The Gary Busey Story
Thursday, March 31st, 2011
Gary Busey has big teeth…and he is a loose cannon. My friend Bob warned me repeatedly to watch what I say to him. My goal was simply to get a photo with him – because Bob had already gotten a couple of signed photos for me at previous Hollywood Collectors Shows. Whenever and wherever Busey went, he made a spectacle of himself. Doctors attribute his bizarre behavior to a motorcyle accident he had in 1988, during which he was not wearing a helmet. When I saw him on Saturday, April 24, 2010, at the Hollywood Show he and Cloris Leachman (who was also a guest), were – in good, bizarre fun – shouting at each other across the room at the top of their lungs. Busey roamed the room, frequently interrupting the other celebrities in attendance. He looked frazzled. He looked harried. Read the rest of this entry »
I wasn’t all that familiar with Shirley Knight, so I nearly bypassed getting an autographed photo of her when she appeared at the Chicago Hollywood Celebrities Show on Saturday, September 18, 2010. Although I had seen her in a few films over the years – As Good As It Gets, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, and Color of Night, for example – I had not seen her in either of the two films for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in The Dark at the Top of the Stairs nor Sweet Bird of Youth. 
I’m not sure I knew what to expect when I met Della Reese, who had adapted her stage name from her birth first name Delloreese. In one of the few films in which I had seen Della, she appeared to be capable of breaking my back over her knee. Yes, that would be Harlem Nights – with the primary black cast consisting of Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, and Redd Foxx. In this film, Della became forever associated with the pinkie toe, or the loss thereof. This type of no-nonsense roll would serve her well in guest spots on great shows like Picket Fences, Night Court, and Sanford and Son. Conversely, one of her most famous roles was as the angelic Tess in Touched By an Angel – but this was a show that I had never watched. 
It has become a virtual no-brainer that when I get the chance to meet an Oscar winner, I’m going to go ahead and do it. And the Academy really liked actress Celeste Holm. Three times she was nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role: for Gentleman’s Agreement (1947), Come to the Table (1949), and All About Eve (1950). She was only the winner in the first film – thanks to her role as fashion editor Anne Dettrey opposite actor Gregory Peck. The chance to meet her came at the Hollywood Show on Saturday, October 9, 2010. 
I really can’t offer much of a good reason for spending $50 on getting a signed photo plus and picture taken with 70s supermodel Cheryl Tiegs. It’s not like she’s done all that much in the world of entertainment. In fact, among the few shows on which she’s appeared, she was merely playing herself on episodes of Moonlighting and Just Shoot Me. But the name sticks out as a rather iconic emblem of beauty in the 1970’s – the decade that I come from – so I just felt I had to catch her at the Chiller Show in Parsippany, New Jersey, on Saturday, October 30, 2010. (I had actually bypassed her at the Hollywood Show earlier that