Had a lovely time this afternoon at the Hollywood Collectors Show at the Beverly Garland Hotel in Studio City. (The event continues tomorrow. If you want to attend, further details can be located here.)
If you've never been to one of these, it's basically a ballroom full of celebrities selling autographed pictures, autobiographies and other collectible items — a wonderful chance for them to make some bucks and for their fans to meet them. I got to see some old friends — Teresa Ganzel, Susan Silo, Greg Berg, Bob Bergen and others — and say hello to some folks I'd met only briefly. For instance, the only other time I ever chatted with Warren Berlinger, it was on the set of a short-lived TV show he did in 1971 called The Funny Side. (Anyone else remember that? Gene Kelly was the host and I used to sneak into NBC to watch them tape and to pester Mr. Kelly with questions when he wasn't busy on the set.) Last week, I saw Berlinger playing the party host in the production of Follies I mentioned then, so I got to tell him how good it (and he) was.
Also told Roy Stuart how good he was in a play in which I saw him. Roy is probably best known for playing Corporal Boyle on Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. (that's a shot of him at left on the show) but I recall a wonderful production of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple I saw back in the late sixties at the Ivar Theater in Hollywood. Stuart played Felix, Jesse White was Oscar and the two of them managed to wring every possible laugh out of a very funny play. I never got to see the original combo of Walter Matthau and Art Carney on stage but I can't believe it's humanly possible to laugh harder than we laughed that night at White and Stuart.
The production was directed by Neil's brother, Danny, upon whom the character of Felix was somewhat based. Roy told me that, throughout rehearsal, Danny kept saying to him, "That's not how I'd do that," and he [Roy] had to keep reminding him, "I'm not playing you, Danny. I'm playing Felix."
Across the room, Bruce Kimmel was doing a brisk business selling copies of his novel, Benjamin Kritzer, and the newly-released DVD of a wonderful little film he directed wrote and starred in, The First Nudie Musical. In recent years, Bruce has turned his talents more often to producing some of the best Broadway-type CDs and he also has an unnatural relationship with Guy Haines, a camera-shy vocalist who appears on some of them. Matter of fact, Bruce writes a daily journal over at Guy Haines's website and it's full of fun info about show biz and the theater. While you're over there, order the novel and or the DVD.
The biggest line at the entire show was for Barbara Eden, about whom every male in the place and most of the women remarked, "God, she still looks great." She does. She was there all day, signing pictures and I Dream of Jeannie memorabilia (one guy brought a crate of toys) and feigning laughter at all the ha-ha hilarious remarks about her navel. Nearby, Jamie Farr was hearing other fans ask, ad nauseam, "Where's your dress?" I wonder if folks will ever realize that, when you meet a celebrity who's known for something special, it's nearly impossible to make a wisecrack they haven't heard 3,000 times before, often from the guy just before you.
As always, the "celebs" with the shortest lines were some of the most interesting and the ones who weren't selling anything, who were roaming about to see friends, were especially fascinating. Chuck McCann was there and he introduced me to one of the great impressionists of all time, Will Jordan, who was telling stories in the aisles. Every time I'm around comedians like that, I realize someone could do a helluva great low-budget TV show by just pointing a camera at guys like McCann and Jordan and having them tell show biz anecdotes. You could probably do a solid 26 weeks just on tales of Milton Berle's penis.