Those rumors nobody's heard are true: I've just gotten the job as Marty Allen's new straight man and we'll be playing the Desert Inn in Las Vegas as soon as they rebuild it.
Don't scoff. Leave me out of it and you might have a pretty good act. At age 91, Marty's still pretty healthy and pretty funny. He and his much-younger wife often play cruise ships and yesterday, he was signing autographs and selling photos (including a great one of him and his then-partner Steve Rossi with The Beatles on the stage of The Ed Sullivan Show) at the Hollywood Show. This is the convention formerly known as the Hollywood Collectors Show — the one that was out at the Beverly Garland and then at that constantly-renamed hotel in Burbank across from the airport. The gathering has a new name, new management and a new location but the premise is still the same: Stars, past and present, sit behind tables and you can wander about, meet them and purchase signatures and memorabilia.
The longest line yesterday was for David Hasselhoff, who was there with a bevy of Baywatch co-stars. Next longest-lines seemed to be for Joan Collins and Bo Derek…and you could also see the kids from The Sound of Music, a batch of Bond Girls, plus George Lazenby and Richard Kiel; Bill Mumy and Angela Cartwright, some of the stars of Knots Landing (including Michele Lee, Joan Van Ark and Kevin Dobson), John Ratzenberger, Jaye P. Morgan, a whole bunch of other folks…
…and as you can see, Julie Newmar. Anyone who thinks there's no glamour left in Show Business oughta hang around Julie Newmar for five minutes. She's still stunning, still every inch a star…but, and this is the tricky part, an approachable star. She was so delightful to everyone who stopped by to buy a photo and/or ask her about the Batman TV show, Li'l Abner, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, My Living Doll or any of a hundred other things she's done. We talked mostly about Abner and the articles I did about the Broadway show and movie, and also about our mutual friend, the late Stanley Ralph Ross. I haven't forgotten that I promised you more stories about Stanley here.
And speaking of great ladies of the stage, I got to meet and talk with Cathy Rigby. If you search this site, you'll find umpteen instances of me gushing about her portrayal of Peter Pan, which I number among the great performances I've seen. Sorry to say, it doesn't sound like she'll ever do it again so do yourself a favor and hunt down the DVD of that show…and beware. Amazon seems to have several other versions of Peter Pan confused with Ms. Rigby's and she's not in some of the ones that list her in the credits. I think this link takes you to the actual Peter Pan with her even though at the moment, it doesn't list her in the credits. The DVD was outta-print for a time and costly to purchase but now the DVD is just seven bucks and an online download/rental is even cheaper. If you have young kids who don't know what musical theater is about, this would be a very good thing to show them.
Finally, I should emphasize what fun it was to meet and talk with Marty Allen. I told him I'd stolen a third of my jokes from him and at least half my hairdo, and we talked about Vegas in the old days, back when he and Steve Rossi were packin' 'em in. I saw one of their last engagements together at the Sands and was surprised, not in a bad way, that they didn't do many of their old "interview" routines. Most of it was Allen doing stand-up while Rossi held the one microphone in front of his partner's mouth and cracked-up at every single thing his partner said as if he'd never heard it before. It would have been a pretty awkward act if not for the fact that the audience was laughing just as hard as Rossi.