It's great to be back in the region after last week's travel to Florida.
There's plenty of excitement during the remainder of March and it's all right in our backyard.
Industry royalty, when it comes to fan "meet and greets," are Ray and Sharon Court, who host such gatherings all over the country.
I chatted recently with the couple, who are finalizing their list of names for this month's Chicagoland event at the Chicago Marriott Hotel at O'Hare Airport.
For more than five years, the Courts used to hold their event at The Purple Hotel, just north of Chicago in Lincolnwood, Ill.
This month's event will be from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. March 21 and 22. General admission is $15 to get inside the celebrity ballroom, where the stars sit at tables for their meet-and-greet sessions. Most of the celeb guests charge for signing photos and memorabilia.
Among the stars attending this year are Hollywood legends Tony Curtis and Angie Dickinson.
I'm excited to interview Dickinson, 77, whose first husband is the musical great Burt Bacharach.
She's used to being around the media. Her father, L.H. Brown, was a newspaper publisher who owned the local daily paper The Kulm Messenger in Kulm, N.D.
And writing talent ran in the family, which inspired her to originally want to be a writer after winning the country's Sixth Annual Bill of Rights Essay Contest. But after the family moved to Burbank, Calif., she won a beauty contest, which prompted her interest in show business, including entering the regional preliminaries for the Miss America contest in 1953 one day before the deadline and winning second place.
But her big break came when she was cast as the leading lady opposite Dean Martin and John Wayne in 1959 in the Warner Bros. film "Rio Bravo."
"My mother never wanted me to be an actress, that is, until I introduced her to Frank Sinatra," she was famously quoted as saying.
(She starred with Sinatra, Martin, et. al. in the 1960 film classic original "Oceans Eleven.")
Her career also has had a few missteps. After her successful TV career playing Sgt. Pepper in her own series, "Police Woman," in the 1970s, she passed on the role of Krystle Carrington, rival to Joan Collins' jealous ex-wife character Alexis Carrington, in the popular 1980s primetime soap "Dynasty." In 1985, she did net the plum lead in the all-star television miniseries take on authoress Jackie Collins' steamy "Hollywood Wives," which also starred Candice Bergen, Anthony Hopkins, Roddy McDowall, Stefanie Powers and Suzanne Sommers.
Joining Dickinson and Curtis at this year's Hollywood show and greeting guests will be a minireunion of the child stars-turned-reality stars from the TV series "The Brady Bunch," including Christopher Knight, who played Peter, Mike Lookinland, who played Bobby and Susan Olsen, who played Cindy.
Other notables attending this month's event include Noel Neill, who played "Lois Lane" on the 1950s "Superman" TV series, comedienne Geri Jewell, who starred on "Facts of Life" raising awareness about her real-life battle with cerebral palsy, actor Edd Byrnes who played Kookie on "77 Sunset Strip" and Howard Hughes' actress-girlfriend Terry Moore, who starred in films like "Peyton Place" and "Mighty Joe Young," among more than two dozen other stars.
For more information, hollywoodcollectorshow.com/Rose.htm.
The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer. He can be reached at ppotempa@nwitimes.com or 219.852.4327.
Today's Celebrity Birthdays
Country singer Carl Smith is 82. Elvis Presley drummer DJ Fontana is 78. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 76. Actor Judd Hirsch is 74. TV evangelist Jimmy Lee Swaggart is 73. Bassist Phil Lesh is 69. Singer Mike Love is 68. Singer-keyboardist Sly Stone is 66. Bassist David Costell, of Gary Lewis and the Playboys, is 65. Guitarist Howard Scott (War) is 63. Rock guitarist Ry Cooder is 62. Singer Dee Snider (Twisted Sister) is 54. Director Renny Harlin ("Die Hard 2" and ex-husband of Geena Davis) is 50. Actress Park Overall ("Empty Nest") is 52. Model Fabio is 48. Singer Terence Trent D'Arby is 47. Singer Bret Michaels (Poison) and actor Jimmy Baio ("Soap" and Scott Baio's cousin) are 46. Singer Rockwell is 45. Singer Mark McGrath (Sugar Ray) is 41. Bassist Mark Hoppus (Plus-44, Blink 182) is 37. Actress Eva Longoria
Parker is 34. Rapper will.i.am is 34. DJ Joseph Hahn (Linkin Park) is 32. Rapper Young Buck is 28. British actor Sean Biggerstaff (Oliver Wood in "Harry Potter" films) is 25. Actress/model Caitlin Wachs is 19.
