Pizza With Michael
There is a woman I know in Saugus who will never let me forget that I once ate pizza with Michael J. Fox.
She is his ultimate fan and every time I see her she says, “Tell me about The Day You Had Pizza With Him.”
I capitalize the phrase only to indicate the manner in which it is delivered, with the same level of awe and reverence one might expect from a nun discussing the Last Supper.
“Greta,” I say, “I’ve told you that story a hundred times and I’m tired of it.”
Greta is not her true name but everyone calls her Greta the Groupie and that’s good enough for me.
“It won’t hurt to tell her once more,” my wife says. “Be kind. Pretend she has the last martini on Earth and you’re trying to talk her out of it.”
Greta gives me a pain, but the imagery of the last martini is a compelling one so I relent.
I summarize the day I interviewed Fox by telling her he had a Moose Head beer and a small cheese pizza with pepperonis and managed to get them down without slobbering or belching.
It’s all you can expect from an actor working without a script.
“Oh my God,” Greta says, “is he as beautiful as he seems?”
“As cute as a baby’s behind. Now give me the last martini on Earth and leave me alone.”
I mention Greta the Groupie as an example of those who live and die by the cosmic high achieved from their mere proximity to celebrities, of which there are thousands in L.A.
On any day of the week, in the Valley or on the Westside, you might see Heather Locklear studying her reflection in a store window or Hulk Hogan browsing through a bookstore. Only in places like Bellflower will you never see anyone important.
I thought the woman next door, who is in her mid-50s, would die the day she spotted John Davidson at Vons in Woodland Hills. His dimples knocked her right out of her flat-healed orthopedic shoes.
“He was buying bread,” she said breathlessly, her gaze locked on an inward image of the man fondling sourdough rolls.
“How wonderful,” I said. “Was transubstantiation involved?”
“You know,” my wife said later, “there’s nothing wrong with being a celebrity-spotter. You almost short-circuited the day you interviewed Mary Tyler Moore.”
“I liked her sense of humor.”
“Michelle Pfeiffer had zero sense of humor and you went into a trance over her. It’s as close as you’ve ever come to swallowing your cigar.”
Pfeiffer was in a short-lived television series I created called “B.A.D. Cats.” She played Samantha, the bouncy bimbo friend of car-racing cops, and said things like, “You guys are sure a couple of characters!”
It was Aaron Spelling’s idea of spunk. He insisted on exclamation points after dialogue that defined upbeat characters. Hi, fellas! Wanna kiss?! “B.A.D. Cats” was the worst series ever to appear on television and folded after four painful episodes. Pfeiffer stopped bouncing and went on to fame and fortune. I am still begging forgiveness.
I saw Sissy Spacek once on a plane flying east out of LAX. Even in person she resembled the telekinetic teen-ager she played in “Carrie,” with the power to slam enemies about with a simple shot from her canary-yellow eyes.
A bore with a jutting jaw and a bad overbite insisted on leaning over her in first class asking questions. I thought to myself, He’s a dead man , but Sissy spared his life, nodded once or twice and then ignored him.
The man finally drank himself comatose.
“Why is it,” I said to my wife, “that meeting with celebrities brings out the worst in us?”
“Like the time you got bombed with Wayne Rogers?”
It is not a proud memory. We met in a bar and anyone who recognized Rogers sent over a drink. Friends carried me home on my shield.
“That’s what happens when you insist on meeting for a drink,” my wife said. “Did it ever occur to just have desert?”
“I am emotionally incapable of meeting for pie,” I said.
She is not removed from star-influence herself. We were having dinner in a restaurant called La Famiglia when Dean Martin walked in. She couldn’t take her eyes off him.
“All right,” I said, “that’s enough.”
“I hardly even noticed,” she said, eating soup with a fork.
I ordered the last two martinis on Earth and brooded.