Friday, June 11, 2010

Just Gotta Tell Ya

This is too funny.

When I was 18, I got to go on tour with Pacific Northwest Ballet down to the Hollywood Bowl to perform as one of Hyppolyta's hounds in the ballet version of Midsummer Night's Dream. IT WAS GREAT! Even though my 5 friends and I had a silly part in the show, we thought we were living the dream. We got more per diem than we knew what to do with. Most of us ate about 10 bucks worth of food a day usually (for poverty reasons... not anorexic ones), but they gave us $80! $80 a day is ridiculous. And we stayed in a FANCY (by our standards) hotel right at Hollywood and Highline. Coolio was outside the lobby on the phone, and all the season 1 American Idol finalists were staying there. Some reported seeing Paula Abdul.

Anyway, one highlight for us was that Julie Andrews came to our show. Yes, THE Julie Andrews. We mobbed her as she went out the performers exit through our side stage area, and our one silly friend, being very cool, shrieked at her, "You were Mary Poppins!" Super Smooth. Anyway, Ms. Andrews let us have our picture taken with her, and it made our fantasy of a trip complete. Here is that famous photo:

That's me on your right, Julie's left :)

Who took the picture for us? Well, she was in a group of people, and one guy looked sort of familiar, but we were too dazzled by Mary Poppins to care. So, we threw our disposable cameras at him, and he kindly obliged us. He gave very good direction...

Because he was GARRY MARSHALL!!! I just realized last night as I watched a movie he directed. Perhaps you've heard of some of his other films... like PRETTY WOMAN! So, my degrees of separation to practically everyone who works in movies or tv just got down to ONE. My favorite of his connections: Dick Van Dyke, to whom, if I'd met him, I would have screamed, "You're Burt from Mary Poppins!"

No comments: