Fan's Tales
David at the Beverly Hilton
December 11, 2006
After hearing about how great the New York and London press conferences went with David, I decided I'd fly out to Beverly Hills for the California version. I booked a room at the Beverly Hilton and flew out on Sunday, for the Monday morning press conference. Joyce flew in and met me at the Hilton on Monday morning. We went down to the Circa 55 restaurant, where it was to take place, and had some breakfast. We didn't see any other fans we knew, so we were excited that we'd have David to ourselves LOL. As we were eating, we saw the auction people start carrying in David's outfits, mannequins, guitars, etc. and setting them up in the lobby area outside the restaurant. There were glass cases on 2 walls and tables on the end where they placed other items. We went out to look at the items. The guy running the auction said "Hi, are you here for the press con?" and we said we were. He told us there was another room with even more stuff, would we like to see? We said sure, and we were led to another room, where they unlocked the door to let us look. There was mostly Mary Pickford stuff in this room, but a few DC items. We thanked them for letting us in, and went back to the glass case area to wait for David.
There were very few people gathered, and I didn't know any of them. People started showing up with large cameras (media people), and then I saw Jo-Ann Geffen (David's manager), so I knew he would be along shortly.
The auction guy asked that the fans stay to the side until the media people were done, so we grabbed a spot on the staircase that was right next to the glass cases. It was a perfect view.
A few fans showed up..I recognized Joyce Thiel, so called her over to say hi. Diana from Las Vegas arrived too and stood with us. I didn't know anyone else.
I saw David's manager go over to the elevator. My heart started pounding. I knew she went to get him. A few seconds later, around the corner walked Jo-Ann and David. It was so casual. He just walked up. I quietly gasped LOL, and said THERE HE IS! He waved to some of the people there, you could tell he knew them.
The media people started filming David as he described the various items. After he had described all of them, and the camera turned off, another guy wanted David to repeat the same thing, and then after that, another wanted a third time! By now David was getting visibly irate over having to repeat himself. In fact he said "I was hoping maybe we could do this just ONCE.." and reluctantly repeated himself AGAIN!
So finally he really DID have enough. He said "ARE WE DONE HERE?" and then headed toward us little group of fans. A tall man pushed his way to the front, with a tiny girl in front of him. He said "David, do you know Charlene Tilton?" (She is the one who played Lucy in Dallas years ago, and she still looks the same!) David shook her hand and Charlene said "I hear that your daughter is playing ME in the remake!" and David said "Oh yes, she is."
Then I don't know what happened, because the next person to see David was ME.
All I could do was think "get your shoes off, you're way too tall!" and so I fumbled to get my shoes off and my camera ready. Charlene backed away and I was standing directly in front of David. I said "I'm nobody famous, I just love you." and he said "you don't have to be famous! What is your name?"
And I said Carol, and handed my camera to Joyce, and David put his arm around me and squeezed. OMG. I put my arm around his waist and I just wanted to stand there forever, but alas, a picture takes a second, so in a second, I was done.
Everybody was handing their cameras to everybody else to get pictures, and some people had stuff to be signed, only not just ONE thing, but several things, so that was a bit awkward. Although it was a small crowd, it would be nice if people would just be considerate of others. A man and his wife insisted on autographs, not one, but three different auction programs, all autographed to different people. We all tried to be patient, including David.
This part was great. Right in the middle of signing something, David looked up and said "Oh I need to get my lei now." Joyce was patiently standing there with her beautiful lei, and she had just pulled it out of the bag, so I think he probably smelled it. He put it on and left it on the entire time. Everyone could smell it. I said "wow that smells great" and David said "yes it does!"
I didn't get anything signed. He just had too many things shoved in his face all at once. Some people refused to step away from him to let other people have a turn. I literally asked one large woman to "please scoot over" so I could get a pic of Joyce without this other woman in the picture.
I know everyone there was really excited to have a personal moment with David, unfortunately a few were rather rude, or maybe not rude, just selfish. Hard to think clearly when that gorgeous man is in the room! So I guess I'll forgive them all LOL.
David left after about 45 minutes, and of course we all wished he could stay longer, but hey, we got 45 minutes of heaven!
Love Carol
