Bond Girls – Part 2
Wednesday, June 26th, 2013
It was fortuitous that I started collecting autographs of the Bond Girls when I did, because on January 12, 2013, one of the so-called ‘reunions’ of the Bond Girls was taking place at the Hollywood Show in Los Angeles. And I was there. And I collected. I didn’t get every single one; I had to draw the line somewhere – but I did get a smattering. If you’re interested in Bond Girls, you can click here to check out the start of my series of Bond Girl encounters from various celebrity shows, but if not, you can just check out three of the five that I met at this particular one… Read the rest of this entry »
My friends Jimmy and Peter are both big fans of the TV series The Greatest American Hero. While the show has always intrigued me, so far I haven’t had the time or inclination to start watching the series. But since I am interested in super-heroes, I did have William Katt, who played the title role in the series (aka Ralph Hanley), on my radar as someone of whom I’d like to meet. What’s more, my friend Peter had gotten a nice photo of himself taken with Katt and his Greatest American Hero co-star Robert Culp. He had gotten Culp to sign the photo, but was still waiting for Katt. 
There are many things in life that I do or many things that I collect simply because I’m a bona fide mentally disturbed completest. I’ll sit through the worst Hitchcock film, eat the most disgusting item from a DD&D restaurant, travel to distant lands to see a VP grave, etc. – all in the name of obsession and the ever-growing scavenger hunt mentality of life. And so it goes with Halloween III: Season of the Witch. At some point, I decided to get autographs from the actors who played Michael Myers in the film franchise, despite the fact that each film seems to get progressively worse. That’s one thing. Halloween III is another. This was the film in the series that didn’t even feature the killer Michael Myers. 
The New York counter-culture and denizens of Andy Warhol’s so-called “Factory” in Manhattan, where silk-screens were mass-produced, and all kinds of art – visual, sound, and film – were discussed, where the iconic Velvet Underground came into being, and where director Paul Morrissey supposedly came to know the cast members of his films…well, this has always fascinated me. Not enough to really delve into it, or even attempt to get all of my facts straight. Penn & Teller were into it all, and that was enough for me. And Smiths frontman Morrissey was clearly a great admirer and used a photo from Andy Warhol’s/Paul Morrissey’s film Flesh for the cover of their first album. 
I won’t say that Karen Allen has been a lot of my favorite films, but the ones she’s been in have been doozies. I mean really… how much bigger can you get than Raiders of the Lost Ark when it comes to beloved classic films? She of course played the female lead Marion Ravenwood opposite Harrison Ford. She’d make a return to that role more than 25 years later when she starred in Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. That one was no classic, but who’s complaining? Naturally when Karen Allen showed up at the Chiller Theatre Show on April 27, 2013, I was tempted to go with the Indy connection and get a photo with that, which is what my friend Peter encouraged me to do.