These are from my notes at the reception - don't quote me verbatim because all of this is from memory, but hopefully some others who were there and remember other stuff will be able to add to it or correct it from their memories. I'm not going to attempt to describe the letter from Kate as no doubt someone will either get a copy or will be able to furnish a full transcript. I know how important it is to the SMK'ers on the list and I really don't want to screw that one up! �
B asks L de C what he's working on next. L de C tells him its a Western. B looks down at him from a great height, the expression on his face conveying just how long he thinks a skinny kid like this would last in the Old West and says, "Oh, really?!"
I swear I remember Bruce doing a Celine Dion impression singing, "My heart will go on" in a falsetto voice. And doing the impression of the leaning over the bow scene. (But I may have lost it totally at that point, or it may just be I dreamt it :))
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B was asked to audition for Titans as the leading man was being replaced. Said he felt bad about that - here we go again, same thing as with Michael O'Hare from B5. He didn't get it - he said his knee had only just healed after surgery and he just wasn't really ready for it. Then he commented that he and his agent had said what a good thing it was because Titans was being dropped now and when a show bombs it's usually the actors who get the blame.
I can't remember the whole context of this but someone (poss Melissa) said that the networks were moving towards "edgy" drama. At which point Bruce snorts and says, "Yeah, like Touched by an Angel??!!!!!! and Twice in a Lifetime??!!!!!"
Both B and M commented that sometimes they have to do stuff they don't want to do. Like go to Lithuania to film "Perilous" (this week). And deliver crappy lines. M commented on one line which went something like, "I am in love with the brother of the man who killed my mother." She complained and complained about it, but they made her say it as written. She just managed to get through the line then the whole crew fell about laughing.
The skinny women story has already been told on the list here, but just to add to Laura's story - when Melissa is whispering in his ear at how his next leading lady isn't good enough for him, she tells him "she's too skinny - just like Felista Clockheart." At which point Bruce and the rest of us fell about. (M meant Callista Flockheart - Ally McBeal)
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HTWWW - out of the question. James Arness too old now, and Bruce is getting older. Melissa chimes in with, "and he'd have to work with his ex-wife which would be a little weird." (smiles a lot).
Remakes in general - have to be really really popular and worth doing. Said he knew he was preaching to the choir but SMK ratings weren't high enough.
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B said Joe Straczynski (writer of B5) was "scared" of Melissa (big grin on his face). Somehow they didn't hit it off. Melissa tried, but doesn't know why it didn't work.
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Melissa has been known to lurk and contribute to chat-rooms, but (with a glint in her eye) they find out who you are and it's no fun when they do that!
Commented that one time Bruce and Jerry Doyle are sitting behind her (drinking) whilst Melissa is typing responses to someone/something (chat or forum or what I don't know, sorry). They keep yelling out - tell em this, tell em that, and she's trying to keep up (she says she doesn't type very fast).
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At this point he came out with the line of the night (and I can't believe we were all well behaved enough to not to have reacted �
One of our party (who will remain nameless unless she owns up herself) was in a state of almost permanent shock throughout the whole thing. I know how she felt. Before I actually got into the room where the signing was being held, I was so nervous the only thing I can say is that it felt *exactly* like I felt just before I sat in my Finals at the University. Then, when we got in there and I could actually hear Bruce's voice (very deep and gravelly). Well, I swear someone had turned the heating up. If it hadn't been for Cheryl rushing off to find bottles of water, I think a few of us would have passed out! Anyhow the shocked one had made us promise that if she didn't get through all the things she wanted to say/do then we were to force her into it. So, as the photo taking session at the end of the reception was ending, it looked as though she wasn't going to step forward. So I and a few others called her name and gestured for her to get on with it. (We weren't close enough to drag her into position or we would have �
I gave B and M a couple of T-shirts I'd had made up. From the front they look exactly the same - "Z'ha'dum..." On the back of Bruce's it says, "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt," and on the back of Melissa's it says, "well, it seemed like a good idea at the time." The T-shirts were wrapped in cellophane, and since things were running late I didn't want to get into the hassle of opening them up to show them properly. So I handed them over wrapped up and said they'd figure out whose was whose by the sizes. Bruce just looked at me and said, "You *haven't* brought underwear...have you?!" (I was near the end of the queue - by now I think he realised that ANYTHING might happen).
The reaction of B and M to Kathy Kemila's "dimples" T-shirt was priceless. I can't describe how good it was, but I do know it's been captured on video, so hopefully you'll get to see it some time. And you can see what Melissa wrote on the shirt on my web page.
Shaz brought some English beer (lots of enthusiasm from Bruce) and some shirts given out by Guinness for bar staff only. One of them has, "Good things come to he who waits" embroidered into it. Bruce read it out loud, looked at Melissa and said "...yeah, that's true."
Both Anke and Shaz presented him with music videos. Bruce looked a little bemused at the idea of the CD's and music videos in general (this guy is NOT into computers at all), and asked what they were. Melissa asked if they could see one now. Hence the initial showing of the Z'ha'dum music video at the beginning of the reception. Thanks to Chris "CobraDeathGrip" and her laptop. This brings to mind another little incident. After checking that it was okay to show the vid, Shaz and Chris were setting up the computer in the hallway as Bruce passed by on his visit to the little boys room. A group of us were looking on. On the laptop we were watching the horse-riding video that Shaz had taken from a British TV series called "You've Been Framed!" where people send in humorous (or not) home videos. It's some kind of a rodeo competition. The guy in the film looks like Bruce - right shape, etc., and there are people in the audience calling out the name Bruce. As he walked passed us again on his way back he came over to see what we were laughing at, and confirmed it wasn't him. The guy in the film gets hurt in a very delicate place, "No," he said, "That wasn't me. I'd've definitely remembered that!" So now we know. �
Well, those are my memories, and as I say, my memories aren't perfect but hopefully this all gives a taste of what happened to those who couldn't be there. And I hope it helps prompts more anecdotes from those who were.
Bruce: How do you know it's Turkish? (doubtful look on his face, he says something about how she doesn't know Turkish)
Melissa: I'm very big in Turkish (laughter from the audience, she laughs at herself as she fumbles with the word, then corrects herself), I mean Turkey.
Bruce: You're very big in tuckush, too! (more laughter and some moans as the audience realizes what he just said)
Melissa: (she realizes what he said, gives him quite a look and slaps him on the arm)
Bruce: (makes a motion with his arm like he just slammed her, and says something about a "zinger" - I don't remeber exactly what he said, but it was cute.)
Of course, there was no way in hell she'd take his "tuckush" comment literally, she obviously has NOT got a big tuckuss (sp?) but it was fun to see them teasing each other. Melissa had gotten a couple of digs in earlier.
The line continued to proceed and then I saw Bruce. Oh, my gosh, I got ten times more nervous! Suddenly before I realized it, it was my turn to get my stuff autographed. I just stood there in line, not moving. The person who had come with me, literally pushed me, so that I would walk up to him. So I walked up to him, put my stuff down and didn't say one word. I had four things for him to sign. Two pictures of him and Kate from when he was doing SMK. One was for myself and the other was for a friend who couldn't make it. Then I had the picture they were handing out there at Fansource for him to sign, and then the original "Bad Timing" script I had bought at fansource, that also had Kate Jackson's signature.
So, first he said, "What's your name?" And then looked up at my nametag and said, "Lori?"
I said, "Yes." All I have to say is, thank goodness for the nametags, because I couldn't find my voice quite yet. So, then he looked at the SMK pic I brought and said, "Wow, I was a youngin' back then." Then Melissa, who was sitting right next to him, looked at the picture and then said to him, "Why are you in a tuxedo, and she (meaning Kate) is in a sweater?" Before Bruce answered, my friend said, "because of the 80's." Melissa laughed and said, "because of the 80's." Bruce then said, "Because I was the dashing spy, and she was a housewife and had to keep up the housewife motif." Then, he got on this James Bond trip. He just started saying, "People always ask me why I never played James Bond. It's because I'm not British and don't have a British accent. I couldn't have pulled it off." I am very surprised I even heard him say any of that, I was in la la land, staring at him. Well, at the time I didn't think to kill my friend for what he said next, but a while later, I wanted to kill him. He said, "Well, Lori never needed James Bond, Lee Stetson was enough for her." Bruce looked up at me and smiled that gorgeous smile! Sigh. Then after that he signed the picture that fansource had given out of him. He then got to the script. He looked at the title and said, "Bad Timing, hmmm." He then opened it up so he could see the year. "hmmm, 1986," he said. Somehow I found my voice and said, "it's the one where you only had three days to live." I know, I know, not the most brilliant description of "Bad Timing," but I was lucky to even be able to say anything at all to him. Anyway, he said, "Oh, yeah, I think I remember that one." Then someone yelled out from behind me, "PD2." Then he said, "oh, yeah, I do remember that one." Well, he then signed the script. Then I asked him if I could get my picture taken with him. I am surprised he heard me, because I'm not sure, but I think I practically whispered that to him. He said sure, so I stepped behind him and got my picture taken with he and Melissa. After that, I came back around the table and picked all my stuff up. Again, I'm surprised I could even do that, my hands were shaking so badly. Then I said, "thank you." He said, "Sure, Lori." I about died at him saying my name like that! SIGH!! Well, I almost walked out of that room without my purse and everything else. Thank goodness my friend reminded me that I had my purse and everything else over on a chair. I got my stuff and then walked out of there and screamed! I ran over to the other's who had met him already, and we all screamed together, lol! Anyway, stay tuned for more of my fansource snippets from the reception... ��
Okay, well, Jean told a lot about the reception in her fansource snippet, so I am not going to go into everything. I am, however, going to go into the things that stick out most in my mind. There was a debate a while ago as to whether Bruce felt uncomfortable with the letter that Kathy Bartels was reading out loud to him at the reception, from Kate. Many people said, they felt he looked uncomfortable. Well, of course none of us will ever really know the truth about that except for Bruce and Melissa (I'm sure he talked to her about it after fansource was over). So I will give you what is obviously just my take on the situation. In my personal opinion, it didn't look like he was exactly uncomfortable to me. I thought he was surprised and a little bit shocked by the letter, yes, but uncomfortable? No, not really. Yes, he was looking at the ground quite often throughout the letter, but I have pictures of him from when he was just hanging out with us, and there are many of them where he is looking at the ground. He didn't seem the least bit uncomfortable when he was hanging out with us. Some people look at the ground when they are listening intently to something. That is of course just my opinion.
In talking about the whole reunion movie thing, he said (don't quote me here), that SMK isn't cutting edge enough in this day and age. It was cutting edge in the 80's, but, "The Times They Are A Changin'" (couldn't resisit that : )). He says Les Moonvers at CBS doesn't even want to hear about it and that PAX doesn't do it's own in house movies (which, I'm not sure if he's right about that).
He said given the chance, he would definitely do an SMK reunion movie and he knows Katie (as he called her) would too.
When asked about why the "Dukes Of Hazard" could do two reunion movies, and why SMK couldn't do any, Bruce responded by saying that "Dukes" had a larger group of demographics than SMK and that it was more popular than SMK, in which everyone groaned. He then used the phrase that he used a few more times throughout fansource. "I know, I'm preaching to the choir." I loved it when he used that phrase, it was cute.
I know most of you know that BB has a plot worked for an SMK reunion movie. He said that he and Amanda would be divorced and that Lee would be an industrial spy for a toy company (huh?). He said that Lee would be in a bad place in his life, and that he would be trying to figure out when it all went wrong (gee, could it be when he lost Amanda?). He then said that we'd find out why Lee and Amanda were divorced, maybe through a case or something. Then he said, they would of course be thrown together to work on a case, and well, of course they would get back together. Not many people liked that scenario. He said, though, that it would be that way for conflict reasons, because today's TV has so much conflict and what not, SMK would have to do something like that to get viewers for a reunion movie!
He talked a little bit about how he and Kate got along. He said, "We would get pissed at each other. We had our moments. We had a lot of laughs too." He said it's hard when you spend more time with the person you work with than your own family. The impression I got from that was, not that he was saying that he and Kate didn't get along, because I think they did. He was just saying that the times that they got really mad each other, they were REALLY mad at each other, but they still had a lot laughs and got along most of the time. Spending that much time with someone (13 to 14 hours a day) would make you liable to get mad at each other sometimes.
Adding a little bit to what Jean said about actors and the lines, Bruce was saying actors get blamed when a show doesn't do well (as Jean already said). He also said that actors don't get the credit they deserve. He said sometimes an actor has to say a line that is just horrible, but the way the actor says it can save the show, but they don't get credit for that. He then said that B5 was pretty good about lines, but sometimes the lines would be horrible. Then with SMK he said, "Did you hear some of those lines?"
I just wanted to add a little bit more to what Jean was saying about Melissa being in a chatroom one night with BB and Jerry Doyle behind her. Melissa happened to be in a B5 chatroom. I don't think anyone knew it was her in the chatroom (not sure about that one though). Jerry Doyle and Bruce were standing behind her, drinking (alcohol). Bruce was yelling out, "Tell them the Captain said this." Jerry Doyle was yelling out, "Tell them Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle's character on B5. I know I completely spelled the name wrong, sorry) said this." Melissa said she can't type very fast and was having a very hard time keeping up with them.
I can't remeber exactly how this conversation was brought up, but I thought it was pretty funny nonetheless. I think they were talking about that movie that Jean had mentioned above, where Melissa had to say that horrible line. Melissa had gotten sick doing that movie. The movie had something to do with a hurricane, I believe. She had to be emmersed in mud for a period of time. She even had to have her whole head under the mud. She had ear plugs in, but the mud had seeped through them and into her ear, and had caused her a bad ear infection.
Anyway, the shooting went all night that night and she didn't get home until the next morning. So, because she had to be emmersed in mud, she was all muddy, and had twigs and mud in her hair. So anyway, she comes home and goes into their bedroom to find Bruce and their son, Michael, asleep on their bed, head to head with matching boxers on. She was going to head straight to the shower, but she thought that that was just the cutest thing and had to stop and look at them for a while. So, she walks over to the bed and is standing right above them, looking at them. Bruce opens one eye and about has a heart attack at first, not realizing that it was her right away. He said that at first he thought that it was a bag lady intruder.
He then said that many people marry other people in the business. He said that other people in the business understand the hours, having to go out of the state to film sometimes and all the things you have to do. He said that if he hadn't been in the business, Melissa might have really got it, when she was standing above them like that. He said he very quickly he realized it was her though.
At the end of the reception, people told Melissa they were happy she could attend. Bruce looked at Melissa and said, "see, honey, I told you they wouldn't bite." LOL!! I guess they don't know us that well, right?
BB then went on to thank all of us for showing up. He said he knew some people had come from very far away and he was very flattered. He said he didn't know who he would fly to go see.
He then said, "Okay, girls, I love you all," and then blew us all a kiss. SIGH!! After that he and Melissa left.
He had been drinking coffee and tea out of coffee cups and glasses. For some reason, the glasses that he had drank out of began to slowly disappear! : ) And wouldn't you know it, a glass that he had been drinking out of ended up in my bag of stuff that I had with me! I still don't understand how that happened. : ) I now have my little shrine of autographed pictures, scripts and one lone glass sitting on a table in my apartment! : ) Obsessed? nah, just focused! : )
Anyway, that is what I remember of fansource. Sorry it took me so long to get my report up!