Lando
Tuesday, August 20th, 2013
I for one think it’s a pretty big deal to meet one of the top-billed performers from the original Star Wars trilogy, and it’s rather rare to see them on the autograph circuit. I got lucky in the past getting a photo with Carrie Fisher at an autograph show, and I had to put my neck on the line for my Harrison Ford encounter, but getting Billy Dee Williams – who played the lead character Lando Calrissian in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi – was really quite easy. It just took having four twenty dollar bills in my wallet and the will to give them up when he came to the Hollywood Show on February 11, 2012. Read the rest of this entry »
When one goes to a celebrity show, one can be generally confident that if the price is right one will get the chance to meet each of the adverstised celebrities that one has come to see. Unfortunatlely, when hoping to meet certain performers after shows in which they’ve performed, it’s much more of a crap shoot. Life indeed does move pretty fast, and so do celebrities who don’t want to be encountered by the likes of me – so you have to be on your toes. When I go to a live stage production or even a concert, there is always the hope that I will get to meet whichever perfomer in whom I have interest. Sometimes I get lucky. Sometimes I don’t. Win some. Lose some. 
Ilan Mitchell-Smith’s presence at the Chiller Theatre show in Parsippany, New Jersey on April 27, 2013, was enough of a clincher for me to actually purchase my plane ticket to attend it. Sure, there were others, but it would have just been too incredibly painful to miss knowing that he would finally be making an appearance. Actually, this was his second autograph show; I had read recently of a Weird Science reunion at the Blood at the Beach event in Virginia Beach – but only after it occurred – at which he showed up for the first time. 
Okay, it’s a bit of a stretch to call Brandon Cruz my best friend. He probably wouldn’t even recognize me on the street – but it’s still a fun theme song by Harry Nilsson to quote. The theme song in question is to the TV series The Courtship of Eddie’s Father in which Brandon Cruz played young Eddie Corbett, the son of ‘Mr. Eddie’s Father’ – aka Tom Corbett, played by Bill Bixby. The low-key family sitcom last three seasons from 1969-1972. I remember it best for its quiet and subdued use of the laugh track. Interestingly Cruz and Bixby would re-unite in an episode of The Incredible Hulk in 1978. 
Every once in a while, I get the chance to meet an actor who, rather than having just one major film or TV role to his credit that I’ve enjoyed, has a slew of relatively minor roles strung out across multiple performances that I’ve loved. Richard Masur is one of these actors. I was really excited to meet him when he appeared at the Days of the Dead show in Indianapolis, Indiana, on Sunday, July 7, 2013. He was actually there as party of pretty impressive reunion of actors who had starred in The Thing, but I knew him from lots of other things.