TCM Film Festival Day 2: With A New Step Ev’ry Day

Gold Diggers of 1933

So…my day began at 6:50AM. After getting in at almost 3AM, I have no idea how I even got to breakfast. All I knew was Robert Osborne was going to be there and so was I. Alan met me and I fueled up on 3 cups of coffee. Osborne came over and chit chatted with everyone.

Alan and I ran over and caught an early showing of ‘Gold Diggers of 1933.’ I’ve seen it a million times but this was the first time I was sitting with people that had seen it when it was originally released. If you think I was sitting next to a woman with an oxygen tank that wheezed, you’d be spot on. The only thing about that movie is that it has a SUPER depressing ending, which became the theme of the films I saw that day. Great.

We scooted back to the Roosevelt to go to the Debbie Reynolds’ DVD signing.  Thank God we did because the line was almost to the door when we got there…which happened to be right when my sassy lady friend, Zillah, got there. I had her spot in line all ready. People were joining their friends ahead of us in line and she, loudly, stated in an East Coast accent, “No one had better crowd me! I’ll hit ’em with my bag. This thing weighs a ton, see,” and she shoved it at Alan & for the rest of the wait, he literally had that burden to carry. The host of Club TCM cut the line off 4 people after us. Thank God.

LEG UP!

Let me just say that whatever Debbie eats, drinks or slaps on her face, I want to do that. She is 79 and looks AMAZING! She’s perfection and I bow down to her.

While in line I kept staring at this guy because I knew him from somewhere. I apologized for staring and asked him what he was from. Well, he did a “My Retrospective” last year. I explained to him that I did one this year and I had watched his a bunch to see what I was in for.

2011 & 2010 My Retrospective Peeps (Me & David Bright)

Ok, fun fact time-you knew this was coming! The first footprints at Grauman’s were actually an accident. Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Sid Grauman (the three people responsible for The Roosevelt Hotel, Grauman’s and The Egyptian Theaters) walked over wet cement, thought it was funny and signed their names in it. It soon became “a thing.” The original footprints were lost for years, that is, until they were found in some dude’s airplane hanger. He finally let them be displayed  and I got to see them.

Original Footprints

I also snapped a photo of Zillah and her daugther, Shoshanna. I think Zillah is everything I’ve described and more! She’s fantastic.

My sassy friends, Zillah and Sho.

We moved into the lobby and some weird dude who just finished getting interviewed for TCM Live grabbed my ass and pushed me to the front of the crowd. “They need more young people up there, ” he said. He could have just said it and NOT grabbed my ass. So I got to watch Ben Mankiewicz interview Marge Champion. Can I find it online to show you, no, but I was on TV before ‘All About Eve’ this past Sunday. Ben told us not to leave but to shuffle around for the camera and watch the next interview. Sorry dude, it was nap time. I excused myself and had a lunch of cupcakes in my room before taking a dive. Before getting ready for dinner with Alan at 6:30,I enjoyed my private patio WITHOUT getting a sunburn.

While having a drink in the lobby before dinner I was approached by a TCM camera guy to do an interview, he wasn’t pleased when I told him I had done an hour long one the day before.  I also met a TCM marketing strategy guy, Greg, who talked to me about how to market to my age group. The camera crews there kept taking photos of these 4 creepy, skeletal people who dressed in only vintage clothes. They need to STOP doing that!! That’s NOT a clear representation of who’s at the festival. Those people are weird and I don’t want to be lumped in with them. Ugh!

After dinner at Picnic, which was good except for having to listen to a nutty white lady bitch about how her fish smelled like fish–for the record,my beef smelled like beef–we went to see ‘Spartacus.’

He IS Spartacus

(Sorry the photo was total crap.) Kirk Douglas spoke before the movie, he is 94 and was really fun to listen to. I didn’t think I was a huge Kirk Douglas fan, but after watching this movie montage before he spoke I found that I was wrong, I am a Kirk Douglas fan. The movie was fantastic and keeping with the theme of the day, a heartbreaking ending. I almost cried…that says something about a movie when my black heart is touched.

We went back to the lobby, had a few drinks and I called it a night when a drunk midget sat next to me. I think that’s a sign for anyone to turn in!

Plus, I had to get a good night’s sleep because I was going to see Alec Baldwin the next day! More on that next time…