Last one...
Sunday's first event was the fan panel with Marcy Robin, which I usually attend. However, this time I was having so much fun standing in the lobby gabbing with my friends QueenKitty, Laraine, Ghost_of_Sarah_Collins, and Donna_Friedlander that I missed both the panel and the Frid video. I would have one more chance to view the video at the banquet that night, but I don't know what was discussed at the panel (e.g. if there was any news about the recent ShadowGram surveys, or a new DS, or the Halloween in Hollywood event).
Diana Millay was scheduled to talk next. In previous years, Diana has read her Lyndhurst ghost story, but this year she opened her Q&A by reading a lyrical piece about the phoenix rising from the ashes and fulfilling its destiny, which she dedicated to the late Dan Curtis. Then, she began to talk about her books. "You've bought all my books already; I don't have a new one yet. My latest was The Power of Halloween. I'm working on a new one now called Create Success, Recreate Your Life. It's about--but wait, it's not even out yet. I'll tell you more about it next year. In the meantime, does anyone have any questions?" One woman asked Diana extensively about how to deal with negativity around her, both in her workplace and in the veterans' hospital where she volunteers with those returning from Iraq. Diana advised her to stay cheerful, to not worry about trying to change others but to focus on herself and changing her own attitude, and to stop by her table if she had any other questions. A man asked Diana to share her memories of David Henessy, "the boy who played your son twice on the show." She seemed to have trouble remembering. "The boy who played my son twice..? Well, he was a very good actor. He knew his lines as well as an adult." Since there were no other questions, Diana was finally able to share with us the information about her travel club. "As many of you know, I have a knack for finding exciting places to travel to--cheaply. You think you need lots of money to travel? You don't. Last year I took a group to Romania (I thought the Romania trip was in 2003, unless she went again). But now, I'm turning over the reins to this gentleman." She gestured to a bearded man in the front row, who then came onstage with her. This year's destination, he explained, was Tibet (which does sound like a fascinating place, but I don't like to travel). "I have brochures if you're interested. Please stop by the table and let Diana and I know about places you'd like to visit." People from the audience began suggesting places to go. "Are you planning any trips to China or Brazil?" "I've been to Brazil before," Diana answered. "I'd love to go back. What interests you about Brazil?" The soccer. "Well, that's a good reason. However, I'm not planning any trips to China right now. It's something to suggest though." She highly recommends the experience of travel for all of us.
Next, Chris Pennock treated us to a reading from his most recent Fear & Loathing comic. As always, his reading was wild and exuberant, and as promised, he paused mid-way so that his daughter, Tara, could sing for us. She performed "Defying Gravity" from the musical Wicked and received much applause.
At last it was time for the final auction at which the portrait of Barnabas from House of DS would be auctioned. The portrait had been on display throughout the weekend (at times, propped on an easel on-stage in the 'drawing room') and I'd had a chance to see it and photograph it. Alas, it hasn't aged very well; the left side is very faded (I guess someone must have left it in the sun too long) but it certainly is the portrait. I believe this must be the highest-profile item ever auctioned. Again, I ran out during the first half to get lunch, but I hurried back to catch the tail-end of the auction. At that time, Jim Pierson auctioned off a poster replica of the portrait (which went for close to $100). Another big item was the pair of red contact lenses that Stefan Gierasch had used in the DS Revival series (apparently Rebecca Staab's lenses and fangs had sold the previous day). "And if you win these, you'll get a copy of DS Resurrected to go with it. Just go out and tell Kathryn Leigh Scott that I said to give you a copy, free." He paused. "To give the one winner a copy for free." We chuckled. Then came the portrait. For the first time, bidding was also open to people who were not present, who had registered their bids online or were phoning them in. Marcy Robin and Helen Samaras stood behind Jim at the foot of the stage on their cell phones to keep in contact with the absentee bidders. The bids quickly climbed to over $1,000. Earlier in the week, we had speculated how much the portrait would bring (and whether Midnite would be tempted to add it to her growing museum of collectibles): Bobubas guessed $3,000, I guessed $5,000, Teresalita/Springsteena guessed $10,000. It went even higher than that. Soon, even the absentee bidders were knocked out. Finally, bidding came down to a showdown between a woman in the front row and a man who was sitting right behind me; he went as high as $10,500. The final sale price was $13,000! Jim conversed with the woman who won and explained, "She was saving to buy a new car, but decided she wanted this instead."
After the auction was the highly-anticipated Remembering Grayson Hall panel with R.J. Jamison, AKA Julia99, the author of the new biography Grayson Hall: A Hard Act to Follow. Nancy Barrett, a dear friend of Grayson's, was also on-stage to help answer questions about Grayson. R.J. began by introducing herself, explaining a bit about the book and how Sam and Matthew Hall had been so supportive and helpful in providing information and rare photos for the book, and showing a clip role of Grayson's various works including an appearance on the TV show "Lights Out," a 'lost film' The Parisienne and the Prudes, Night of the Iguana, That Darn Cat, a French film called Qui etes Vous, Polly Magoo, End of the Road, Adam at 6 AM, "Kojak," and "The Man from UNCLE". Next, Nancy read a selection from the biography, "The Birth of Grayson Hall". "Can you imagine Grayson being born?" she asked. The reading was actually about how Grayson, born Shirley Grossman, took her stage name. For a time, she was calling herself Shirley Grayson and had considered taking the name Liz. "Grayson as Liz?" Nancy didn't seem to think it fit. But Sam always called his wife Grayson, "like an old army buddy," and when she was performing in Jean Genet's Le Balcon (with Sylvia Miles, Salome Jens, and a young Barbra Streisand), he told his secretary to "draw up a contract for Grayson Hall" even though Genet was friends with the Halls and knew her real name. After the reading, R.J. took a few moments to dispel some of the myths surrounding Grayson's time on DS. First of all, the story that Julia Hoffman was born from a secretary's typo is false. "They always intended for Dr. Hoffman to be a woman to add sexual tension with the vampire." Secondly, the story that Sam was writing for the show first and Dan Curtis met Grayson at a party and decided to put her on the show was false. "There was another actress who was cast as Dr. Hoffman first, but she backed out at the last minute for reasons unknown. Her name is lost to history." Grayson's agent contacted her about the opening on DS at a time when Sam and Grayson (who were struggling financially) were preparing to leave New York and move back to Ohio. Grayson got the part, Sam became a writer for DS about a month after, and the Halls were able to stay. Nancy fondly recalled that throughout the run of DS, Grayson and Sam were "Mom and Pop" to the cast members.
Then, the audience was invited to ask questions. One of the first questions to come up was whether Grayson had been disappointed that she didn't do more in her career. "Why didn't she become a big movie star?" "I have my own ideas about that, but I'll let Nancy answer first," R.J. deferred. "It depends on what you mean by 'more'," Nancy explained. "What else could she have done? She could have gone to Hollywood, but I don't think that was what she wanted. She loved New York, she loved being on stage, and she did a lot of stage work in her lifetime." R.J. added that Grayson had lived in Hollywood for a time with her first husband, actor Ted Brooks, and hadn't enjoyed the ruthlessness of the town. "Also, it was the 1950s, McCarthyism was targeting a lot of Hollywood actors, and Grayson fit the profile of a communist. She was a Russian Jew, she was leftist in her politics. In fact, her family kept a picture of Eugene Debs over their mantel. If she had stayed in Hollywood and pursued a film career, she might eventually have been blacklisted. But a lot of people expected her to go Hollywood after Night of the Iguana. Her mother even moved to Los Angeles expecting Grayson to follow." Another fan wanted to know why Grayson's first marriage was never mentioned publicly. "Was it kept secret for some reason?" R.J. explained that Sam Hall's parents were upright Ohio Protestants and when Sam and Grayson decided to get married, he told her," We can either tell them that you're Jewish or that you're divorced." They decided to stick with Jewish because divorcee could be considered a character flaw and Grayson wasn't especially devoutly Jewish anyway. R.J. also talked a bit about Sam and Grayson's courtship: they had actually gone on a date just before Grayson had married Ted, and it was a disaster. But, after Grayson divorced and came back to New York from California, they went on a second date, and really hit it off. "Their date ended at the Algonquin Hotel. They got married soon after." Someone else asked if Grayson had had any medical training. "No, but she was always fascinated by medicine," Nancy shared. "I think she was a little frustrated with Sam because he couldn't go into detail in the dialogue about the procedures she did on the show as Julia." Another fan wanted to know if there were plans to put the book on audio for the blind. "I have considered that," R.J. said. "In that clip we saw, Grayson was speaking French. Did she know French, and is that why the character of Countess Natalie DuPres was written for her?" asked another fan. "It's possible," Nancy admitted. "Sam was writing by that time." R.J. told us that Grayson had studied French in school and all her life afterward and was fluent. "I have her school records. She was a good student with a very high IQ, but she missed a lot of classes to go on auditions in New York." Though several people were still in line at the microphone, there was no more time to ask questions. "Mr. Lacy is here now," R.J. explained, "and we have to wrap this up." I really enjoyed her presentation, for it gave us a chance to hear a lot of new stories about a beloved DS star and gave fans the opportunity to ask more detailed questions of people who would actually know the answers. I hope that R.J. (and Jim) will consider doing another Grayson-oriented Q&A at the next West Coast Fest. I purchased R.J.'s book at the Festival; it is a very thorough account of Grayson's career and also reveals a number of personal details about her childhood and adult life.
Mr. Lacy had been absent on Saturday because he'd gone to see his daughter, a drama student in NYC, perform in a play. Fortunately, he was able to join us this day. We started by watching various clips of Jerry as Tony Peterson trying to talk to a hysterical Julia, Barnabas bricking up the Rev. Trask, and a possessed Charity Trask scandalizing her father Gregory by singing and bumping him. Then it was time for questions and answers. "To what extent did your resemblance to Humphrey Bogart help or hurt your career?" "It was a help in getting me certain parts, like in Play it Again, Sam and in a few commercials. I even did a Right Guard commercial with Marie Wallace. But in other ways, it hurt me. After awhile, the casting directors couldn't see me as anything other than Humphrey Bogart. They didn't look at how I would play the part as an actor." The next question was, "When you played Rev. Trask, your voice sounded different than when you were Tony Peterson. Did you do something special to your voice?" Jerry admitted that he had tried to make Trask's voice sound rougher and more 'fanatical'. One fan asked Jerry about his experiences working in Play it Again, Sam. "It was my first--and it turned out to be only--Broadway show. Woody Allen is just as neurotic in real life as he is on film." The fan then asked Jerry to do his Bogart impression for us. "I haven't done it in awhile. I don't know if I can." He hesitated and then gave us, "Of all the gin joints in all the world, she had to walk into mine." Everyone applauded. "Whatever happened to Tony Peterson?" one fan asked. "I'm not sure. I think Adam may have scared him away." "Did Rev. Trask ever accept that he was wrong about anything?" someone else asked. "No, he never did. He believed that he was doing the right thing by hunting for a witch, and he believed he had found the right witch in Victoria. I mean, she came running out of the house screaming that there was a fire. What else was he supposed to think?" Jerry went on to tell us a bit of trivia about that scene. "You couldn't see it, but as we were struggling, Alexandra walked into my cape, and as we were trying to walk off-stage, we kept walking further into the cape and getting tangled in it." As for Night of DS, one fan mentioned, "Thayer David played Rev. Strack, which was another psychosexual reverend witch-hunter role. Why weren't you cast in the movie?" Lacy said he didn't know.
Kathryn Leigh Scott gave the weekend's last Q&A session. She started by marveling over what 40 years of DS had brought. "It amazes me how much my likeness has been used; my picture's been on the packaging for the music box. I've been on books, trading cards, I'm a bobblehead, and next year I'll be an action figure." (That sounds promising for fans who've been hoping for a second line of Majestic action figures). Kathryn also mentioned that she had just filmed an episode of "Huff". "Did any of you see it?" A number of hands went up. "I was going to suggest to Jim Pierson that he show it, but I think it's X-rated. That's Showtime for you." Then she talked about her new book, Murder in Prime Time and her detective character Jinx Fogarty. "Many of you have been at my table already. How many have read the book?" A number of hands shot up. "Did you like it?" The responses were affirmative. "I tried to write what I know--about my background working in television. I'm not going to write any more DS books. From now on, I'm going to stick to fiction. I plan to write more Jinx Fogarty novels." Kathryn invited fans to give her feedback on the book and suggestions for future novels. She also talked about a previous book, which she erroneously introduced as "My Scrapbook Memories of the Bunny Years." When she caught her mistake, Kathryn laughed. "One of the actors, Roger Davis, who's not here this weekend, always joked that he was going to write a book called Kathryn Leigh Scott: The Girl Scout Years." She repeated her story about working as a Playboy bunny while simultaneously working on DS for the first few weeks of the show. "We didn't know how long the show was going to last, and I figured it was better not to give up my other job. But then one day, a group of ladies came in, recognized me, and wanted to know why Maggie Evans was working as a Playboy bunny. That's when I decided to hang up my bunny ears for good." She also introduced one of her friends and former fellow bunnies who was seated in the audience. "Stand up and show them how beautiful you are," she encouraged. Next it was time for questions. One woman asked Kathryn about her role in Police Squad, ("The one where I'm wearing all the wigs," KLS said knowingly) "What was it like to work with Leslie Nielsen? He seems like such a funny man." "He is! He used to carry around a whoopee cushion and make funny noises behind people's backs." Richard Halpern corroborated this. "I worked with him in Repossessed (the Leslie Nielsen/Linda Blair Exorcist parody) I had a small part in that. He used that whoopee cushion on the CEO of Paramount Studios. We couldn't believe it." Kathryn also told us about her audition for the movie. "I read the script and thought it was hilarious, but when I went to read for the part, they wanted me to be serious. ¢â‚¬ËœRead it like you're Gene Tierney,' they told me. So I did, and they were cracking up. Then, when we were filming it, I was supposed to have braces, but the make-up man had forgotten to get me some. So I took foil and tied it on my teeth with dental floss to look like braces. (Ingenious!) I played the part of 'The Big Blonde' and I was a brunette. It was a lot of fun." Another fan asked Kathryn about her work on The Great Gatsby. "I love that movie, and I've watched it so many times, but just this last time I finally realized, 'That's Kathryn Leigh Scott!' Did you like playing Catherine, Karen Black's sister?" "Oh, yes, it was wonderful to work with Karen Black, Robert Redford, and Scott Wilson."
One man went up to the microphone gleefully. "Kathryn I've got a question for you that I guarantee you've never heard before in all the 20 years of the Festivals." We all leaned forward in anticipation. "How did they get that car inside the studio for your last scene?" We laughed, knowing how hard it would be to get a car inside the notoriously tiny studio (funny, but that never occurred to me; it was a good question). "It was actually half a car," Kathryn explained. 'They cut off half of it and set it up inside the studio. It was a convertible so they turned fans on me to make it look like wind blowing." She then explained to the audience what scene the guy was talking about. "For those of you who haven't seen the entire show, the character Sebastian Shaw was taking Maggie to Windcliff, the insane asylum. I was without a contract at the time and I had told Dan I wanted to leave the show to go to Paris and marry my boyfriend. He told me, 'You're crazy! You'll never work again!' I was a young actress and my career was just getting started. So because he thought I was crazy, he sent me to the mental hospital. It was his little joke." The last question was, "If Maggie had continued on the show, what would you have liked to see happen to the character?" "I would have liked to see Maggie become a stronger character again after all that she'd been through, and be able to stand on her own two feet."
Once Kathryn's Q&A concluded, it was time for the actors to recreate the first and last episodes of the show. I have to admit that I wasn't that excited about the recreations when I first heard about them, but some of the casting choices intrigued me (John Karlen as Burke Devlin? David Selby as Brutus Collins?) and I did attend the performance. I sat in the back with mscbryk during the first episode and with Minja/Wicked_C during the second. Diana Millay sat in the row just in front of us. Later in the evening, we would see a feature on the making of "Return to Collinwood" in which a number of actors commented on "the power of voice". I have to say that the power of voice was very powerful in these performances!
The first episode cast included Kathryn Leigh Scott reprising her role as Maggie Evans (she was the only original role/original actor in this episode), Karlen as Devlin, Lara Parker as Victoria Winters, David Selby as Roger Collins, Marie Wallace as Elizabeth Stoddard, Jerry Lacy as Mr. Wells, Chris Pennock as the private investigator Strack, Nancy Barrett as Sandy, Vicki's friend from the orphanage, and Donna Wandrey in a dual role as Mrs. Mitchell, the chatty lady on the train and Ms. Hopewell, the orphanage matron. The script for the first episode must have come from the writer's first draft because the introduction that Lara Parker read was not the same one Alexandra Moltke recites for the first episode. Marie Wallace was amazing as Liz; she adopted Joan Bennett's mid-Atlantic drawl perfectly. Donna Wandrey was able to create distinct characters even when her two characters had consecutive lines. She would just turn in a circle when shifting roles and it would be as though she was someone new. I have to say that Donna is a very strong actress (I still remember Mrs. Franklin, her RTC character, fondly) and I'm glad that she was able to participate in this show. I was delighted with Jerry Lacy's innkeeper; he actually attempted a Maine accent, and even though it was a small part, he was terrific in it. I thought Parker was quite good as Victoria. She was able to convey innocence and naivety without seeming forced or too much of a caricature, which I felt Catherine Harridge was. Karlen was much gruffer as Burke than either Mitchell Ryan or Anthony George; it took some getting used to, but I guess it fit the character since Burke was a bitter and vengeful man when he first returned to Collinsport. One of the funniest moments (albeit unintentionally) came when Vicki (Lara), seeking a taxi to take her to Collinwood, asked how people get from place to place in Collinsport. "Broomsticks" Burke responded. Though it would have drawn a chuckle anyway as a harmless joke, because the line was now addressed to Lara Parker, so famous for playing the witch Angelique, it seemed especially ironic. Another crowd-pleaser was when Maggie told (and spelled) to Vicki that she was a jerk.
When the first episode recreation concluded, the final episode immediately began, with the cast additions of Richard Halpern (who turned in one of the best Thayer David imitations I've heard yet) as Ben Stokes and Jim Pierson as the 2nd footman. Unfortunately, performing the first and last episodes back-to-back really highlighted how far the quality of writing had fallen by the end of the series. We went from memorable stingers (Elizabeth to Roger: "The only problem I've invited is standing before me right now") to repetitive wailing ("Bramwell!" "Catherine!" "Oh, Bramwell! I'm afraid." "Oh, Catherine!"). That said, the final episode was still a lot of fun. Nancy, John, and Lara resumed their original roles of Melanie, Kendrick, and Catherine, respectively. Jerry played Bramwell very stoically and at times even sounded like Jonathan Frid. David Selby, with the aid of sound effects, gave a chilling and much-applauded reading as the ghost of Brutus Collins. Meanwhile, Chris Pennock was having a high old time as a wildly insane Morgan Collins. Marie was matriarch Flora, and Donna took the Aunt Julia role. By this point, the actors were starting block parts of the show, which was very action-packed (Morgan abducts Catherine, Morgan fights with Kendrick and Bramwell). When Bramwell was supposed to fall after being shot, Jerry actually dropped to his knees. Nancy and John really did kiss when Kendrick and Melanie were reunited. Everyone was really getting into their parts, pretending to fight, fall, screaming, etc. They also started to break up in laughter. As with the first performance, the final episode followed the writers' original intentions rather than what we ultimately saw on tape. I was hoping for Halpern to read the closing narration in his Thayer voice, but instead the last line "If I didn't know better...") and narration were given to Bramwell/Lacy. The actors received a standing ovation and much applause for their performance. Then, people began to filter out of the ballroom to get into autograph lines or to get their banquet tickets and change for the dinner.
The banquet started roughly on time (we'd all feared another 3-hour wait like we'd had in 2003 the last time the Fest came to Brooklyn). But in fact, not only were we on-time, we were early as far as the kitchen was concerned. "For the first time in 20 years," Pierson told us, "we're ready and the chicken's not." However, our bread and salads were already at the tables when we sat down. I sat at Table 39 with Minja/Wicked_C, EmeraldRose, JVjr, his cousins Donna and Cindy, DSFAN1970, and Springsteena. To fill the time while we waited for our main course, Pierson started the door prize raffle. Most of the prizes were current products--MPI's Trilogy of Terror, DS Volume 26, a Josette's Music Box, various T-shirts, a copy of The Salem Branch (which VAM won). To our regret (but not to our surprise), none of the back tables won anything. Kathryn Leigh Scott also spoke to thank everyone for attending this weekend and added that she looked forward to seeing us next year (although no definite announcements were made about whether or where a 2007 Fest would be held). The food arrived and consisted of pasta for the vegetarians and chicken, rice, and vegetables for the rest of us. Dessert was cheesecake. For some reason, the waiters only served half of our table before wandering away, and poor Minja and EmeraldRose had to wait even longer for their food. Finally, while we were all eating, we saw another video presentation: a public service announcement about Alzheimer's Disease that Dan Curtis had directed (probably his last work). There were multiple versions of the ad--a 30 second spot, a 60 second spot, and one that was almost 2 minutes long. The ad features an elderly couple walking on the beach. They stare at a dance floor half-buried in the sand and we see flashbacks of their courtship in the late 1950s/early 1960s on that same beach, at a bowling alley, at a diner, their wedding, their children, moving into their first home, etc. while Barbra Streisand's 'The Way We Were" plays in the background. At the end of the flashback sequence, the couple dances together on the beach. Peter Falk reads the closing announcement. We also watched Jonathan Frid's video (though with waiters moving about and the sound of clinking silverware and plates and conversation, it was very hard to hear what he was saying). Lastly, we saw some of the extra features that appear on either the Bloopers and Treasures or Volume 26 DVD (I'm really not sure which). One was a tribute to Joan Bennett where the actors and at least one fan shared their memories of her. The other was a behind-the-scenes look at "Return to Collinwood". Even though the performance was recorded live at the 2003 Fest, it was impossible to use that recording for a marketable release because of all the applause, cheers, and other noise from the fans in the background. So the actors had to record the play again in a studio. Half of it was filmed in New York and the other half in LA; the parts were then spliced together. The actors spoke about how exciting it was to recreate their roles and to hear the familiar voices of the characters live again.
While these videos were screening, droves of people were scurrying back and forth from the tables to the back of the room in order to collect their annual banquet collectible--an original episode negative. Now, when I first heard what we were supposed to receive at the Fest, I pictured that we'd walk into the ballroom and find a tiny square of film on our chairs: I'd pictured the ¢â‚¬Ëœoriginal negative' as a separate frame snipped off a larger reel. Imagine my surprise (and dismay) when I learned that the negative was in fact an entire reel of 16 mm film in a canister that must have weighed at least 7-10 lbs packaged in a cardboard container the size of a large pizza box. How am I ever going to get that home? I wondered. I had taken great pains to fit everything I would need into a carry-on bag so I wouldn't have to check my luggage, and I knew that even if I took the canister out of the box, it would never fit in my suitcase. We were given the option of foregoing the negatives and choosing an outdated calendar or a program from a past Festival instead. But, as difficult as it would be to get it home, I did want a negative, even if I had to check it. I ended up with Episode #3 (I wonder who, if anyone, got Episode #1? Maybe they're saving that one for next year's auction.) When the videos ended and the negatives were distributed, people began to filter out of the ballroom. Some stayed behind to have their photos taken on the drawing room set. I hurried up to my room to drop off the negative and then rushed back down to meet my friends in the lounge for the last time.
JVjr and his cousins had brought with them an actual DS board game that they had won on e-bay, and invited other fans to play. I watched them play for the first round and then joined in the second round. I played against EmeraldRose, Roger K., and Phil M. When the game was over, I hurried up to my room to pack because I knew there would be no time to do so in the morning with my early flight. I came back down, planning to again spend the time until the wee hours with my friends, but security drove us all out of the lounge at 1:30. Who knew Brooklyn closed up? Reluctantly, we said good-bye and went our separate ways. Although I did feel cheated of the additional time I'd hoped to spend with my friends, I am grateful for the time that we were able to spend together. Again, it's the people who keep me coming back to the Fest each year and who make it so worthwhile. Thanks again to everyone for a wonderful time!
ProfStokes
