11th Anniversary "Celeb"-ration 7 & 8

Continuing with our line-up of zany celebrity encounters, we come to one of the most unforgettable for me. This time, I was mired neck-high in a two-person stage production of "Misery," based on Stephen King's famous novel. Unquestionably the most difficult thing I ever attempted in my life, I was on-stage for 20 scenes in a row, broken up only by the fifteen-minute intermission after scene 10. ("Annie Wilkes" was in 18 scenes and occasionally got to leave the set, but I never, ever did.) I was tortured, tormented, had a foot chopped off with an axe and even had to fight to the death in carefully coordinated stunt sequences. Even with all this on my plate and on my mind, there was no way in hell I was going to let the chance to meet the star of the show in the accompanying, much larger, theater slip through my fingers. As we were pummeling our way through "Misery," the Bob Fosse musical "Chicago" was performing next to us and it starred a childhood crush of mine, Mr. Gregory Harrison.

Harrison began appearing in movies and on TV in 1975, but really burst onto the scene in 1977 when he was given the lead in the television rendition of Logan's Run, based on a movie I adored. Though my ten year-old brain had trouble understanding why everyone looked (much!) different, I still liked the short-lived show. Then in 1978 he had a featured role in the mammoth miniseries Centennial. 

But what put him on the map for real was 1979's Trapper John, M.D. with Pernell Roberts. Harrison was cute and sweet and sexy (including an unforgettable opening credits sequence.) He then parlayed his newfound fame into an iconic 1981 TV-movie called For Ladies Only, appearing as a male stripper! He proceeded on to a steady career (some of you may have seen him in the AIDS drama It's My Party, 1996, as Eric Roberts' lover), which included a hearty amount of stage work. 

Thus it was that I got the opportunity to brush up against him in October of 2004. I did everything I could do to see him around the halls of the complex and the closest I could ever get was to glimpse the back of his head as he trotted from the stage to his dressing room (which is right near where we entered our smaller theatre.)  One Friday night, I had waited long enough and KNEW that I had to meet him because his show was leaving on Sunday.  So I grabbed an old magazine I had brought for him to sign and climbed upstairs to stake him out. What luck!  He was just walking into his dressing room from somewhere else!  So I waltzed right to the door behind him!  He turned to me and I said, "Hi!  I'm acting in the play next door and thought I'd drop by to welcome you to Cincinnati and say hello!"  So he asked what play I was in and when I told him, he lit up and seemed really delighted and intrigued.  So I said, "Yeah!  Look at my legs!" and hiked up my dress pants to reveal my battered, broken, bruised, demolished legs.  His eyes bugged out of his head at that point.  

I told him about our group and our mission, the shows and so on.  He seemed vaguely interested, but almost laughed when I told him how we had Pay What You Can night so that people who can't or won't spend $20 on a ticket could come and see theatre (since his show was $60 or more!)  Then I told him I had something to show him and he grinned and wondered what it was.  It was my 1980 copy of Rona Barrett's Hollywood magazine in which she was predicting the hunks of the future.  On the cover were Stephen Collins, Christopher Atkins, Andrew Stevens, Peter Barton and Gregory Harrison.  So I pointed to him and said, "Look!  You made it!"  And he goes clockwise around the cover and says, "I've worked with Chris and produced with Andy, and Steve and I are good friends....." so I add, "I guess Peter Barton didn't really make it....." Then I opened the magazine and referred to the article and other pictures of him inside.  I said, apropos of nothing, "This is old because you were still single then!"  (He has been married for a long time to Randi Oakes of CHiPs and has four kids.)  

This is when the whole thing went surreal and zany as only I can be.  I held up the magazine and for no other reason except that I was possessed by a voodoo witch doctor said, "I actually bought this magazine to give to my good friend Vickie because she really likes Christopher Atkins, but you happened to be on the cover too, so now I might keep it!" Hello!!  What an idiot!  He then looked right through me with the steeliest, searing grey-green-hazel eyes and started walking towards me.  I began to be hypnotized by this and could barely remember my name.  Somehow he mentally levitated me to the door.  As he approached me, backing me up telepathically, he started to unbutton and remove his shirt to reveal a jaw-dropping physique (at 54!) with closely-cropped chest hair. I kept wondering what was going on until he made it clear that he had to get ready to go onstage in 16 minutes!  I babbled and foamed at the mouth like a total fool until he politely, but determinedly escorted me out and shut the door, shooting me one last big smile before it clicked shut!  

It was a little dejecting to realize later that his character actually wouldn't be onstage until about FORTY-FIVE minutes after this, but that's okay.  I know he had to get prepared and didn't have time to mess with "Andy Wilkes", his "number one fan"!  And I had a marathon of my own to prepare for!

Yaaaass, bitches! You see, Lana Turner and Jimmy Dean weren't the only ones to have ever been "on the cover of a magazine...!" Ha ha ha!

It was almost exactly a year later that I was off on another one of my infamous adventures. South of me about 30 or 40 minutes is Maysville, KY, birthplace of one Rosemary Clooney. After her career of movies, TV and music tours, she retired to a house along the river in nearby Augusta, KY and a couple of years after her death, it became a labor of love to turn her home into a museum honoring her. The chief proponent of this was the first ever Miss America from Kentucky, Heather French - to this day the only contestant I ever rooted for who won (in 2000.) My picks usually were first runner up or lower. 

Not only was Ms. French the first ever winner to hail from Kentucky, where I was raised, but she was also one of the first in eons to sport a sassy short haircut versus the more traditional lion's mane.

If you'd ever even met me, you'd know that I will scale barb-wire fences, crawl across broken glass.....anything to meet even the lowest rung celebrity available.  Two friends and I figured we'd head down there and catch a glimpse of Miss America and maybe Rosie's brother Nick Clooney.  Dave drove and, for some reason, seemed to forget any and all applications of the rules of the road.  Time and again he would overlook Stop signs or No Turn on Red signs to the point where finally I had to screech from the back seat, "If you have to kill me, do it on the way HOME, not before I get to see Rosemary Clooney's ostrich fan from White Christmas or before I've had a home-cooked lunch at one of the local restaurants!!"  

We managed to pull into town just minutes before the ribbon cutting ceremony.  There were quite a few cars, so we had to park pretty far back and walk.  We seemed to create quite a stir as we were "city folk".  As we approached the house, which overlooks a beautiful stretch of river with a nice concrete walk, there was a bit of hubbub with people milling about and jostling for the best view.  No shrinking violet, I decided to climb up on a mammoth tree stump that was in the front of the house.  This backfired slightly when my foot went through the rotting surface - ankle deep! - and I had to be dragged back out.  However, I regained my footing and stood ready to view the events.  A female journalist decided to follow suit and hideously climbed up and stood IN FRONT of me ON the stump!  She out-camera'ed me with a big, huge monstrosity that she kept clicking continuously. In the picture above-right you'll find George Clooney's father Nick indicating something with his finger, his mother Nina in front of the shrubbery and Rosemary's widower Dante DiPaulo dead center.

The ceremony consisted of national radio personality Rick Dees (who did American Top 40 radio once Casey Kasem retired) introducing Lt. Governor Steve Henry (husband of Heather French), who then proceeded to talk about the museum and the various guests of honor.  One of the chief guests was Rosie's widower Dante (who was a very talented dancer in films such as Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Sweet Charity - they married in 1997) who had a hard time keeping it together as he recalled Ms. Clooney.  Nick Clooney was on hand as well, of course, and his wife Nina. Various other mayors and officials were around until Miss Heather Renee French Henry came up to announce that they were going to play one of Rosie's songs as the benediction.  It was called "Bless This House" and it was very lovely.  Unfortunately, the entire ceremony was continuously interrupted by such varied elements as barges, the ferry, a screaming child, an overhead plane and a motorcycle!!!  It got to be absolutely ridiculous after a while.  Then came the ribbon-cutting and the stampede to get inside began.

Heather Renee French is in pink as the ribbon cutting is prepared. Rick Dees is in the red tie.

I advised that we NOT go into the museum just then as it was a MAD HOUSE.  We opted to go have lunch and then come back when it had died down some.  So we proceeded down the street and finally wound up at this placed called "RESTAURANT".  We watched the tumbleweeds blowing down the street as EVERYONE seemed to be at The Clooney House. Let me point out now that Augusta's Main Street is only a little over a block long.  Charming as it was, on this street at at that time there were a MINIMUM of four hair salons and a minimum of 3 video stores!!!  Apparently, everyone got their hair done and then sat home watching a movie! One place was a hair salon AND a video store!!!!  They had combined the best of both worlds.  It was also a place for piercing, waxing, tattoos and nails!!!  A veritable outlet mall for body punishment! (Incidentally, Augusta's riverfront was redressed back in the late-'70s to serve as vintage St. Louis for the aforementioned miniseries Centennial, in which young George Clooney served as an extra.)

Finally we entered the museum and saw the various posters, pictures, cards, gowns and so on that make up the Rosemary Clooney Museum.  Heather and her mother had meticulously recreated the red velvet gown from White Christmas (the original is MIA) by re-watching the scene countless times.  Other clothes of Rosie's were there, though, and it was startling to see her tiny 23 inch waist in a few of them.  Also on hand were clothes of Bob Hope's, Vera-Ellen's and Mary Wickes'.  Though it isn't a particularly large house and there wasn't an overwhelming amount of stuff in it yet (it's been a work in progress), it was neat to see the various pieces and review her career and so on.  I happened to be up on Vera-Ellen's life and career and since no one had stepped up to the plate, I began to offer tidbits of info about HER to people who hardly could have cared less!  Since Vera was from Norwood, Ohio where I live, Jeremy suggested that I tell people she was born in my house and open up the Vera-Ellen Museum! 

We went downstairs and out onto the back porch where several folks were selling CD's, books, ornaments and suddenly........"THERE SHE IS........MISS AMERICA......    THERE SHE IS.....YOUR IDEAL........"  Some people were pestering her for pictures, so I waited patiently (read: rolling my eyes, waiting for the other human debris to go away!)  Then when the coast was clear, I made my move.  She was a mother of two already and let me tell you, she was THIN.  Of course, her schedule was monstrous and she'd been on the road 24/7.  Unlike past Miss Americas, the more recent ones have generally had a platform of social awareness that they work on continuously.  Heather worked tirelessly to promote homeless and veteran issues.  She also wrote and illustrated children's books and wasn't the least bit disappointed that I never even glanced at them.  I was too busy telling her how, in 1958, Mary Ann Mobley won the title by taking off pieces of her outfit as she sang "There'll Be Some Changes Made", complete with a re-enactment on the back patio!  Heather noted that stripping of any kind was banned the year after that (and I wouldn't be surprised if 40 year old men bumping and grinding on the back patio of Rosemary Clooney's house wasn't ALSO banned after my "performance"!!  Ha!)  Seriously, she couldn't possibly have been any nicer as I prattled on and on.  This was following the deluge of people who had come earlier before we had eaten lunch and come inside the house!

After speaking to her, my iced tea was kicking in and with the nerves and all, I had to "make water", to use the local term- inology.  I walked up to the second floor of Rosie's house and came upon several people staring into her bathroom, desperately trying to ascertain how she could have fit into the sliding-door shower during those final years.  I slipped through and announced, "Sorry folks, but this particular exhibit of the museum is temporarily closed!"  I then did a quick reconnaissance to see if was really true when she sang, "Extra value is what you get, when you buy Coronet", but I'm betting it was Charmin.  Truthfully, the toilet seat was just about the cheapest, most ghastly thing in the world.  I couldn't imagine they weren't able to fly one in from the city.  I hated to touch it to raise it up, so I used my foot. Once finished, I discovered that a different, teensy bathroom had been installed downstairs for visitors and that I had actually peed in part of the exhibit! ROTFL!

Later, we settled into a cafe for some dessert and coffee and I was reliving the encounter with Miss America, predicting that by the time her two daughters are of pageant age, I would be famous enough to serve as a judge (because, you know, they always put Community Theatre actors next to Jeff Gordon and Mary Hart at these things!) and how "Heather's children call me Uncle Jon now" and other nonsense.  Just as we thought we might be ready to head out, one of the ladies from the museum came over and asked if we might mind helping her take drinks back to the house!! Well you know I was all about that......  The lady promised it would be worth our while because a Louis Vuitton suitcase had since arrived and had been placed in Rosemary's bedroom.  (Suffice it to say, without trying to seem too indelicate, that Rosie's bloomers could barely fit in this poor, battered piece of luggage!) As we returned to the house, I burst through and headed straight to the porch with a sing-songy "I'm baaaccck!" as Heather fed me one of those weary smiles that says, "You know.....you were fun the first twenty minutes, but my back hurts now and I'm ready to call it a day!"  I interpreted that to mean that she was up for more fun so there we went again, making little jokes and having fun. Before long it truly was time to go (and I'm sure they can repair the door frame where I hung onto it with my fingernails as Dave and Jeremy dragged me out by my feet!) We posed outside for a quick picture and back we went to the city.

Later that night, I tried to relay my exciting story to several friends who looked at me with all the enthusiasm of someone watching a stoplight go from red to green.  However, once I challenged them and asked them how many Miss America's they had ever met, it seemed to perk them up a little bit more! In time, I would return to The Rosemary Clooney Museum again and again, watching it grow and meeting up with interesting folks. Heather French struggled valiantly with my persistent appearances and played a part in more than one later adventure.

:::Editor's Note::: Full disclosure is that, apart from the madness of my recent workload and all the various problems associated with COVID19 - and, yes, the insistence of Blogger to change the interface permanently to a new system I dislike! - I've had a recent setback. I had to have outpatient surgery which required my first ever bout with stitches. And... in true Poseidon fashion, there was a complication which required me to have to race back to the doctor after looking like John Wilkes Booth came over for a visit! So that has made keeping this blog up and running even more difficult. But I'm well on the mend now. With that, I leave you with one last glimpse of the divine Mr. Gregory Harrison: