explain much of the backstory – how the Tin Man, Scarecrow, and Cowardly Lion came to be, what power the ruby slippers possessed, and how the witches became the witches we all know and love. And what’s more, it completely twists the plot of the original film/book and inserts many elements that completely skew the legendary story. The only bad thing was that, once again, no matter how interesting and enjoyable the play was, I was struggling to keep my eyes open – struggling more with jet lag than I ever had before. It ended at 9:15 – which was after midnight back where I come from…and it wasn’t Kansas.
The Wicked Playbill – signed by Laura Woyasz
After the show, Jimmy and Ellen were fully prepared to do some waiting outside at the stage door. It was cooling down and they had dressed appropriately; Jimmy had even grabbed my sweatshirt out of my suitcase in his car on the way in. I wasn’t really interested in most of the performers – only David Garrison and Carol Kane. I had purchased a photo from the classic TV show Taxi at the Collectors Show for her to sign. Since I wasn’t getting signatures of the rest of the cast, Ellen played along by having them sign her program so we would not appear to be snubbing them.
When Laura Woyasz, who had just joined the cast as Glinda (the Witch of the North) came out, I did have her sign my program and got a picture with her. After she made her appearance, the security announced that they were closing off the area. They said that Teal Wicks, who had played Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West), would be out to sign autographs but they had to close off the stage area. When I inquired about David Garrison and Carol Kane, I was told that they do not come out to meet the fans. Without waiting around to meet Teal, we rushed to the front of the building where we met a nice employee that told us that Garrison and Kane had already left – right through the front door. This was a crushing blow – but we immediately began to formulate plans on how we could catch them later in the week.
Meeting the lovely Laura Woyasz, who portrayed Glinda
We drove back to Jimmy’s house in San Pedro, dropping off Ellen at her place along the way. Although it was after 11pm and I was as sleepy as could be, I talked Jimmy into watching a couple of episodes of It’s Your Move on some bootleg DVD’s I had brought along – naturally while eating a huge carton of Goldfish crackers (which is now becomeing a tradition). It was important that Jimmy got see a couple of episodes of this show (The Dregs of Humanity episodes worked out just fine), so he could better enjoy some of the events of the next day. I had absolutely no trouble falling asleep that night in the Brad-wing of Jimmy’s new house.
To see our visit with Frank “Junior” Coghlan, click here…
Great posting!
Bev
October 30th, 2008
You talked Jimmy into watching “It’s Your Move”…Why don’t you just beat the kid senseless?
Bob
October 31st, 2008