When I was a kid my mom was going on a trip to Hawaii. Me and my Nanny went to the airport to see her off, and then when it was time for my mom to go thru the gate, she said to me " give Nanny your coat" I was thinkin' huh?? It's winter?? why?? she said "Your coming with me" and my reply was " I don't wanna go to Hawaii??" Then my mom says we're going to Disneyland!" Many squeals later. I launched my coat at my Nanny and ran to the departure gate! The trip was awesome, very memorable and the start of my love for the Happiest place on earth. Along with Disney we also went to Universal Studios. Unfortunately at the time my mom didn't own a camera, so she borrowed my Dad's. It wasn't automatic.... and we loaded the film wrong every roll.... I'm sick whenever I think about it! I had my own camera, which was a small box, and a very expensive square flash on top, that only held 4 flashes. Needless to say, we didn't take allot of pictures on it, seeing as my Dad's camera was a "good" one. Well to make a long story longer... we went into a restaurant in Universal, I remember it being dark, red, and quiet. We sat a a big round table, not realizing... what that table meant. We ordered lunch and a little while later a man came in, and politely said we were at "their" table, ( only he walked in ) but he said, you can stay, we'll join you. I think he was smitten by my mom, and they started talking, turns out his name was Billy Curtis. That didn't mean anything to me at the time, but he mentioned being in a movie that I knew, cause my dad was a big Clint Eastwood fan. "Billy" was the "midget ( not knowing any other word when I was 9 years old ) in High Plains Drifter. When his friends arrived they were all old school Hollywood, some actors, some crew, lighting props etc. I had an autograph book that they signed for me, but I can't find much on the names. Billy told us to come tomorrow and he would show us around. I know we extended our stay that trip, maybe this was the reason why? So, anyway. we went back not really thinking much about it. But there was Billy ready to tour us. This was in the 70's and the popular shows back then were Toma, Six Million Dollar Man, Emergency, and Kojak. Before we left Billy grabbed a menu and told us we would need it.
Off we go into the big sound stages of these 4 TV shows. We got to watch them being filmed and then we met the stars of the shows!! Now we were talking my era, these shows I knew, and I was the coolest kid at that moment in time. We took 1000 pictures..... ( we already know the outcome of those... :-( not one turned out, hard to when the film isn't advancing.. ouch my stomach hurts all over again ) but I did get autographs! Dean and I were sitting here talking about my adventure one night and we googled all these people. Some of them were pretty important! I remember meeting Telly Savalas, him picking me up in his arms when we took the picture, him of course eating a lollipop. Sigh....
Anyway, it was a really cool memory that I thought I'd share, here were some google facts we found.
American midget actor Billy Curtis was cast in The Wizard of Oz (1939)Billy Curtis' career thrived into the 1970s, notably with solid parts in the Clint Eastwood western _High Plains Drifter (1972)
TOMA - Tony Musante
Suzanne Charney was in Toma
Kevin Tighe Ron Pinkard
Lee Majors
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