October 25, 2009
Film
A Fan’s Signature Moment
By MANOHLA DARGIS
LOS ANGELES
IT wasn’t God, but the male voice that floated over the P.A. system managed to convey all the solemnity and importance of a sacred occasion. “Debbie Reynolds,” the voice gravely announced, “has now arrived.”
And there she was, standing in a Marriott in Burbank. The woman who had jumped out of a cake for Gene Kelly in “Singin’ in the Rain” and danced and sang when the movies were still golden, and then married Eddie Fisher only to lose him to Elizabeth Taylor, was here to bestow a piece of herself and her history on us. Serene as the Buddha, vivid in an electric blue coat, her blond hair impeccably coiffed and pale face lightly powdered, Ms. Reynolds was at an event called the Hollywood Show to walk among us. She had carried her own bags. But she was royalty, and when she passed through the hall, we quickly stepped aside.
An autograph and collectibles convention, the Hollywood Show takes place four times a year at the Marriott across from the Bob Hope Airport, some 10 miles from downtown Los Angeles. (The most recent ran Oct. 9 to 11.) For three days the show fills an L-shaped foyer and adjacent ballroom, 15,000 square feet of the hotel’s convention center. As the event’s title suggests, collectibles — vintage movie posters, lobby cards and the ephemeral like — are part of the draw. A Paramount Pictures marketing manual and press book for the Jerry Lewis comedy “The Nutty Professor” caught my eye, as did an exhibitor’s campaign book from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”
By far, though, the biggest attractions are the celebrities who sign their names on photos, posters, baseballs, even napkins. There were 133 famous and less-so signers at the October show, including Jackie Cooper, the child star of the 1930s — immortal, and shockingly intense in the 1931 father-son weepie “The Champ” — who was so busy signing he rarely seemed to look up. A few feet away sat Mickey Rooney, one of the biggest box-office stars of the late 1930s and early 40s. A little farther dozens of actors from the original “Twilight Zone” kibitzed at rows of tables, including the comic Shelley Berman, who more recently played Larry David’s father on “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
It was surreal, fascinating, unsettling. Here were some favorite actors, immortal on screen, very mortal in flesh. Here was Richard Kiel, still recognizable as the giant alien with a bulbous head from a 1962 “Twilight Zone” episode about extraterrestrials whose intentions are misinterpreted when they land on Earth with a book titled “To Serve Man.” (“It’s a cookbook!”) Inside the ballroom Billy Mumy — who starred in another memorable “Twilight Zone” as a boy who terrorizes a community by wishing people into a cornfield — was tucked alongside fellow cast members from the television show “Babylon 5.” A few tables away Angela Cartwright, who played Mr. Mumy’s sister Penny on the 1960s show “Lost in Space,” sat next to her own sister, the actress Veronica Cartwright.
Seated at nearby tables, smiling for the crush of attendees (almost 7,000), were Louise Fletcher, Jennifer Coolidge, Bruce Dern, Sally Kellerman and Beverly Washburn, a lovely, former child actor who appeared in “Old Yeller” and later “Spider Baby,” along with countless TV shows. “Honey,” my husband, Lou, blurted out, “there’s an Oompa-Loompa here!” This was Deep Roy, who pops up in Tim Burton’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” Deep Roy was in one of the busiest corners because he was near Sean Astin, who tagged after Frodo through the “Lord of the Rings” movies. A second-generation Hollywood actor, Mr. Astin is the son of Patty Duke. William Schallert, who played her father on “The Patty Duke Show,” was in the foyer.
I don’t know what I expected from the Hollywood Show, a little entertainment, a glimpse of a subculture I appreciate but prefer to keep at an analytic distance. Certainly I don’t think of myself as a collector. I don’t keep memorabilia, and I own a single framed poster, for Otto Preminger’s “Anatomy of a Murder,” which I prize for its striking Saul Bass design. I also don’t think of myself as a fan, largely because adoration seems a betrayal of reason. Fall in love with a star, and you might not want to admit just how bad he is in his next movie. These, of course, are lies that I like to tell myself.
The truth is that movie love is itself a form of collecting, and to live with the movies, to write and watch and read about them day after day, year after year, is a form of intense worship. The word fan is thought to come from the word fanatic, which derives from the Latin word fanaticus, “of a temple.” Hollywood was built on such adoration, with ornate movie palaces that were shrines, and stars whose ethereal beauty made them virtual gods and goddesses. Such idolatry had its skeptics, like Nathanael West, whose short 1939 novel “The Day of the Locust” ends with a movie premiere that turns into a riot. “At the sight of their heroes and heroines, the crowd would turn demoniac,” West promises. “Individually the purpose of its members might simply to be to get a souvenir, but collectively it would grab and rend.”
The crowd at the Hollywood Show didn’t grab and rend, at least while I was there. Maybe the handful of Los Angeles County deputy sheriffs wandering about and sometimes posing, helped keep the order. But the mostly middle-age attendees, who paid a minimum of $20 for a one-day pass, seemed well behaved. They patiently stood in lines, discreetly passing cash to the signee or an assistant. Some celebrities pocket the money, while others sign for charities, like Mr. Cooper, who donated his proceeds to the Motion Picture Home, a hospital and long-term care facility for industry veterans that, after 60 years of operation, is to close by the end of the year.
An average member of the Screen Actors Guild makes less than $5,000 a year. This helps explain why even some famous faces end up on crummy television programs or peddling cosmetics and fat cures on late-night television. Or why they become regulars on the convention circuit, signing photographs at events like the Ultimate Collectibles and Autograph Show near Philadelphia, which in early October featured appearances by athletes and actors, like Ice T, who asks upward of $30 for a photo. His wife, Coco, rates $15. By contrast Jim Bunning, a Hall of Fame baseball pitcher turned Republican senator from Kentucky, charges $50 to sign balls, $65 for jerseys and bats. The boxer Jake LaMotta asks $50 for “gloves & premium items.”
The practice of athletes selling their autographs stirs criticism, but the sports autograph circuit has more mainstream acceptance than celebrity events like the Hollywood Show. History probably helps explain the difference: Babe Ruth was famous for signing thousands of free autographs, particularly for young fans, while it was the Hollywood studios that sent out the glossies of their contracted stars. Kevin Martin, one of the owners of the Hollywood Show, partly blames the stigma attached to celebrity autograph shows on tabloid outlets that position celebrities who attend his event as washouts. “That kind of press coverage,” he said, “actually makes it very difficult for us to get the stars we want because they think there’s some low-rent” — he laughed uncomfortably — “associations to doing that.”
Mr. Martin bought the show more than a year ago from a couple who ran it for years, and now he owns it with David Elkouby, a collector who has a memorabilia shop in Hollywood. In 2000 Mr. Elkouby bought a pair of Dorothy’s ruby slippers for $666,000. “They’re in a vault,” Mr. Martin said. “I’ve seen them.” I was so distracted by the idea and price, I forgot to ask what they looked like.
The world of collecting can be a shadowy enterprise, but what was most striking about the Hollywood Show was its ordinariness, the absence of frenzy and desperation that often colors the discourse on fans and stars. Only after I had wandered through the show several times, looking into the faces of people who had given me so much pleasure over the years, did I realize how badly I had misunderstood the event when I first walked in. However enjoyable and gratifying their exchanges with the fans, these were actors at work. As they smiled for us, signed our photographs, shared their memories, they were also giving us a performance. And like all performances, they were as manufactured as they were absolutely real.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
