Sunday morning started with more videos, specifically "Save Our Cemetery" by Cheep Productions. In my opinion, this is the funniest and most elaborate of the CP videos. Barnabas and Julia (both played by Darryl Schaffer) summon the deceased Jeremiah Collins, Dave Woodard, and Sam Evans to defeat a ruthless construction company from demolishing Eagle Hill Cemetery (maybe in order to build the Wal-Mart that Devlin was talking about.) Ultimately, the ghost of Sarah, played by an adult Sharon Smyth (Lentz), saves the day--er, night. At this time, I was also pleased to meet CastleBee, who was volunteering. I stepped out for a while to talk to some friends and when I came back, Marie Wallace was onstage.
Marie's big news is that she is writing her memoirs, On Stage and in the Shadows, to be released in 2005. A fan asked her to tell us the story of how she auditioned for DS. "There were three women--a blonde, a brunette, and me with my red hair. The other two both had long, straight hair; they looked like they could play vampires or ghosts. None of us had a very clear idea of what the show was looking for. I tried to think of a way to make myself stand out. When we all got called back, I decided to stand back and let the other two go first so I could watch them and decide how to play my audition. The blonde girl went up first. I think she was taken aback by the sort of directions she was given; she wasn't prepared. Then the next girl was called forward. Meanwhile, I had stepped off to the side to tease up my hair--not like crazy Jenny, just enough to make it real big and full. By the time I had to go on camera, I had figured out exactly what to do." She described how she had put on her sexiest airs for the camera. "I've been told that Dan Curtis was in the sound booth, watching. When he saw me he threw his script up in the air and yelled, ¢â‚¬ËœHire her!'" Another fan asked her about working with Joel Crothers and she repeated the story she had told on Friday of working with him both before (in a teleplay) and after DS (on Somerset). Marie talked about her role on Somerset. "I played India Delaney--you can tell she was a bad girl just by the name. Nice, sweet girls, the ingenues, have names like Mary-Jane, but an India is a different story. I was so bad that I even testified against my own husband (on the show) at his murder trial. Later on, my character became a bit nicer. That's a bad sign. When the villains go soft, it means they're getting ready to replace you." Someone requested that Marie tell us about working with Gwen Verdon on stage. "Gwen was very personable. She'd gotten her start as a chorus girl and so she took a personal interest in our lives and how we were doing." She went on to describe some of the elaborate musical numbers of the show. "There was one large number where all of the girls were supposed to form a Christmas tree. We wore strategically cut costumes so that when we were all assembled, we would look like ornaments on the tree. Money became tight, and several such scenes needed to be cut." Marie also did seamstress work behind the scenes. "One day, Gwen went into the city to find a dress for her costume. She didn't find anything she liked, and when she came back, she asked if I would design a dress for her. Gwen offered to pay me for making the dress but I told her not to bother, I was glad to do it. One of the producers took me aside and told me, ¢â‚¬ËœGwen is a major shareholder in this production. If she wants to pay you, let her.' So I made the costume and later, when there was a revival of the production in London, I was pleased to see that they had copied my costume, not the original design." Marie also remarked on how warm it was in the ballroom. "Is anyone else hotter than I am?" she asked, cooling herself with a red fan. "Marie," Richard Halpern told the lovely actress, "nobody is hotter than you are."
Toward the conclusion of Marie's talk, John Karlen approached the stage and started pounding away at the piano. Marie laughed and pointed out that he had always liked to ad-lib. As he came onstage to replace her, he climbed onto a chair located at the back of the stage--and tumbled off the stage! I didn't actually see him fall; I was just aware that one moment he was onstage and the next minute he wasn't. At first, I thought he was just clowning around. After all, Marie had just reminded us all what a kidder he was. But this was serious. Everyone was stunned. Poor Marie sat frozen in a half-turned pose. Because Johnny had been behind her when he fell, I don't think she quite knew what had happened, even less so than we did. This was one of the most harrowing moments I'd ever experienced at a Festival, rivaled only by the time in 2002 when an angry (and under-the-influence) fan went up to KLS while she was onstage and started shouting at her. I had no idea what had happened; I was sitting at the other end of the stage. I didn't know why Johnny had fallen or how badly he was hurt. Several fans gathered around him. Karlen's voice boomed out: "Who the *#$! put the ^$#%*(! chair too close to the ^$#%*(! edge?" I was told by someone close enough to see him that he picked himself up without any help, and when he began walking around the stage, we all applauded. It appeared that he was OK. He did say that his leg hurt, but otherwise he seemed not to be injured. He even faintly joked about his fall. "There was one moment while I was falling when everything was OK. Then I landed and it hurt." Pointing in the audience to webby, who had taken a nasty spill the night before and was now in a splint and a wheelchair, John said, "See--I tried to join the club." He did want to know who had left the chair by the edge. "I'm not out to get anybody. I just want them to know what happened, so they don't let it happen again. Someone could get hurt." At this time, Marie, who must have been feeling pretty awkward after such a scene, made a break from the stage and left Johnny to do his Q&A.
Long-time Karlen fan MaineGirl was the first at the microphone. After some light bantering with Johnny, she asked him to talk about his experiences at the AADA (American Academy of Dramatic Arts.) That led to a lengthy and intriguing story. "I was eloping with this girl, Judy. She was Jewish and her parents didn't want her marrying a goyim like me, so we ran off. Soon after we left, it occurred to me that I wasn't ready for marriage. I didn't have a job. Also, I wanted to study to become an actor." Judy was very understanding. "She gave me the money to attend the Academy of Dramatic Arts. Judy was a wonderful girl," he added warmly. "She was the best." "Did you ever pay her back?" joked someone in the audience. "No, the money was a gift," Karlen insisted. "That's the problem with the world today; everything is about money. This set him off on a semi-political tirade. "Greed. Everyone is so greedy. This war that's going on now--it's not about people dying in a third world country--it's about money, greed! That's the way it's always been. When people see a bum lying on the street, they don't help him. He's still lying in the street. They treat bums in India better than they do here in America. Here, they're professional bums." Moving on, another fan asked Johnny to tell the story of the time he met Muhammad Ali. (Ah, so that's where Johnny learned to punch his director.
) "I was walking down the street when I saw Muhammad Ali on the other side of the street with his body guards. He spotted me and pointed at me. This was about 1968, 1969, when DS was still on the air, so he must have recognized me as Willie Loomis. I came over to him, and his bodyguards made a little circle around us. Then Muhammad Ali shook my hand. You can't imagine what a wonderful thing it was to meet a young and handsome Muhammad Ali in 1969 when he was in his prime." Then Karlen started raving about how Ali had defeated Joe Frazier. He even got into a friendly dispute with another fan over who was a better boxer for defeating Frazier--George Foreman or Muhammad Ali. "Frazier was on his way down by the time George Foreman got to him," Johnny argued. "Muhammad Ali had a much harder time trying to beat him because Frazier was still pretty strong when they fought." Another fan asked Johnny to tell us about working with Basil Rathbone in a Kraft Theater TV production. "Oh, man! That was the highlight of my career-- just six months after starting at the acting academy, to have top billing over Basil Rathbone! Everything from then on was downhill. Basil was a great guy. He told me all about working with Errol Flynn. They were great friends and made six movies together." "Tell us about your guest star appearance on All in the Family," one fan requested. "What was Carrol O'Connor like?" Karlen's memories were not happy ones. "It was just a small part at the beginning of an episode, but I was disgusted with myself for being on that show. After it was over, I took my lunch and went out to Long Beach where the oil rigs are. As for Carrol O'Connor--he wasn't a very nice man. He didn't have a whole lot to say to me. Later, when he knew who I was, after I'd won the Emmy, he was nice to me." Karlen was also asked again about Daughters of Darkness, and reminisced about that. He praised his co-star Delphine Seyrig and shared a particularly interesting tidbit about the cast's accommodations: "We stayed at a fancy hotel in Germany that used to be Nazi headquarters." Karlen was also asked to describe his experiences with the new DS, for he had visited the set of the WBDS pilot while it was in production. "I met the people who were working on it. They were all so short! The kid playing Willie was a real sweetheart. What can I say?" He trailed off. "They were all very nice, but¢â‚¬¦but they were¢â‚¬¦short." Like Marie, he seemed less than enthusiastic about the production.
Denise Nickerson was scheduled for a Q&A next, but she failed to show up, so we watched a video interview with Chris Pennock instead. He described how he came to be on DS. "I first auditioned for the Chris Bernau part, Philip Todd, but Dan Curtis saw me and said, ¢â‚¬ËœLet's save him for the thing in the box!' I didn't want to be a thing in a box; I wanted to act! But the thing in the box turned out to be a very hammy Jeb Hawkes." This was a part that Chris was able to have fun with, in spite of how nerve-wracking it was to make a show like DS. "When I started out, I was a cocky young actor. I'd look at Jonathan Frid and think, ¢â‚¬ËœHa ha, he doesn't know his lines.' But soon I realized just how difficult it really was. I was so nervous on the set. This was live taping. You couldn't make a mistake because if they had to stop the cameras, it would cost five billion dollars and you'd get fired. So even if you nearly sliced off Elizabeth Eis's head because the prop guy gave you the real sword instead of the fake one, (referring to a near-mishap that occurred when he was playing John Yeager in 1970 parallel time) you had to keep going. Eventually, I got to be pretty good at using the teleprompters. Years later, when I was working on Guiding Light, everything was so different. I looked around and asked, ¢â‚¬ËœWhere are the teleprompters?!' They told me, ¢â‚¬ËœWe don't use teleprompters anymore. If you make a mistake, we'll just tape the scene again.'" Chris also talked about his deceased co-stars. "Michael Stroka was my best friend--" looking up "--Mike, I miss you so much. He taught me the ropes of acting. We'd go out to the Brittany for drinks after the show and he'd point out which girls were available." About Thayer David: "He was a brilliant actor, very talented, but he was so humble. After taping a scene, he'd look at the director and ask, ¢â‚¬ËœWas that OK?' I got to work with him on the film Savages, with Sam Waterson. Thayer played Otto Nurder. He was great in that, but he wasn't in good health. He was diabetic, but everyday he'd bring two six-packs of soda to the set to drink." Pennock had a unique memory of Grayson Hall. "I was in make-up one day and she came up behind me and said, ¢â‚¬ËœHis eyes are too close together. They should be spread farther apart for the camera.' That really bothered me! I don't know why, I mean, there was nothing I could do about it. But I still remember that to this day." As for his living co-stars, Pennock said he had the most fun working with Nancy Barrett. "We were always giggling together about what was going on in the show."
Chris's video interview was followed by an interview with Geoffrey Scott (Sky Rumson) at which point I lost interest and stepped out. I didn't think I had been gone very long, but by the time I came back, Diana Millay was already well into her Q&A session. If she told her Lyndhurst ghost story, I missed it. A fan asked Diana what she had thought of all the kids who lurked outside the studio doors for autographs. "I was never a part of that," she replied. "During my time on the show, I was always either pregnant or I had young children to take care of, so I was given permission to slip out a different exit. I'd go out the side door and jump into a cab." Diana spoke glowingly about being a mother. "Raising children is more fulfilling than writing or acting. If I could have, I would have devoted all my time to my children instead of working." She also talked about her other passion: doing charity work in and around NYC. "It's the most gratifying thing to be able to help other people and to give something back to the community. Everybody should do it."
The charity auction began next and I left the room again. (I understand that some of Michael Stroka's belongings were auctioned. VAM acquired a bracelet of his.) However, I did return in time for the suspenseful showdown over this year's top prize--Josette's music box from the 1991 series. The bidding progressed at a normal rate until it reached about $500; then Nicky placed a bid. A fan on the other side of the ballroom quickly topped this. Nicky bid again and the other fan bid again. The price of the music box rose to $600, $620, $650, $700. "Let's see who loves Josette more," Jim teased. As if anyone needed an extra incentive, he added, "I'll give Joanna Going's phone number to whoever wins. I can't promise that it's her current number, but you can have it." The bidding climbed higher and higher. The final bid: $800. "Going once, going twice, sold!" Jim announced. The lucky buyer turned out to be Midnite (on whose behalf Nicky had been bidding.)
After the excitement of the auction, Jim prepared to screen clips of the 2004 WBDS pilot. I didn't care to see this, so I went outside and made some phone calls. When I came back, Jim was speaking about the pilot. According to him, this particular pilot is worthless. Pierson cited PJ Hogan's directing as well as some casting choices that didn't work out, "and were not featured on this clip reel." He also claimed that if the WBDS had been picked up, John Karlen would have played the recurring role of Sam Evans. There may still be a chance of getting a new DS on TV sometime within the next few years. Dan Curtis is still very interested in reviving DS in some form. Now that Dracula has been made into a musical, he wants to try to get DS on Broadway too. Jim also acknowledged Johnny Depp's remark that he would like to play Barnabas on film. Jim wrapped up the pilot session and we prepared to watch the live dramatization of Art Wallace's Goodyear Theater teleplay The House, which had been billed all weekend as a pilot for the original DS.
The House was a real treat. I thought it was well-written and well-acted. The plot is essentially a condensed version of the Jason-Liz blackmail storyline. Set in 1910, it begins with an aging sailor named Jeb Calloway (John Karlen) complaining to a former shipmate, Walt Cummings (Jamison Selby) that nobody will hire him to sail because they believe he's too old. Walt suggests that Jeb find someone to stake (sponsor) him, and Jeb recalls a wealthy woman in his hometown of Collinsville called Caroline¢â‚¬¦
The scene shifts to Caroline Barnes, (Marie Wallace) who is teaching piano to young Jane Stoddard (Denise Nickerson) while Jane's mother Martha (Lara Parker) looks on. Caroline's daughter Elizabeth (KLS) is dating a nice young local boy, Larry, played by David Selby. (I believe I mistakenly referred to Selby's character as Frank elsewhere; I apologize for the confusion.) Larry wants to marry Liz, but she always puts him off with an excuse. For one thing, she doesn't want to leave her reclusive mother alone in the big old house, and she knows that Caroline will never leave the house to move in with her and Larry. In truth, Liz is reluctant to commit after seeing what marriage did to her mother. (This is the same problem that Carolyn experienced according to Wallace's Shadows on the Wall story bible.) Caroline's husband stole her jewelry 25 years ago, shortly after Liz was born, and left town. Since then, Caroline has never left the house; she is waiting for her husband to return. Jeb Calloway appears mysteriously, introducing himself as an old friend of Mr. Barnes (maybe his name was Frank.) Caroline is shocked and distraught to see him, but reluctantly agrees that Jeb can stay in her house while he is in town. Liz suspects that Jeb is really her father, returned under an alias. Instead of feeling happy though, she is afraid. In truth, Jeb is Caroline's accomplice. We are told that 25 years ago, Caroline accidentally shot and killed her husband when she discovered that he was trying to run away with the family fortune. Jeb, who had been waiting outside the house for his friend, heard the shot, discovered the body, and offered to bury it in the basement. Caroline gave him the jewels as payment with the understanding that she would never see Jeb again. However, he has now returned. With plenty of charm and sarcastic humor, Jeb intimidates Caroline, even disrupting her piano lessons, and hints that he would like to live in the house permanently as her husband. Caroline is anxious for Liz's sake. When Larry confronts her and accuses her of ruining Liz's life by living as a recluse and passing her own problems onto her commitment-shy daughter, (just as a drunken Joe did to Elizabeth on DS) Caroline makes a decision. She sends for the town constable (Jamison again) and tells him to dig in a particular area of the basement. She also tells Liz what really happened to her father. The constable informs Caroline that he found nothing in the basement. Jeb finally confesses that Caroline is no murderess; the bullet only grazed her husband and he soon regained consciousness. Jeb conned Caroline out of the jewels, the two men split the loot, and Barnes later died at sea. The constable is ready to press charges, but Caroline dissuades him. Though she is angry at Jeb for condemning her to 25 years of a private hell, she is relieved to learn of her innocence and happy to be able to leave the house at last.
I felt that Karlen stole the show with an Irish brogue patterned after Dennis Patrick's. Marie Wallace was also quite good as matriarch Caroline, and David Selby played Larry with an appealing boyishness. Jim Pierson had a small part as a bartender. Richard Halpern played the narrator and read stage directions. Details of The House, from character names to plot points, are very similar to those found in Shadows on the Wall and those that eventually found their way onto DS. It was a fun show and I was glad to have seen the genesis of DS. However, I did find it difficult to remember that in this story, Elizabeth is the daughter while Caroline is the mother. On DS, the name roles were reversed.
After The House, Jim Pierson gave us instructions for the evening's banquet: tickets would be distributed at 5:00 and the banquet would begin at 7:00. The actors would give autographs in the intervening hours. Jim stepped down and David Selby gave a Q&A session. He was asked about his audition process for the role of Quentin. "I didn't really audition. I went to Dan's office, picked up a few golf balls, and did a scene from Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke. He gave me the part." Another fan asked David whether he had felt frustrated waiting for his character to have a speaking part. "Actually we were all nervous about what would happen when Quentin finally did speak. It was like when Hollywood made the transition from silent pictures to talkies; some of the major actors couldn't cut it anymore." Obviously, Quentin's popularity suffered no harm from David's voice. Another fan stepped up to the microphone. "On the series, you played four different characters named Quentin: which one was your favorite?" Unhesitatingly, Selby replied, "The first one. To me that character resembled Heathcliff very closely." Selby praised Wuthering Heights and shared an anecdote told by an actress (IIRC, Joanne Woodward) who had attended the premiere of Gone With the Wind. "Laurence Olivier had accompanied Vivien Leigh, and everyone else was calling to her, shouting, ¢â‚¬ËœScarlett! Scarlett!' But Joanne was calling, ¢â‚¬ËœHeathcliff, Heathcliff!'" David was asked about what it was like to work on an escapist soap like DS in the middle of the socio-politically turbulent 1960's. "The ¢â‚¬Ëœ60's were a strange and difficult time," David replied soberly. "Not everyone made it through. I can remember leaving the studio and seeing groups of protesters on the way home. I suppose that DS did provide an escape from all of that." Like his co-stars before him, David was asked about the WBDS and whether or not he was supposed to have been involved. "At Dan Curtis's tribute I met Mark Verheiden. He told me, ¢â‚¬ËœWe'd love to have you in a recurring role on our show!' I said, ¢â‚¬ËœThat's nice. Thank you.' One of the first rules of the business is never to turn down a potential role." By the tone of his voice though, I didn't think that David was particularly excited about this potential role. Pansity/Jeannie asked Selby what roles, on film or TV, he would have liked to play but didn't have the chance. He cited the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Harry Potter films. "I really liked the wizard. That would have been a fun part. I would have liked to play Gandalf. I prefer the Lord of the Rings to Harry Potter; I'm not sure why. Although I did enjoy this latest Harry Potter film very much." Selby was also asked about his recent commencement address to West Virginia University. He had been a little apprehensive about what to write. "I even researched some famous commencement addresses online before I started writing mine--but that only made me feel more self-conscious about it. I did find some quotations that I liked, and was able to incorporate those." The fan who had asked the question told Selby, "My sister read your speech when it was posted online and she loved it. She said it was exactly what she had wanted to tell her son when he graduated, but she just didn't have the words to phrase it." That cheered David.
Periodically, I glanced at my watch, remembering the brutal banquet ticket lines of years past. At 5:05, I ducked out of the ballroom and went to the ticket window. I didn't see a line of people waiting; in fact I didn't see any kind of crowd, and my first thought was that the ticket distribution had been delayed. I asked one of the Fest volunteers, "Is this where we pick up our banquet tickets?" "Yes," he replied, "right here." I was amazed and impressed; no line, no wait. The entire process took about 30 seconds!
Quickly, I returned to the ballroom and told my friends that the window was open and the way was clear. They went out and came back in about a minute! Selby finished his talk and we all left the ballroom so that the hotel staff could clear it and set up the banquet tables.
The actual banquet line in no way resembled the nightmare queue of 2003. A small loop of people stood off to the side door of the ballroom, waiting to be admitted. We might have waited about half an hour, 40 minutes tops.
When the room was opened, nobody stampeded in search of a table; nobody had trouble finding a seat. This year, I sat at table 26 instead of 59 (a much smaller crowd than last year attended this banquet). For the first time, I knew everyone at the table.
Our souvenir was a silver bookmark with the DS logo stamped on it in blue (nice).
Dinner started with a salad and a roll. The main course was some form of breaded chicken (which I didn't finish,) rice, and vegetables. I think dessert was ice cream. Denise Nickerson raffled off door prizes (one of which was a DVD set 13 of DS--wow, pricey!) From my table, CynD won a DS Resurrected book. After the food had been cleared, we watched trailers of the various movies and commercials in which Dan Curtis or the DS actors had been involved: House of DS; Burnt Offerings; Come Spy with Me (Louis Edmonds); Tarzan and the Great River (Diana Millay); The Girl in Blue (David Selby); Father of the Bride (Joan Bennett); A Small Town in Texas (John Karlen); Night of DS; The Minx (Robert Rodan); Race with the Devil (Lara Parker); Daughters of Darkness (John Karlen); 1776 (Virginia Vestoff and David Ford); Zero to Sixty (Denise Nickerson); Up the Sandbox (David Selby); Up the Military (Chris Pennock); Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Denise Nickerson); War and Remembrance; Joe (Dennis Patrick). At my table, it became a kind of game to see who could spot the DS alumni first and figure out whose movie we were watching. When the trailer clips ended, we were invited to pick up some old, surplus DS calendars on our way out.
From the banquet, we moved to one of the hotel bars where videographer Rich Blanco hooked his video camera to the bar's television set and played back footage from the weekend's events. The first thing that everyone wanted to see was how John Karlen had fallen from the stage. Looking at the video, we saw that Johnny had sat in the unlucky chair and tipped backward chair and all, finally landing on his back behind the stage. Seeing it once was enough to satisfy my curiosity, but a number of people in the bar (you know who you are) insisted on seeing it again and again and again and again¢â‚¬¦
Failing to detect any amusement in repeatedly watching a 70-year-old man fall off a stage, I moved to another table out of sight of the TV and had a nice chat with LdyAnne instead. Eventually, we were able to watch footage of the costume gala, the Collinsport Players' Scooby-Doo skit, and bits of Nancy Barrett's performance. Those were all very enjoyable to see; the clarity of the picture was spectacular. At last, at around 3:30AM when the last stragglers were leaving, I bid goodbye to Teresalita and DSFan1970, who were on their way to the airport for a red-eye flight, and retired for the night.
All in all the Festival/Weekend was a blast, a great opportunity to unwind and spend time with old friends. I was also delighted to make some new friends and to finally meet face-to-face online friends like Gothick, dom, LdyAnne, CastleBee, Darren Gross, ClaudeNorth, Nancy, mscbryk, webby, deckert, Cassandra's mother, and CrazyJenny's fiance. Plans for next year are up in the air. At the banquet, KLS said that Jim is "open to doing something next year" and Jim himself invited us to give him suggestions for a location. (From my table in the back, I was calling for California, but I'm afraid the Miami people might have drowned me out. :- ) Festival 2006, which marks DS's 40th Anniversary, will be held in NY (meaning that I get to choose between going to this event or going to graduate school.
) Wherever they may be held, I'm thankful that the DS conventions are indeed continuing and I hope for many more years of Fests, friends, and fun.
ProfStokes
P.S.--Thanks for posting the photo, Midnite!
