The Facts of Natalie
Thursday, April 28th, 2011
I virtually grew up with the TV show The Facts of Life, which made its debut in 1979 and ran for nine seasons. It was a show that had to re-invent itself several times, sometimes successful and sometimes not-so-much. But regardless, meeting the stars of the show has always been on my bucket list. I got my first chance during the Hollywood Show on Saturday, February 12, 2011. Mindy Cohn, who had portrayed Natalie Green on the show for its entire duration, was making a first-time appearance. She was certainly nice enough, but I couldn’t help but walk away with a bad taste in my mouth about the encounter. Read the rest of this entry »
OK, I will admit when I’m wrong. I had encountered Nastassja Kinski once before when she made an appearance at the Hollywood Show in the winter of 2007. At that time, I scoffed at shelling out $30 for a signed photo of her – 
Who’s the black private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks? I didn’t know what other films he had been in. I didn’t know how much he was going to cost. But I didn’t care. There was no way that I was going to skip out on getting a picture with Richard Roundtree, who had played the private detective John Shaft in a series of three so-called blaxploitation action film noir pictures Shaft, Shaft’s Big Score, and Shaft in Africa. All this, despite the fact that I had never seen a single frame of film from any of them. But ever time anyone mentions Shaft – the Isaac Hayes title track will start on an endless loop in my head. Shut your mouth. 
No, I’m not talking about Jackie Gleason’s friendly TV character. I’m referring to Joe Turkel. He was making an appearance at the Hollywood Show on Sunday, April 25, 2010. Although Joe Turkel’s career stretched all the way back to 1948, it was two roles that he garnered around thirty years later. I knew him best from The Shining, in which he portrayed the creepy, ghostly Lloyd the Bartender, whose dialogue exchanges with Jack Nicholson were quite memorable. He was also well-known, perhaps even more so, to the fans of Blade Runner, in which he played the eccentric Dr. Eldon Tyrell. 
The original plans were to go back to Bob’s house in San Bernardino after Disneyland and then head out early Saturday morning toward our Utah destinations, stopping in Las Vegas for breakfast that morning. Then we had even talked about skipping Disney and just spending the whole day Friday in Vegas. What we ended up was an amalgam of both. After we had finished eating dinner at the Blue Bayou, Bob and I headed out from Disneyland directly toward Las Vegas on Friday, March 25, 2011.