Second day (the long day) at the Ray Courts Celebrities Fan Fest was, for me, a lot of fun. As an event it was a bit of a disaster in terms of attendance - very, very light, perhaps the worst attended celebrity show ever. Apparently there were one or two other events today and that was probably a problem. But I hope Ray sticks with it, because frankly he's the only one who really knows how to do these things and who actually respects the celebrities and everyone I chatted with HATES the people who do the other show, Ray's old show. I sold some books, some Blu-rays, some CDs and some photos today, all good.
But the real highlights were chatting with the wonderful Diane Baker and Millie Perkins (we were all in the same row) and Don Murray. I'd actually never met Mr. Murray before, but I finally got to tell him the story that back in 1971 I'd written a musical version of To Kill a Mockingbird, which I called Atticus. My new agent at CMA (now ICM), Frank Levy, loved it, we did a little homegrown reading, and then he actually got a theater (Seattle, I think, or maybe San Francisco) to agree to produce it - and he got us Don Murray to commit to playing the lead. It didn't happen because, of course, I'd never actually gotten the rights to do the adaptation and when we went to Harper Lee, she ultimately said no - she actually loved my songs, but just didn't want it to be a musical and she was probably right in that. Don remembered all of that, the minute I told him. So much fun. Most beautiful woman in the room - Mariel Hemingway, looking incredible. I won't go into the most horrifying, but the person it was was a winner by a country mile - so much plastic surgery that you would never have recognized this person in a million years and I"ll just leave it at that - unless someone guesses
I do have photos and we'll put them up in the notes.
