The Technical Stars Panel at Hollywood ’80
Sunday, June 3rd, 2007
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. Read the rest of this entry »
Autograph collecting has always been a fun hobby. But I’d have to say it used to be more enjoyable in the past before it became so god-awful commercialized. It used to be that gathering autographs was the combined result of effort, talent, and luck. Now it’s mostly about the money. I don’t want to come down too hard on the Ray Courts Hollywood Collector’s Show or the celebrities who attend it, but it seems to me that the hobby is just getting out of hand. On Friday morning, February 16, Bob picked me up from David’s house and we headed for the show, held in Burbank. On the way, we stopped to see the grave of Oliver Hardy in Valhalla Cemetery, which meant more to me than most of the living people at the Courts show! 
I’ve just spent well over an hour scouring photographs, documents, and collapsing inward inside my own head trying to piece together my trip to Hollywood during the Summer of 1995. If I had to do it all over again, I would be sure to keep some notes as to what I did on an important trip like this. For example, in the picture at left, I have no idea why I’m posing in this doorway! When it comes down to it, the dates aren’t all that important, but they are nice to know. Fortunately, I have enough memories and photos to keep the trip alive in my head for the time being as I try to record what we did. 
I’m never really sure if people are as impressed as I think they should be when I tell them that I once met the original “Buckwheat.” The date was Thursday, July 31, 1980 and the event was the Our Gang Mixer in the Sierra Room of the Los Angeles Hilton at the Hollywood ’80 Sons of the Desert convention. All I had with me at the time was my little blue autograph album so this is what I had him sign. You might say that as far as I’m concerned, meeting Buckwheat is one of my personal claims to fame. So bear with me as I relay the details just one more time… 
We had packed a lot of activity into the last five days, so on Wednesday, February 14 – Valentine’s Day – Jimmy and I spent a leisurely day traveling to and fro around Culver City, the Silverlake area, Hollywood, and Los Angeles scouting a select group of Laurel and Hardy locations. It had always been my desire to actually be involved in the finding of a new location. So we literally spent some of the day driving up and down in an area where we had reason to believe that one of the Laurel and Hardy films were made.