As I mentioned before, with all that was going on in my personal life, I sort-of mindlessy drifted through the 1990 Sons of the Desert convention. I was not very hot and heavy into collecting autographs at the time – although I certainly did gather a few from the celebs in attendence. As it turned out, this convention included very few: only three. I remember convention host Ron Young’s big dreams of actually getting Robert Blake and Robert Mitchum to show up, but that never panned out.
Henry Brandon would have been a shoe-in guest, but he passed away on February 15, 1990. Virginia Karns was scheduled to make her third convention appearance but she died on June 21, just weeks before the convention. Even the convention souvenir program listed John McCabe, Rosina Lawrence, Jerry Tucker, Lois Laurel, and Tommy “Butch” Bond as being honored guests, but each of them bailed out for one reason or another. The only official guests to make it were Our Gang member Dorothy deBorba (seen above and below) and Babes in Toyland co-star Felix Knight.
I recall spending a lot of time with Dorothy, who had brought along her daughter to this convention. As I had just had a baby of my own a few months before, she was especially interested in discussing child-rearing with me. Dorothy has always been an advocate of treating children with the utmost respect, and often told the story of how much she always like Laurel and Hardy because they knew how to treat children. Also, both of us smoked. So we would have our lively discussions over tobacco. I didn’t have her sign too much, but I did get her on this ‘curds and whey’ shot – one of my favorites.
Felix Knight was making his second convention appearance, so I had already gotten about all of the autographs I needed from him back in 1986
, when he first showed up and was reunited with his Babes in Toyland co-stars Virginia Karns and Henry Brandon. I did have him sign photos for Christi and Ashleigh, though – although I never got my photo taken with him. It’s a crime that I didn’t think of these things back when it was possible. Today, there are almost no celebrities still living who worked in the Laurel and Hardy films – and certainly no major co-stars like Felix was.
An unannounced guest who came to this convention was Trudy Marshall. She was Laurel and Hardy’s co-star in The Dancing Masters and was brought to the convention as a special guest of the Way Out West Tent. I remember sitting across from Trudy at the BBQ cookout and talking with her and her husband quite a bit. I got some nice color lobby card reproductions signed by her during the convention (one of which is seen above). It was also a particular treat to see Bob and John in their Dancing Masters L&H outfits, posing with Trudy (below).
Perhaps the best autograph I attained during the convention was a signed photo of Stan Laurel. As I recall, I purchased this from Alex Bartosh in the dealer’s room for the very reasonable sum of $120. It has likely quadrupled in value, but I would never sell it – as it holds a special place in my collection as my first signed photo of Stan.
1990 will continue with more trips to Florida…
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