Kristy and Brad: Little Darlings
Sunday, June 10th, 2007
I was rather excited to meet Kristy McNichol at the Hollywood Collectors Show during the February 2007 show. Not sure why. Mostly because she was such a teen magazine cover star during the days that I picked up every issue of 16 Magazine (mostly for the KISS articles) during the late 1970’s. I thought she was cute in pictures from the film Little Darlings, a flick that to this day I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen. I also never saw her on the TV show Family, which she starred in for four years, but I’m sure I caught her in some ABC Afterschool Specials and I know I saw her in Two Moon Junction. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m not exactly sure when I met Joe Rock at Hollywood ’80. His autograph is wedged into my little album right between the technical stars and the Our Gang stars. It would make more sense for him to be on the technical panel, but I have a faint memory that he was actually hanging around the Our Gang meet-and-greet. In any case, I know that I met him since he signed my autograph album – and that is good enough for me! 
Tongues were abuzz immediately as word circulated around the grand room at the Beverly Garland Hotel where the Summer 1995 Hollywood Collectors Show was being held on June 24. Long before the days of The Girls Next Door and he had sealed his reputation as a creepy, perverted old man, Hugh Hefner entered the building. He was with a minor acquaintance of mine, Dick Bann. Dick was co-author of two of my favorite books, Laurel & Hardy (the giant picture book) and Our Gang: The Life and Times of the Little Rascals – which happened to be the book that I was toting around collecting signatures for my friend Henry Sorenson. Although Dick and I are not exceptionally close, we have certainly grown to be friends over the years. 
Okay, so it’s not my greatest celebrity encounter in the world – it’s still fun. During the Summer of 2006, I became obsessed with collecting every Number One Billboard song ever produced – and wedged snugly in the middle of 1956, not long after the dawn of rock, was a snappy little number called “The Wayward Wind” by Gogi Grant. It peaked at number one on June 16 and remained there for six weeks. Have to admit: first time I’d ever heard of her. Flash forward to February 16, 2007. I’m at the Hollywood Collector’s Show and who should I see sitting there, virtually alone? None other than Gogi Grant herself! And at only $5.00 for this cardboard 5 x 7 head shot, how could I go wrong? 
Dad jotted in his little brown memo book on Wednesday July 30, 1980: “Went to McCabe Forum. No McCabe. Heard tape. He is ill. Saw films. Went to Gen. Session and parade of Tents. Saw films in P.M. Went to tech stars panel. Saw many behind the scenes people. Lasted from about 8:30 to 10:15. Saw movie and visited Hospitality room. Went to bed at 12.” I believe by the time that this first full day of the convention had rolled around, we had met up with our fellow tent members Harry and Helen Carter and two other inactive tent members from Lima, Ohio, who would quickly befriend me, Steve and Sharon Stayonovich.