The Hollywood Show, July 2018!

I’ve been to the Hollywood Collector’s Show at it’s old location at the Beverly Garland Hotel on Vineland Ave.  It moved to the Burbank Airport hotel and then finally The Westin Airport Hotel on Century Blvd.  It runs until Sunday this week and has another show in Los Angeles on October 19th-21st.  You can check out more info at http://www.hollywoodshow.com.  I arrived at the afternoon to the left of registration down the hall is the area for the Hollywood Show.  I got my wristband and went in, there was a line of tables against the wall with celebrities, and a long line for Robert Wagner.  I entered the rooms, fairly crowded, but you are able to make your way through it all.  Against the wall was a line of tables for the actors of Monsters Squad (1987) and then the facing wall had the cast of the Police Academy films.  

Victoria Vetri at the Hollywood Show, photo by the author.

I went along the various tables seeing we was there and finally started with Duncan Regehr’s table.  He was Count Dracula in Monster Squad, but I remembered him as Zorro in the series that ran from 1990 to 1993.  I asked if he learned fencing and Duncan said he was already trained and worked with the legendary Peter Diamond.  We also discussed his part as Prince Dirk Blackpool in Wizards and Warriors (1983).  Don Reo was the writer for the show which had the evil wizard, Vector, and Princess Ariel who had a pet unicorn.  It was ahead of it’s time.  Next, I went to see Victoria Vetri, she earlier had the name Angela Dorian.  She was in the 1968 Batman episode, “I’ll Be a Mummy’s Uncle” as Florence of Arabia.  Victoria was also in Roman Polanski’s horror film, Rosemary’s Baby (1968).  I noted the story that Dan Brown named a character, Vittoria Vetra, after her in his novel Angels & Demons (2000) turned into the Tom Hanks film in 2009.  

Ted Neeley with a copy of The Big Adventures of Little Church Mouse, photo by the author.

Then, I met Yvonne Elliman who had the best song of 1977, “If I Can’t Have You”, I still love that song and can hear it over and over.  She of course played Mary Magdalene in the Norman Jewison film, Jesus Christ Superstar (1973).  I confided my disappointment in the recent tv adaptation.  Her albums were all gone by the time I got there, but I got a German printing of the soundtrack to get signed.  I talked to her husband about Hawaii.  Then, I got the album signed by Ted Neeley who played Jesus in the film.  He said that it was Tom O’Horgan, the director of Hair, who saw him and put him in Jesus Christ Superstar, Tommy, and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band for theatrical productions.  I also met Ann Robinson who was in The War of the Worlds (1953) produced by George Pal.  I saw the Martian in one of the photos on her table and it struck me that the arm was exactly like E.T.! She said that E.T. placing his arm on Elliot was a homage by Spielberg.  He also named Silvia, the daughter in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) after her character in War of the Worlds, Sylvia Van Buren.  She said it was his favorite film and put her in his 2005 War of the Worlds.  It was great to see so many talented persons in film and television who are nice to meet in person.  

#HollywoodShow, #VictoriaVetri, #YvonneElliman, #TedNeeley