Tammy

Brushes With Fame #1: Debbie Reynolds

I sometimes meet famous people in the course of my work. It's no big deal. Really. I've never been a wannabee starfucker, even when the opportunity presented itself, as it once did with Debbie Reynolds.

It was late 1981. I was working as an audio assistant on a big daytime TV talk show. It was my first paying job after I graduated from film school. Back then I had very long hair. Oh yeah, I was a post-hippy hippy for sure. There was no way I was going to cut that hair. It nearly got me sacked from that job in fact, but I digress.

Debbie was a guest on the show. I don't remember much about why, or what she said, or anything else really, except for one little sliver of time in between two segments (we were live-to-air) when I was called on to pin a radio mic on her when she took the guest chair.

At the time I didn't actually know much about her, I have to confess, other than that she was in 'Singin' in the Rain' and that she was famous for having good legs. I fumbled with the mic as I tried to attach it to her coat.

"Have you ever thought of cutting that hair?' she said to me.

"Er, no, not really," said I, suavely.

"I bet if I got you in the bedroom I could convince you to cut it," she said, quiet enough so only I could hear.

Eeeewww. She's so old, I thought.

She was 49, not too many years older than I am now.