Thursday, March 29, 2018

Blind Item #16 - French Quarter Part Three - A Reader Blind Item

That afternoon I walked around, checked roll to make sure everyone was there who was supposed to be, reported any non crew/staff affiliated lookee-lous as we called them, and brought drinks or snacks to those who couldn't leave posts. I would also watch a post if they had to step away for a bathroom break. It was during one of these sit-ins in late afternoon that I would overhear something that changed the whole outcome of my quest. Guards and other non-essential staff were not allowed inside the mansion when filming. They were to be on the outside porches or in the lawn area. But as Lance came back he was breathless. Even though he was twice my age he always called me Miss D. "Miss D, hey, you aint gonna believe this, but I just seen TM come out the side doors of the house and Loreen says she heard they was takin him to the makeup trailer. (He wore a lot to make him resemble the real person he was based upon) She's sayin if you go by the RVs maybe you can catch a glance of him coming out." Yes dear readers my cover was obviously blown and every employee of my company knew why I was "on the job".  And they all now seemed to be determined to make my wish come true. (Too bad Mr N's previous TV character's wife wasn't around!) I asked if I could get near the RVs or did the studio have their private security covering it. "Hell no Ms D, Captain Bill over there. Them Hollywood folks got bit by one skeeter standin around and they booked ASS! And it aint even dusk yet! Buncha woosies!"
 Thats all I needed to hear - Bill, a retired military man, was gruff but had a fatherly soft spot for me. He would let me go anywhere I pleased. So off toward the trailers I went. I found Bill and asked which was the makeup one and he pointed it out. "Was TM still in there?" "Maybe, not positive, been a while. " Ok, so not too specific but best lead all day.  He pointed out a nice rig a few feet away. "Go stand over there so won't look like you're stalking him if you see him coming out." Ok, good idea. So I stood by the luxury trailer and fired up another smoke. ( it was the 90s, ok?). Minutes later, door to that one opens and this red headed big muscle-bound guy steps out with a cigar in hand. "Mind if I join you?" He looked safe enough, and Bill was a cough away just in case.  "Not at all." "Hi I'm Mark, who are you?" Told him my name and I that I was an onsite security rep. Showed him my badge to prove it. He laughed and said I was the most petite security woman he'd ever met. Told him I used the bigger guards for my light work. He laughed. Then I asked him what he did. "Oh, I'm TMs personal trainer, bodyguard, assistant, you know, whatever." My eyes widened, "So is this one HIS?" "Yup he'd prefer his plane but nowhere to land by the house." He chuckled.  I said "Wow, very cool.  Wouldn't happen to have any souvenir headshots around in there?" He paused and said "hmmm not sure".  Then I just started talking and couldn't hit the verbal brakes. I said, "You know I've been a fan of his since his first episode of (hit education-based comedy). Over 20 years and it seems like almost every movie he does he gets better in. (So I exaggerated a bit..) For example just a couple of weeks ago I saw ----- at the movieshow. He and  (then A+ actor from major acting dynasty family) were so incredible in it switching roles I sincerely believe they should give BOTH of them Oscars as co-Lead Actor.  They both deserve it!" (Yes over the years I realize its somewhat of a hokey flick and plot but still love it).  Suddenly I hear a low quiet voice from inside the trailer say, " Aw, that is so nice of you to say that. " I turn as the door opens wide. "I really appreciate the compliment. Thank you, thank you so much.".  And then I'm looking into the most incredibly crystal blue eyes I've ever seen to this day. They were so light blue I'm convinced he wears darker lenses for movies. TM is inches away and smiling at ME! His hair looked damp but still had gray color in it and he had a towel around his neck. He was wearing a plain white tee and jeans. I, a woman who could out talk an auctioneer, was stunned speechless. I had to be visibly trembling. He was even more gorgeous in person than on film. He put out his hand. "Hi, I'm T..what's yours?" I shook it and WAS shaking now. But I think he was used to reactions like mine. I stammered , "Uh, I'm D--, D-- P---." " "Well, pleasure to meet you D.P.  So by your accent I assume you're a true Cajun lady, huh?" I could only smile and nod. "Love hearing the way you all talk down here. Y'all almost sound like you're from where I was raised in New York." I kind of giggled at that, and replied how NOLA natives hear that all the time. I glanced around and noticed Bill, Lance, and a few other of our guards a few yards away,  looking at the two of us, all grinning. Out the corner of my sight I also noticed Lance's wife Coral and two kids. They always picked him up from jobs. She had a camera. Right about then TM says, "Hey Mark, got a few of those promo pics on the table inside. Go get one for our friend here please?" Mark goes inside as my mouth starts functioning with my brain again. We made some small talk about local favorite dining spots. Told him about one well known as a Mafia hangout that looked like a dive outside but had the best pasta in the South. He said he'd actually heard about it and was definitely going to go before they wrapped down here. I felt a couple of rain drops as Mark came out with the photo of him in character and a pen with gold ink. TM leans it against the wall and signs it. "To D--, with thanks and love, T....M..." He handed it to me. "Here you go." At that point as it starts drizzling, Coral comes running up. "Hey Miss D. , Mr. M? Is it okay if I take a picture of y'all together?" I looked at him. He said, " Sure! Scoot closer D." and he put his arm around me. DAMN, I was trembling again!  As I'm only 5' and he's like 6'2" my head didnt even come to the top of his shoulder so he hugged me and I prayed I was smiling pretty as she pressed the button. "Hang on D, one more just in case!" He had the nicest smile cause he had so much practice obviously. I told him thanks Soooo much, and he said "my pleasure! Enjoyed talking with you" as he leaned over and kissed my cheek. I seriously think I blushed for the first time since grade school. Then Coral says, "Hey Lance, come 'ere! Mr. M, can me and the kids get a picture with you?" My good natured movie star was grinning and said, "Yep! Come over!" as suddenly several people appeared out of nowhere, guards, extras, and even youngsters. Though it was now seriously raining he never seemed to mind as they ended up taking the whole roll of film of admirers with him. Finally Mark came up and said the limo was ready to go back to town and they needed to split. There was an audible "awww" of disappointment as he waved to everyone and started heading back to the trailer to get his things. He passed right in front of me, and tapped my cheek and winked. "Bye D." using my shorter nickname and then he disappeared inside as a policeman said we all had to leave the area since they'd be pulling off in a minute. I walked away in a daze, surrounded by friends saying, "You really met him!" "We got our picture with TM!" "He's so cool!" "He kissed you D!"  I barely heard them as I walked on air back to my car. To this day it still seems like a wonderful dream if I didn't have the autograph and pictures to prove that once upon a time it came true.
P.S. I am well familiar with all the rumors about this gentle man over the years. I will not confirm/deny or even state my own gut instincts on the subject. Because I. Don't. Care.-What consenting adults do if no one gets hurt is none of my business. We all have secrets. I just know he was amazingly nice to me and a bunch of other minimum wage earning fans one hot, wet Louisiana day and that's what's important, right?


48 comments:

  1. Glad to hear he could spare all this time for fans (sadly he still gives me the creeps). Anyone else picture Arnie as Mark??

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  2. Has this reader ever heard of formatting? Enty couldn't go through and put in some paragraph breaks? Good lord. Super boring stories.

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    1. I love hearing how celebrities treat the "little people" both good and bad.

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  3. This is very sweet. I loved Welcome Back Kotter
    And Face/Off!

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  4. So happy you finally got to meet him! :)

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  5. Enty should have posted these as Kindness Blinds

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  6. Does anyone want hear about the time a guy I'll call ME got so drunk in NOLA he crapped in my pants? Great story.

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    1. Hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahahaha
      Oh. My. God.
      I'm dying @Newbomb!! I have NEVER LAUGHED so hard in all my years reading CDAN.
      Hahahahahaha I LOVE YOU
      Lololol

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  7. That's how you do it, show a little kindness and you have fans for life. Actors seem to understand this better than musicians.

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  8. He is truly a nice guy. He was filming in my city last year and signed autographs and took pictures with fans FOR HOURS!!! Always smiling and friendly. He even filmed videos to send to people's children who weren't available to be there. Everyone around here loves him and will defend him TO THE DEATH. I don't care about his personal life, either. He is a great human being.

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  9. Totally off topic- How do I submit to ENTY?
    I have looked everywhere and cannot find a way/email-whatever?
    I have a pretty good one.

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  10. Chase, you could send it to him on Facebook Messenger.

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  11. And a great actor. Totally underrated. And as Margaret Cho said, “He’s Lord Byron gay.” Wish he’d just come out since evereeeee one knows!

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  12. Nice story, "D!"

    Thanks for sharing.

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  13. What a nice story. But for some reason I kept thinking during the 3-parter.....


    If the reader is from NOLA, then TELL US WHICH HOUSE IT IS IN NEW ORLEANS BLIND!

    :)

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  14. Mr N is Major Nelson
    She wished Jeannie was around to conjure up
    Tony Minero

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    1. @B626 Thanks for that. I couldn't figure out what SueEllen had to do with anything 😉

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  15. Love these reader submissions! Keep them coming!
    I met Worf once at a Star Trek convention. That’s the extent of my brushes with fame. ☺️

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  16. More paragraph breaks please!!!

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  17. He sounds very sweet.

    And I think Mark left "masseusse" off of his title. Lol

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  18. FFS. Now Enty's posting fan (non)fiction?
    I really liked this place when it was a dive. Now it's been remodeled and the regulars have left for darker dives. After 10 years, I'm out the door right behind them.

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    1. Good luck w that. I been trying to leave for years.
      See you here tomorrow 👋

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    2. Also. Please let me know where darker dives are, IM DOWN.
      w/b

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  19. If you don't like the blinds, move the ef on. What have YOU sent in? Great way to discourage readers from sharing...being a miserable ahole.

    I for one enjoyed this immensely and thanks to the reader for sending it in!

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    1. I agree. I will take a story like this over a teen mom blind any day of the week.

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  20. A great story the reader met some lovely folk on set.

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  21. I hope one day Travolta pulls the wool off his eyes and really sees what is going on in Scientology as he genuinely believes what is fed to him. But he was working on Pelham 123 years ago by my job and he was as friendly to everyone. No security people just came up to him and he took pictures smiled and was kind to everyone.

    Honestly if it wasn't for the evil midget maybe that "religion" could actually do good for people one day.

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  22. Thanks for sharing!

    @megley....what are the darker dives?

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  23. Moscas for the Italian restaurant

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  24. Years ago I was in Florida for spring break and my cousin, who was a child actor, was an extra in a movie called Edward Scissorhands. It was a tightly closed set but I got to go because I was staying with my aunt and was only 16. I didn't know then that movie would be so huge, but I was majorly in lust of Johnny Depp. While my cousin filmed the classroom scene, I talked it up with the security guard, a nice older man. As we are talking a young lady comes over and starts talking to us. She has long, blond hair. I talked to the two of then for about half an hour, saying how badly I wanted to meet Johnny. She finally left, and the security guard said, do you know who that is? Uh, no. A set designer? Nope, that was Winina Ryder, in her wig for the movie. And yes, I gushed about her boyfriend to her for 30 minutes. She was so sweet and normal (besides what we all hear now). The guard told me that she would always cut up Johnny's food herself and feed him (he couldn't remove the scissor hands to eat) and was not pretentious. Anyways, I never saw Johnny but I still hold a fondness for Winona.

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  25. I truly enjoyed your story D! And I agree with you...

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  26. Very sweet story! My only brush with fame is that I did drugs with Adam Rich from Eight Is Enough back in the 90s lol

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  27. Lovely story, thanks for sharing. I'm sure a lot of cdan readers may have nice celeb stories. I may have i may have one or two but I'll keep them to myself. One involves an incredibly nice down to earth man who gets shit on here almost daily by the Trump freaks.

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  28. "Very sweet story! My only brush with fame is that I did drugs with Adam Rich from Eight Is Enough back in the 90s lol"

    Love it!

    My brush...
    Drinks with Tiger Woods in Orlando.
    Wiskey shots with Peyton Manning in Key West.
    Meeting Mike Tyson at a sports symposium in Houston (he was there with Carl Lewis. No idea why).
    Far and away the most star struck/intimidating was Tyson.

    Totally take for granted - and even forget he's a celeb - the times i get to hang with McConaughey (fraternity bro with a HS friend of mine).
    Down to earth is not the word.

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  29. That was a lovely story!!! Thank you, D

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  30. I love that he was so awesome to you!!!!

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  31. Oh my goodness! I love this story. I'm also a fan and yes, I know the rumors, but I also don't care. I think I saw Grease 25 times! Your storytelling skills were great. Vivid and clear. I could see every moment in my head. You transported me completely into the story. Good job.

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  32. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  33. If enty's taking reader blinds, I'll have share some of my juicy stories lol.

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  34. I have some good blinds from my youth. I could tell you about the A-list singer who cheated on her then fiancé (A- list foreign born singer) with a female fan on her tour bus after literally picking her out in a crowd outside the venue....not sure what exactly went down, but the groupie (a friend of mine) would never speak about it again. Whatever happened only lasted about 20 minutes, we were all literally standing outside the bus as it happened... but then it was over. And over as in I might as well not speak about it again because my friend would lose her shit if I did. I still think it's weird. WTF would she not TELL ME? Fucking hell, if I didn't see it with my own eyes I wouldn't believe it either. This was around Y2K. Yeah, I was jealous... the A-lister is still super loved by all and no one would ever suspect she hooks up with her female fans like that.....

    Another time, about the same time frame, I partied with this A-/B+ list band backstage after their show. They were really young at the time, and we sat, smoked bowls and just gabbed. The lead singer was super straight and wouldn't touch alcohol or herb, but didn't mind that everyone else was indulging. (He did have a gorgeous blonde, hippie hook-up that night though.) No one was getting out of hand, this was a pretty peaceful bunch. The great thing is they had no egos. Not one of them. All night long they were happy to just chat about life, love and who ever was in that room. It was intimate and so fucking cool. Now they are so big I doubt anyone gets to hang out with them like we did. I wonder if they are still as humble, now, 17-years later. I still have photos from that night and they are fantastic...

    Another night a friend and I hung out with these quirky rockers/sometime actors (one is A- list), after a show. The lesser known rocker was obsessed with a young brunette all night and would not stop pawing her. She was happy to be backstage so allowed him to do so but wouldn't let his dumpy, overweight ass go any further. We ended up driving him, alone, to his hotel later that night. He was a really funny guy, but kinda creepy in a pervy way. Yes, I have pics from this outing as well.
    Within that same year we hung out with these guys again, after another show. The A-list singer/actor brought his entire family, and everyone "in the know", to a Chinese restaurant about 15 minutes out of the city. It was karaoke night. The place was packed with the A-lister's family and friends, and no, this was not Hollywood. He was drinking tequila shots and was the first to sing karaoke. (Or at least that's how I remember it.) That night he just wanted to get a good buzz on and sing some fucking karaoke. His song of choice was Bryan Adams "Summer of 69" because, he said, that was the year he was born. He was just starting to get famous at this time, but can't help but think he's still incredibly cool and not worried about impressing anyone.

    I had a wild youth, and have more stories to tell, but it's late, and these probably aren't very exciting to re-tell, as they are in my mind.

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  35. Great story Miss D!

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  36. "Totally take for granted - and even forget he's a celeb - the times i get to hang with McConaughey (fraternity bro with a HS friend of mine).
    Down to earth is not the word."

    @ GigEm

    OK, I can tell you're an Aggie, LOL. Love it. Anyways, did you mean that McConaughey was so nice that down to earth doesn't even begin to describe him, OR that he was so arrogant that you never describe him as down to earth? So, is he truly a nice guy like his persona on screen or a jerk?

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  37. D, you should submit your pic with TM to next Reader´s photos:)!

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  38. There are a few ways to have your personal stories posted:

    1. Post here.

    2. Email Enty: entlawyer90210@yahoo.com

    3. There is a mini figure challenge for memorable night submissions on the FB page: For a limited time PM the admin with your story, it will be published and you will get a random mini figure or two in return. Supply is limited, so this is only running until 4/27/18 or until the mini figures run out, which ever comes first.

    Facebook: Crazy Days and Nights
    Twitter: @CDaNadmin

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