Droplets

  As I said last time, I have been accused of being a name dropper.  I don't mean to be.  I have just been rather fortunate to have met some people, whose names you might know.

 One of those was Dennis Hopper.  We met on the set of the film "Chattahoochee" in 1988.  Now, I know that there are stories about his drug and alcohol use, which was extreme, but by then he was clean and sober.  Dennis was a very interesting guy.  We were standing in a line together waiting for a scene.  He turned to me and asked if I knew anything about Charleston.  He said he wanted to go there for his off weekend from shooting.  It just so happened that I knew a lot about Charleston.  I asked him what he was interested in, and he said he wanted to see the history of the city.  So, I told him about the Battery, the Market, Charles Town Landing, Fort Moultrie, Fort Sumter, and Patriots Point.  The following year, he directed a movie called "Chasers" which was mostly filmed in Charleston.  All of the sites I told him about were in the movie.  I really should have gotten a credit for Location Scouting in that film, but I didn't.  Another guy heard us talking and asked Dennis if he wanted to go to a bar after filming.  Dennis was polite and told the guy that he just wanted to go back to his hotel room at Embassy Suites and watch ESPN.  He told me that he really liked to watch college sports.  He was a cool guy,

 Another was Gary Oldman who had the lead in "Chattahoochee".  Most everybody has a list of the best actors in the world.  Gary is on my list.  He emersed himself in any role he would play.  Gary has a Cockney accent in real life, but he was playing a guy from Florida and had to have a Southern accent.  The director had told us not to say anything to Gary, because he was concentrating on his accent.  We were standing around in a cramped space, waiting on a scene to begin.  I was next to Gary.  He turned to me and asked me what my name was.  I told him.  He then asked me if I was from Columbia.  I said yes.  So, he then asked me to tell him about the South.  He wanted to get an idea what someone from the South would do within his character.  We were chatting about that, when the director saw me talking to Gary.  The director wanted to fire me, but Gary spoke up and told the director that he had initiated the conversation.  I was allowed to stay.  Gary and I talked at lunch about the South.  He also wanted me in a scene with him behind a fence along with some other actors.  That made the front of the DVD cover.  I am on the far left in the artwork, even though I was right behind him in the shot.  

 By the way, who is on my list of great actors?  Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Tom Hanks, Gary Oldman, and me.  That's the way it is.

Dropping

  These next few stories will contain observations about some famous people that I have met over the years.  I survived homelessness in a shelter by telling stories about these famous people, especially movie stars.  You might call it bragging or name dropping.  I call it a fortunate time in my life.  It may also be eye-opening to you, but famous people are famous because of the brand that people put on them.  They don't go around (at least most don't) proclaiming they are famous.  They are just people like you or me that may be recognized more in airports or on the street.  Fame can be hard on some.  It sort of takes away your independence in life.  Some become recluses.  Others go to a lot of parties.  Most of the ones I have known do not let fame define them.  They are just ordinary people with extraordinary jobs.

 Burt Lancaster:  When I had got onto the set of "The Midnight Man" in 1973, I had already gone through an audition process.  Burt was the co-director of the movie.  He lined a bunch of us up in front of the dance floor and picked the ones who would look the best on camera.  I was one of those.  He then went up to me and asked me my name.  When I told him, he recognized my name, because his son had told him that I should be hired.  Burt told me that he wanted me to dance with the female lead, who was Susan Clark.  I confessed to him that I didn't know how to dance, so he spent 45 minutes with me teaching me how to dance.  He taught a slow dance to me that would work in the film.  He brought in Susan Clark to rehearse dancing with me.  It didn't go well.  Susan wanted to dance fast, but I couldn't keep up with her.  Consequently, we were tripping each other up.  She got mad and threatened to walk off of the set.  Burt came to my defense and told her that I was trying my best.  But, he saw that she wouldn't work with me, so I was assigned another dance partner.  In the film, it looks like she is dancing with someone else, but she is really dancing alone.  Burt apologized to me, and he allowed me to use his name as a reference for my future work.  I learned a lesson that day:  the bigger the star, the nicer they are.  That is usually true, but not always.

 Charlton Heston:  I was living in Fort Worth, and he had just written an autobiography.  He was doing a book signing at Walden's in the mall where I worked.  I got off work early to be the first in line to meet him.  I had taken one of my acting books for him to sign.  When I got there to the store, the signing hadn't officially started.  I had to buy one of his books for him to sign it.  After he did, I asked him if he could sign my acting book.  His agent said no, but Heston did.  There was no one else in the store at the time, so we got to talking about acting.  He wanted to know what I had done, and I told him about the plays and two movies.  We talked about my work with Burt Lancaster.  Heston was a nice man, and he told me I could call him "Chuck".  So, I asked Chuck if I could use his name as a reference like Burt had, and he agreed.  Chuck had a good sense of humor, and a strong faith in God.  We had a falling out years later, which is a story in my blog about the TV movie "Chiefs".  I would rather remember him for the nice encounter.  I gave his autographed book to my Mother for Christmas.  She was a big fan of his.  I still have my acting book that he signed to me.  

Loves

  I have alluded to this topic in other stories, but I thought it would be good to bring this subject to a close.  Despite being branded as gay by some people, because I have never married, I have to say that I have been in love at least four times in my life with girls.  One didn't know, because I was too shy to tell her.  One did know, but it ended badly.  One probably knew, when I said goodbye.  And, one sort of knew, because I was persistent.  I have had a couple of girls who loved me.  One I am friends with.  The other committed suicide.  I thought it was my fault for many years, but I had to just let that go.  At any rate, I am still single.

 The first was a girl I met at church.  She really seemed interested in me as a friend.  I had never had someone of the opposite sex care about me as a person.  I fell madly in love with her.  I was in high school.  She was incredibly smart in school and very creative.  I couldn't eat.  I had butterflies in my stomach.  She gave me my first kiss.  I just was too shy to tell her, even though there were people who knew my secret.  Maybe she knew too, but she was seeing another guy.  For about two years, I couldn't think about anyone but her.  When I went to college, I started keeping a diary.  I would end each entry with my declaration of love for her.  Years later, I began to be her muse.  She was doing plays, and I would promote her work.  She was in a bad car wreck that broke several bones.  I couldn't bring myself to see her, as she was pretty messed up.  My father would visit her, as he was in the clergy.  When I went off to seminary in Texas, she was going to graduate school in Florida.  I got the bright idea one Saturday to drive there.  It was only 12 hours there.  I got as far as Shreveport and decided it was a dumb idea.  After I got back from Texas, she had moved back home.  We went out once and later on a mission trip together.  A few years after that, she got married to a nice guy.  They are still together and living in another state.  We are still close friends.

 One thing I have found out about myself is that I am attracted to girls who are smart, classy, and have style.  So, when I met a girl like that at Anderson College, another love blossomed.  It was my sophomore year.  She was a local girl who was involved in Drama like me.  We did everything together.  One Sunday, I was home and called her.  Her mother picked up the phone and told me that she was out with friends.  That was unlike her to be out on a Sunday night. I found out later that she had met a guy who she liked.  At that point, I was in a three-way relationship.  I liked her.  She liked me and the other guy.  When she and I went to Europe as part of a college History trip, we spent just about every waking moment together.  I was extremely jealous of any guy who came in contact with.  On the train from Lucerne to Paris, she had her head in my lap.  She looked up at me and mouthed the words "I Love You".  I mouthed those words back at her, and she smiled.  I was prepared to pop the question to her in Paris, but the time wasn't right.  When we got to Barcelona, she wanted to call the other guy to tell him when to pick her up from the airport and to break it off with him.  I don't know what he said to her on the phone, but when we were in the plane heading back home, she told me that she had decided to marry him.  It was the longest eight hours of my life.  I went to PC, and she went to another school.  Every day, I would send her a letter.  They started coming back return to sender.  For a couple of years, it was pretty ugly.  She got married, but I wasn't invited to the wedding.  She told a friend that she was afraid that I would have objected in the ceremony, and I would have.  Years later, we began corresponding once again.  We are friends again.  I am glad for that.

 I have already written about my third love.  That was Kare in Fort Worth.  She kept me sane during a really crazy period in my life.  Search for Kare in my blog.

 The fourth love was a girl I worked with at Belk.  She was incredibly funny and extremely creative.  She was a writer.  She sort of looked like Steffi Graf for all you tennis fans. She loved horses, and she taught me a lot about those graceful creatures.   She ended up marrying a doctor, and she became a librarian.

 I have had feelings for other girls over the years, but these four were the ones I was serious about.  People keep telling me that I should always have hope of finding someone.  Never say never, I guess.  

Dates

  I have a confession.  I haven't dated girls all that much.  Whether it is because I have been very shy, or because I hate rejection, but I just haven't.  In fact, the first official date I ever had was as a senior in high school.  I asked a girl if she would like to go to Hardee's with me, and she said yes.  It was a spur of the moment thing.  I did hang out with girls during my high school years, but mostly at church and mostly in a group.  There was one girl who I was pretty close to, and we would have long talks as we walked at night, but it wasn't really romantic.  

 When I got to college, the number one thing on my mind was passing my classes and then having fun.  Once again, I hung out with girls but didn't really date.  Group dates were the thing.  Get drunk.  Get high.  Have fun.  That was kind of our mantra at PC.  Theatre people were a little different than the other students.  There were a lot of parties.  One, in particular, where I pinched a girl's butt with ice tongs at a fraternity party.  She couldn't sit down for several days.

 When I moved to Texas, the girls I dated were from work.  Kare, Charlotte and Alex were the main ones.  We had a good time.  Unfortunately, the seminary thought I was anti-social, because I didn't date any girls on campus.  They just didn't interest me.  Besides, my dates liked to drink.  Seminary girls were not as free.

 After moving back to South Carolina, I did go out some with girls from work or church.  There was a rumor going around Belk that I had dated almost every girl who worked there.  If that was true, I would be dead now.  My heart couldn't have taken it.  I did have a few girls I went out with.  Maybe 5 or 6.  One girl in particular I wanted to date.  I mustered up the courage to ask her out.  She said no.  That was the inspiration for the song "She Said No" that was recorded by The Cobbwebs.  The companion song called "She Said Yes" was a fantasy song about what would have happened if she had said yes, and I wasn't prepared for that.  But, she said no in real life.

 There was one girl I dated, when I worked at Rich's.  I took her to my high school reunion.  We went out to eat several times, but she would embarrass me by sending food back for not tasting right.  She did it to try and get free food.  I found out that she lied to me about many things in her life, so I had to break it off.  I can't stand lying in a relationship.  

 So, casual dating isn't really something I do.  Unless, you would call going to lunch with a work friend "a date".  You probably wouldn't.