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My day with Florence Henderson, Dyan Cannon, Stefanie Powers and Carrie White at the West Hollywood Book Fair

I arrived at the West Hollywood Book Fair Sunday morning a full hour before my panel was scheduled to begin feeling fully prepared.

Determined to ask good questions, I had read the books my panelists had written and they were doozies: Florence Henderson’s Life Is Not a Stage: From Broadway Baby to a Lovely Lady and Beyond, Dyan Cannon’s Dear Cary, Stefanie Powers’ Straight from the Hart and Carrie White’s Upper Cut: Highlights of My Hollywood Life.

Spent much of this weekend finalizing my questions for each author and written them on color-coded index cards and had taken the time to write nice introductions for each of them.

I had also charged my camera and was ready to snap all kinds of photos of the event as it unfolded.

Dyan Cannon was first to arrive into the “green room” followed by Stefanie Powers. I went over to introduce myself to both then spotted Florence Henderson, who I already knew, and gave her a kiss hello. There was time for a quick hello to Carrie White before they were assembling us for a group photo. I took my camera out of my pocket for someone to take one for me when I realized I had left the camera card at home!

Then they escorted us into the West Hollywood Library’s new 300-seat theater (filled to capacity) where the panel took place. I did not realize the entire audience would already be seated and clapping as we walked down the center aisle and to our seats.

This might have been a cool Hollywood entrance and what I thrill it should be to enter a room with these dazzling ladies. But all I could think was: “I’m not ready! My index cards! The books are tucked into my bag!”

I tried to set up quickly but one of the book fair people took over and introduced each lady as I pulled the books out of my bag and got my index cards organized. So my elaborate introductions, which I could not find anyway in all the madness, went unheard by the audience.

But got it together quickly and was able to see my friend Scott in the front row and some other familiar faces and started off chatting with Florence who was, as usual, candid and thoughtful about her life and legendary career and didn’t even mind when I asked her about the one night stand she had with former New York Mayor John Lindsay who gave her crabs!

http://www.edgeboston.com/display/viewimage_story.php?id=121544&maxwidth=250I knew from seeing her live act several times that she had a funny line about not getting the movie lead in Oklahoma even though she had been a smash as the lead in the musical’s first national tour.

Who got that role?

Florence: “That bitch Shirley Jones did!”

I also asked Florence about her struggles with post-partum depression which were quite severe and her resiliency that includes surviving divorce and the death of her beloved second husband.

We also chatted about her Brady Bunch co-star Robert Reed and how his being gay made him uncomfortable with their initial love scenes. As a gay man, I was glad to have the opportunity to tell her how much her kind and supportive words about Reed since his death from AIDS have helped greatly to offset the sensational tabloid coverage and contributed to a more balanced and positive legacy.

This really is one lovely lady folks.

http://cb.pbsstatic.com/l/03/1403/9780061961403.jpgWhile Florence was seated to my right, Dyan Cannon was to my left. I had just finished her memoir about her life with Cary Grant the day before so I was still very raw with feelings about it.

The famous movie icon pursued the lovely long actress who initially was lukewarm but soon fell in love and they had a three-year courtship that eventually led to marriage.

We are given great insight into who Grant was, what his demons were and why he had them and mostly, we learn that even though people like he and Cannon were stars, they are real human beings with real troubles.

I ached more for her than for him and mentioned during the panel that as I got to the end stages of the book, after he had become highly critical of Dyan over everything (including her nail polish on their wedding day!) and encouraged her to do LSD to try and save their marriage, I did not like him very much.

Dyan very thoughtfully explained to the audience what was behind the LSD use and that it was not recreational, that Grant thought it would make them closer.

She held on to my hand at times when she was taking and I wasn’t sure if it was for emotional support or if it was because she didn’t want me to cut her off! Dyan Cannon has a lot to say and she says it so well that you could devote a full hour to her!

But I was determined not to spend more than maybe 12 minutes on each author and kept checking the time to stay on track. Trust me, this was no easy task! How do you cut off Florence Henderson or Dyan Cannon?

http://savetheearthsfuture.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/stefandbill.jpgUnfortunately, I did learn how to cut off Stefanie Powers. Not because the star of Hart to Hart and last love of William Holden’s life was not fascinating. But after we talked about her studio contract days, her walking off a movie with Cliff Robertson and the wonderful work she does in Kenya for wildlife preservation, we barely had time for Carrie White who, ironically, had been a high school friend of Stefanie’s.

Well God bless Carrie White. She seemed to sense the situation and after my opening question, she went on a rapid-fire 10 minute monologue about her life – covered all the highlights, got some great laughs and all I had to do was maybe ask 1-2 questions but still felt like we got a good sense of who she is and what she had been through.

After we did a few audience questions, I noticed that the book fair person who was supposed to give me the five-minutes left cue was doing a slashing motion across her neck. We were officially OUT OF TIME!

But my favorite moment was still to come. The final question about Brady Bunch creator Sherwood Schwartz, who died this year, led to Florence singing a line from the show’s theme song which Schwartz had written.

I asked Florence if she would lead us in the song before everyone left and she did it! Sang the whole song and the audience seemed to love it. I know I did. The ladies were swarmed after the panel as they tried to make their way to the Book Soup booth where they would be signing their books.

The line was the longest of any I’d seen all day but I cut to the front and had each of them sign my already dog-eared copies.

It was a magical day and my thanks to the organizers of the West Hollywood Book Fair for once again asking me to be a part of it.

Can’t wait until next year!

(Thanks to Lydia Marcus, Ted Johnson and Robert Graves for sending me photos of this great day!)


FILE UNDER: Books

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One Remark

  1. You did a great job, Greg, and it was a wonderful panel. You were right to cut off Stephanie when you did so we could hear Carrie, the least known of the ladies to the public. I want to read all of their books. The ending was fabulous. I hope someone caught it on tape. Thanks for a great time.

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