I was fortunate to attend the event last weekend and I had a wonderful time. As has been mentioned, a number of the guests dropped out at the last minute, albeit for perfectly understandable reasons. This was unfortunate, and I really felt for the organizers, who had put so much effort in cultivating these contacts and then had to rearrange the schedule and format on short notice. However, the absences made me appreciate the guests who did show up—Nick Besink, Henry Plimack, Sharon Smyth, Chip Coffey, Joanne Dorian and Donna Wandrey—all the more. My goal in attending DS events is to see my friends anyhow, and I was able to spend long periods of time sitting around and chatting informally between activities. Everybody that I talked to seemed to be having fun.
Each day featured one Q&A session and one raffle. The grand prize was a private tour of the tower room at Lyndhurst, which is not open to the public. On Sunday, a secondary raffle awarded 6 people the opportunity to tour the pool house, which is also generally closed. Lyndhurst was also open for tours, and visitors were allowed to take non-flash photos. However, free tours were only available between 10-12, a fact that had not been widely publicized and that irritated several attendees who were asked to pay when they tried to get into the house in the afternoon. Apparently, the FB page for the event listed the free tour times, but I would hope that in the future, such details would also be included in the e-mail updates and/or listed on the program for the benefit of people who do not visit FB.
Autograph sessions at this event were very orderly. Every attendee had a number written on their badge and groups of numbers (e.g. 1-50) were called up at a time. Some guests charged a nominal fee ($2) as a donation to Lyndhurst. Sharon Smyth had a large get well card at her autograph table for people to sign for John Karlen. The absent guests had also provided autographed photos for purchase or auction.
The guests told some fun stories that I had never heard before. The soundmen, Nick Besink and Henry Plimack, were talking when I arrived, telling a story about how the producers had tried to introduce portable microphones “about the size of a pack of cigarettes” as a replacement for the boom mikes. The devices (the name of which I don’t recall) could be clipped onto an actor’s clothing. Grayson Hall (“bless her!”) was one of the first guinea pigs with the new device clipped under her jacket. She began her scene by coughing and thumping her chest—which caused terrible feedback, dissuaded the producers from continuing to rely on these mikes, and ultimately saved the boom men their jobs.
Chip Coffey, who was a child actor in the 60s, recalled his enthusiasm when he was tapped to fill in for David Henessy for a day after the actor broke his leg. Chip was a fan of DS already and looked forward to the role, but at the last minute, the gig fell through when the decision was made to give David a broken leg as part of the story. Coffey had another brush with DS when he played a guest at the costume party in HoDS, but sadly, his appearance has been cut from the final version of the film.
Donna Wandrey told how she talked her way into the role of Roxanne Drew by telling the casting director, “I deserve the role because I have short red hair and there aren’t any actresses with short red hair on TV.” (Her competitors had long blonde and long dark hair, respectively.) “I hoped that my acting talents were reason enough for me to get the part, but luckily Dan Curtis agreed about my hair.” She spoke fondly of working with Virginia Vestoff, who died much too soon. “She was so talented; she was appearing in 1776 while she was on DS. I always try to catch the movie when it comes on TV just to see her again and say hello.” Donna also shared some lovely memories of Thayer David, whom she called “my true love. He was the sweetest, kindest, gentlest man...who could scare the crap out of me. In one scene, he was supposed to hit me in the head and knock me down. He told me, ‘Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you.’” She also told how Thayer would carry a briefcase full of candy bars to the studio every morning, line them up, and start eating his way down the line as rehearsals progressed. “We all teased him about trying to keep his girlish figure.”
Sharon also recalled working with Thayer David in one scene where Thayer had to carry little Sarah. “He had a bad back, and I felt bad that he might get hurt because of me, but he told me, ‘Don’t worry; I’ve got this.” Jonathan Frid was also very kind and “brotherly” toward her. She also had a specific memory of working with John Karlen. “We were standing behind some scenery, getting ready to go out for our scene. He asked me, ‘Are you starstruck by all of this?’ I was pretty naïve and I didn’t understand a lot of what he said to me, but I acted like I knew. I said, ‘Oh, no, I’m not starstruck.’”
Sharon laughed over how people often ask her whether she, as a child, was frightened by the coffins and other spooky accoutrements of the set. “You have to remember, I didn’t see the same things you did. I saw broken Styrofoam everywhere. If you rolled up the spider webs, you could make a super ball. I saw people out of make-up, standing around drinking coffee and smoking. ” She recalled getting scolded when she tried to collect the waxy run-off of the candles, not realizing the drips were intentional to achieve an effect.
Both Sharon and Donna talked about giving autographs during the show's heyday. Sharon never participated in giving autographs at the studio door and knew nothing about the following the show had. “I guess my mother was sheltering me from all of that.” Kids back home in Philadelphia did recognize her. "They would say, 'You’re that girl!' and I'd say, 'No, I'm not!' 'Yes you are!' "Oh, OK, I am.' Then they'd say, 'No you're not.'" Donna did participate in giving autographs to the studio kids, and though she wasn’t quite as in demand as Jonathan, David Selby, or Lara Parker, at least one overzealous fan once tried to follow her home. “I learned that the thing to do is to sign the autograph and just keep walking. If you needed to leave right away after work, if you had another audition to get to, you could slip out the back door and avoid the crowd. For some reason, nobody ever waited by the back door. I guess they all expected us to come out the front.” She recalled that, “Jonathan was always so polite to everyone. He was a true professional.”
The latest Spencer Productions feature, Curse of the Full Moon, which co-stars Sharon Smyth and Chip Coffey, played on Sunday afternoon following the Q&A with Donna Wandrey and Sharon Smyth. The film drew many laughs.
Rumors circulated on the last day of the gathering that a similar event will be held next year at Greystone. I sure hope that’s the case! It has been far too long since CA had a proper DS event.
ProfStokes
