BRUSHES WITH FAME: Gregory Hines
So I'm standing in Dragon Lady on a Saturday night in the Summer of 2000 pricing some stuff and putting it away and listening to a 60's soul station on the radio and a friendly looking guy comes in with his girlfriend. She starts looking through the old LIFE magazines and celebrity stuff and he asks me if we have any boxing stuff. I show him the section, he says thanks, and I add that if he'd like I could change the radio to something different but that I was sick of Top 40 Pop. He said he agreed that the new stuff was crap and that this was better.
I wouldn't have said anything about the music at all, but I was kind of touchy about the music after a group of young guys who couldn't have been 16 yet, all Dennis-Leary-Pull-Up-Yer-Pants! came in one evening around the same time while I was listening to a Stompin Tom Connors CD and after making some faces about "Sudbury Saturday Night" asked "Is that was the music that you listened to when YOU were young?"
Fuggin kids - get outta my yard!
Anyway it dawns on me that this guy looks familiar. It took me longer than usual to place him but before too long he's up at the cash and there is a family of about 4 or 6 people wandering around in the store as well (sometimes when the movie lets out across the street or if a group leaves a restaurant together I'll get a surprisingly large rush of people). So I bite. The look in his eye means to me that the look in my eye gave me away as a fan so I still decided to be casual about it.
Me: You look familiar to me...
Him: I do? (smile)
Me: Yes... [he wasn't making it easy] Are you involved in the media?
Him: I HAVE been...
Me: Would I have seen you in a movie?
Him: You MIGHT....
[I let a beat go by, then nodded and he smiled again]
Me: Just want to let you know that I really love your work - and I especially think that your tribute to Sammy when he "corpsed" you on stage at the Washington Centre was one of the best things I've ever seen on TV...
At this point he reaches forward, takes my hand, looks in my eye thoughtfully and says "Seriously - thank you *so* much for saying that.. thanks man..." I didn't want to keep him too long (people were beginning to twig) so I said thanks and he said thanks and he left.
Was he having a bad night? I dunno... Was he feeling unpopular or unrecognised in Toronto (the guy had been dancing in New York with his brother since 1951)? A quick look at the IMDB says that he was shooting and directing THE RED SHOE here in Toronto at the time. I know what a bunch of ass-chewing bitches the Toronto film community can be so I wouldn't be surprised if he had had enough of that nonsense by the time he left.
In any event I made him smile and that was my way of saying thanks as well.
I wouldn't have said anything about the music at all, but I was kind of touchy about the music after a group of young guys who couldn't have been 16 yet, all Dennis-Leary-Pull-Up-Yer-Pants! came in one evening around the same time while I was listening to a Stompin Tom Connors CD and after making some faces about "Sudbury Saturday Night" asked "Is that was the music that you listened to when YOU were young?"
Fuggin kids - get outta my yard!
Anyway it dawns on me that this guy looks familiar. It took me longer than usual to place him but before too long he's up at the cash and there is a family of about 4 or 6 people wandering around in the store as well (sometimes when the movie lets out across the street or if a group leaves a restaurant together I'll get a surprisingly large rush of people). So I bite. The look in his eye means to me that the look in my eye gave me away as a fan so I still decided to be casual about it.
Me: You look familiar to me...
Him: I do? (smile)
Me: Yes... [he wasn't making it easy] Are you involved in the media?
Him: I HAVE been...
Me: Would I have seen you in a movie?
Him: You MIGHT....
[I let a beat go by, then nodded and he smiled again]
Me: Just want to let you know that I really love your work - and I especially think that your tribute to Sammy when he "corpsed" you on stage at the Washington Centre was one of the best things I've ever seen on TV...
At this point he reaches forward, takes my hand, looks in my eye thoughtfully and says "Seriously - thank you *so* much for saying that.. thanks man..." I didn't want to keep him too long (people were beginning to twig) so I said thanks and he said thanks and he left.
Was he having a bad night? I dunno... Was he feeling unpopular or unrecognised in Toronto (the guy had been dancing in New York with his brother since 1951)? A quick look at the IMDB says that he was shooting and directing THE RED SHOE here in Toronto at the time. I know what a bunch of ass-chewing bitches the Toronto film community can be so I wouldn't be surprised if he had had enough of that nonsense by the time he left.
In any event I made him smile and that was my way of saying thanks as well.