From Robert Hackett…
I just saw your most recent post that mentioned the Hollywood Show. What percentage of celebrities do these signings because they genuinely need the money and what percentage just want to get out of the house and meet fans or such? I see the upcoming Hollywood Show has Barbara Bosson, who was married to Steven Bochco for 27 years. Surely she does not need the money?
Well, I don't know about Ms. Bosson but it has been my observation that some folks you'd assume surely don't need the money need the money. Maybe they went through a messy divorce or maybe they had some bad investments or a Business Manager who put all their money into a chain of Bill Cosby Day Spas for Women or something. When I have been in a position of being able to hire actors, it's mostly for jobs that pay scale — i.e., the minimum rate set by their union. You'd be surprised at some of the "name" actors who either call me, have their agent call me or have a friend contact me when there's a chance I can hire them.
I would say that more common than that is the actor who ain't had a lot of people asking for his autograph lately or treating him like a celebrity. I see a lot of folks at the Hollywood Show and other autograph-vending events that strike me as more interested in that than the cash. It's a very strange thing to go from being on a series for years — which often means being recognized everywhere you go and getting many forms of preferential treatment — to not being recognized at all or very often. Spending a few days chatting with people who know who you are, even if they don't splurge for an autographed 8-by-10 can scratch a lingering itch.
There are also some who don't need the money but have a hard time saying no if someone says to them, "Hey, you could make X thousand dollars for signing your name for two days." Even some really rich people have trouble turning down real easy money. Some of them — and I know this from personal conversations — give the dough to charity or to some sick relative. Back in 2001, in a post here, I wrote about a melancholy memory from one of the earliest Hollywood Shows…
…It involved the late comedian Pat Paulsen who, at the time of course, was not a late comedian. Alas, he then knew he was about to become one. He'd been diagnosed with something terminal — the big "C," I believe — and was out on a crusade to accrue cash to leave his family. Pat was a very sweet, very funny man who had managed to not rack up much of a fortune during his years on television — though I suspect his last minute putsch for dollars was less a matter of needing cash than of needing something constructive to do. Whatever, for his last few months, he was appearing everywhere he could, performing and signing, making whatever money he could make.
Colleagues were abetting him. Ruth Buzzi was sitting with him that day, dolled up in the Gladys Ormphby outfit she wore on Laugh-In, signing and posing for photos, with and without him, all proceeds going to Pat. A few other stars lent their celebrity to the effort while autograph dealers, aware that the supply of Paulsen autographs was soon to be finite, were stocking up, buying multiples from him. It was sad…but it would have been even sadder if Pat hadn't had that outlet.
Anyway, to answer your question, I'll take a guess and say that at one of those shows, 25% need the money, 25% would like the money, 25% can't turn down the money and 25% like the attention and the fact that they get to chat with people who know who they are and what they've done. And in each of those groups, there are probably some who tell themselves it's for one of these reasons when it's actually to some extent about another of them.
