Name-Dropping

We were shooting a Dollar Rent-a-Car spot with Chevy Chase
(name-drop) when Chevy turned to me and said, “hope we’re
going to wrap on time, I’ve got a poker game tonight at
Robin William’s house.”

Granted, Chevy’s stardom had lost some luster by then, but
he had been a super star for decades, now here he was
dropping Robin’s name like a tourist from Nebraska.

Fact is, most of us have been guilty of it from time to time:
letting others know we have rubbed shoulders with a star,
and in so doing have been granted some star power of our own.

I’m told even the Queen of England blushed like a school girl
when telling her attendant she would be dining with
Lady Gaga that evening.

Name Dropper

Went to film school
with a rapid-fire kid
from Little Italy named
Marty Scorsese,
shared a stilt house
in Laurel Canyon
with army buddy
Terry Gilliam
later of Python fame,
Joni Mitchell folding
laundry next-door,
and once played
a round of golf
with Arnold Palmer
at his course in Orlando,
shooting a 16 on hole 11.
Afterwards his wife
Winnie, eased my
embarrassment,
whipping up the
most refreshing
Arnold Palmer I’ve ever had.

Never slept with a celeb
though Tuesday Weld—
and if you’re too young
to have been scorched by her
femme fatale cheerleader in
Pretty Poison, I feel for you —
called me “cute”
at Chasen’s
and nearly everyone says
my wife bears an
uncanny resemblance
to Diane Keaton which
drives her, my wife that is,
crazy,
saying the only
person she looks like
is herself, thank you
very much,

a feisty, independent spirit
I fell in love with
long ago, kinda like
Jean Arthur in
It Happened One Night
or Sandra Bullock  in
The Blind Side
who  once wished me
good luck at Elaine’s
while I was on line
trying to get in.