After the Q and A it was announced that all the even number tables
should get up and get in line for autographs, and when that line
started to die down the odd number tables could get up. People
at the odd number tables immediately saw the disadvantage to
that. If you recall we were at table number 45. The even people
lined up and the odd muttered restlessly. In a vain attempt to
appease us, raffle tickets were drawn. We didn't win anything,
but then we didn't buy a ticket. Mostly when someone won there
would be a shriek of joy or a muffled cheer, but when one of the
set visits was drawn no one came forward with the winning number.
Top Ten Reasons The Set Tour Might Not Have Been Claimed
10) Fainted in Autograph line taken to Hospital
9) Bought raffle ticket outside, but couldn't get a Luncheon ticket
8) Disgruntled Matt Ashford fan
7) Prefers to worship Jackie Zeman from afar
6) Stunned into silence by Ingo's description of how he puts on
his leather pants
5) Fugitive from Justice
4) Traded raffle ticket for Tony Geary's pants
3) Thought you had to buy Diet Coke to win
2) French nun, who has taken vow of silence
And the number one reason the set tour might not have been claimed:
1) Kin Shriner holding winning ticket
The flaws in the autograph plan (which we heard Wendy Riche
had come up with) were becoming obvious. The line was moving
extremely slowly, and the people from the odd tables were getting
the not unrealistic idea that the actors would be leaving before
they even got to see the inside of the autograph room. More
appeasement was needed. Maurice Benard stayed in the main
room to take pictures with people, though not sign autographs.
He had to be out of there before four o'clock, as he had his own
event at that time. Did we mention that he was dressed all in black.
Black t-shirt, black pants... gorgeous.
Odd table people began to join the end of the very long line.
Criticism of the Wendy Plan was widespread in the line. Other
plans were proposed, most frequently the infamous Wally Plan,
though the proposers didn't know it. This was the plan that was
used two years before, where the fans stay at their tables and the
stars come around to sign. It failed miserably due to the fans not
staying at their tables, but instead getting up and going for their
favorite. The year after that was the Cattledrive plan, the actors
were seated at tables at the back of the banquet room and everyone
crowded back in an effort to reach the actor of their choice. Lines
were unclear, actors were trapped and several people fainted.
There was nothing intrinsically wrong with the Wendy Plan except
the mathematics... You have X numbers of fans to pass by and
have autographs signed by Y number of Actors in Z amount of
time. When X is 500 and Y is forty then Z had better be a big
number. We are hard pressed to suggest what would be a workable
plan for the autograph signing. Possibly giving each actor a
separate room (name in large lights above the door) and have
plenty of stanchion and chain for winding lines. It doesn't seem
quite practical does it? Reduce the X amount, would seem the
only real solution, and had that been the case, we would never
have gotten in.
Some GH Fan Club folks came out and tried to assure the crowd
that all actors who hadn't left already would stay. Nice, but not
true. Mary Beth Evans and Stephen Nichols had to leave. They
stopped by the main room first and did the picture thing. The
natives were becoming very restless. They sent out the big guns...
Ingo Rademacher. The fans went to him like a magnet, shortening
the line somewhat. This put us into the hallway between the main
room and the lobby, which you crossed through to get to the
autograph room. The line came to halt again. It was hot,
crowded and downright claustrophobia inducing. With diffculty
we resisted the urge to make lowing cattle sounds to add to
the atmosphere. Once into the lobby, and because quite a
few of the GH actors had left, the line began to move along
at a decent pace. Fortunately, for us, most of the Port Charles
actors were still there. Julie Pinson (Eve) had to leave early
as she had apparently been hurt the day before and wasn't
up to the strain.
When we got into the room we first scoped out where Jon
Lindstrom was. Hey... that's our priority. He was ensconsed
in the Port Charles section next to Kin, Carly and Jennifer,
with apparently no intention of leaving until all autographs
had been signed. Don't tell anyone, but we cheated a little.
Jon and Kin were creating something of a bottle neck. The crowd
stopped there. The two tables after them with more Port Charles
people, were thinly attended. We went to those two tables where
we talked to Rib Hillis (Jake) and Nolan North (Chris). We asked
them if they didn't find this mass fan attention a little frightening.
They denied it. In fact Nolan North looked thrilled. The girl
in front of us was from Massachusets and Rib said that he
and Nolan and just been discussing that, since they had both
lived there. Next was Lisa Lord (Nurse Grace). We told her
we really enjoyed her character and hoped she would have
a romance with someone, like Frank. She agreed that it
worked for her. Last table was solely occupied by Ron Hale.
He got up to take a picture with us and signed his autograph.
We quickly went over to say hi to Sarah Brown as she was about
to leave. We did and got a pretty good picture of her. On the
GH side, Leslie Charleson was also just leaving. George Alvarez
was still signing. Nancy Lee Grahn stayed until the end.
Then we split up, one of us getting in the autograph line and the
other keeping an eye on Jon, so he didn't leave and stick us with
carrying his gift back to Arizona. While doing that I asked the
currently unoccupied Ron Hale if he wouldn't do an interview
with us when the signing was over. He said sure. We took
a picture with Jay Pickett (Frank). We told him that we had come
especially to see the Port Charles people and weren't upset that
most of the GHers were gone. He didn't believe us. Pat Crowley
(Mary Scanlon) was just leaving and managed to get into both
our shots of Jay Pickett... thank goodness. Lisa Ann Hadley
and Michael Dietz were also at that table.
We chatted a little with Susan Brown, (Gail). We discussed
ratings and market saturation with her. Eventually we reached
Jon's table, and he said hi to us. (We believe the greeting was
"Hey, It's the Murrays.") We passed on the gift and top ten lists.
He asked what we thought of the new haircut. We confessed
that at first it had scared us, but that we had gotten used to it.
Darn... we think we were supposed to give a ringing endorsement.
Little Carly Schroeder was next. She printed her name. She
was still friendly and smiling, and not the least bit cranky. Kin
looked more tired than she did, but was still gamely signing away.
Jennifer Hammond (Karen) looked a little overcome. She said
something a little pessimistic about how long the show might last.
And we pointed out to her that PC was still doing better than
Sunset Beach, and better than any other Soap had done in that
time slot, and in any case we'd be watching. She thanked us.
We took the opportunity to visit the Nolan North/Rib Hillis table
again and take pictures. Then we hung around at the end of the
line waiting for Ron Hale to have a chance to slip away. Soon
enough he did. We went out the back door, onto a little wooden
porch next to the ponds, where swans were swimming.
T N' T: How did the character of Mike end up going to "Port
Charles"?
RON: Well, I think two reasons. The main reason just the
logistics of Port Charles. They needed to have a bar or a
restaurant or something, that became a social hub, for the
new characters to hang out. So I think, just logically, they
said, well, gee, why don't we have Mike buy this place and
open it up and give them, the young interns, you know a place
to hang out. So I think that was probably the main reason.
And plus with Maurice going, it was very sweet of them to find
another slot for me, somewhere for me to go.
T N' T: It was very intelligent of them.
RON: Because otherwise what would I do on General Hospital?
Continue to work for Luke?
T N' T: The whole Sonny conflict would be gone.
RON: Right. So without Sonny there they've given me this other
thing, which I think is great. It's terriffic.
T N' T: And finally a romance.
RON: Maybe. I don't know. Again they don't confide in us about
what their masterplan is, and I generally don't ask. If they start
getting the two people, Mike and Mary closer together we'll find
out what they have in store. I just don't know.
T N' T: What were you doing between Ryan's Hope and General
Hospital?
RON: Theater.
T N' T: In NewYork?
RON: In New York. I was doing regional theater again. After
Ryan's Hope went off the air I had to go back to the theater.
Because during my thirteen and a half years of Ryan's Hope I
could only do a play now and then. And that's my great love and
after thirteen and a half years I had to prove to myself again that
I could still act. And that's the only true test is acting in front of
a live audience.
T N' T: You want to do it again then, right?
RON: Of course.
T N' T: What's your favorite role to do on stage?
RON: It's hard to say. I mean I've done so many roles that were
at the time my favorite, different ages of my life when they fit me,
whatever. The last thing I did before General Hospital, I was
in a production of MacBeth. And I played MacBeth. So that was
a life long dream. You know, to be able to do that. I love
Shakespeare, and I would love to be able to continue to do more
Shakespeare. But it's hard. It's either do theater and starve
again, or do this and make a living, and keep a roof over your
head. I mean theater is definitely my preference, but you can't
live like, you know, a person and do theater. Unless you're a
quote unquote star. But you know the rest of us... You just
can't make any money that way.
T N' T: So are you enjoying the new cast you're working with?
RON: Oh, yeah, they seem like a great crew. I mean there are
some people I haven't worked with yet, and I really haven't been
around. But everybody I've worked with seems really terriffic.
Good energy, you know. They're all so fired up.
T N' T: But everybody will go to the bar eventually.
RON: Oh, yeah, eventually Mike will get to have scenes with
everyone. But I'm enjoying it.
T N' T: Does the rest of the cast look to you and the others
who were on General Hospital as mentors in this situation?
RON: I don't know. That's a good question. I don't know.
I hope not.
T N' T: You don't think that would be a good thing?
RON: It's not that, it's just that if anybody comes to me and
asks my advice on something I'd feel very privileged to have
them do that. But at the same time I like the fact that they
all have a sink or swim attitude as actors. "By gosh, I'm
going to go in there and I'm going to do my best and I'm
going to see what happens. I'm going to walk this tightrope."
And that's a good thing too. Plus, I don't know how much
I could pass on to them. Just do your home work and show up
on time. And try your best to be an actor.
T N' T: And everyone does, right?
RON: So far that's it.
T N' T: Is there anybody in particular you like working with?
RON: Again I haven't worked with everybody. You know
I've done quite a few scenes with Pat Crowley. She's wonderful.
A few scenes with Mitch, who plays Matt. Of course, Jay and
Michael Dietz play Mary's sons. I've done a couple things with
them. They're all just wonderful. Plus I really haven't had scenes
with the younger actors that were really confrontational or a
anything like that, where we could really kind of test as actors.
It's all been kind of light so far.
T N' T: Will you miss working with Maurice Benard now?
RON: That goes without saying. I'm going to miss it
tremendously. He's a wonderful person. He's a wonderfull
actor, and I taught him everything he knows. (This last
jokingly.)
T N' T: I think we'll end on that note. Thank you.
******
What was left of the crowd was starting to pour out of the door
we were standing by, which would have made further interviewing
difficult. We went back inside. Jennifer Hammond was in the
small hallway leading back to the autograph room. We went
past her to where Jon was saying some final good-byes to the
fans. Well, actually, the famous Adrian/Jon photo session was
going on. We took a couple of shots of that ourselves. Adrian
was explaining to Jon about how we all knew each other from
RATSA and Jon asked Adrian if he'd seen our Top Ten Lists.
Jon was about to leave, but he went back to the table for
something. We stopped him on the way out to get his autograph
on our High Lonesome CD, which we had bought the night
before. Well... we're entitled to one each. We asked Jon if
he had any plans to play with the band in the near future. He
said that he'd like to, but he hadn't had the time. It required
the rehearsal time as well as the playing the gigs, and what with
"Port Charles" that was very difficult. Of course, when it comes
down to it, we'd prefer having Jon every day on Port Charles to
once every few months, seeing him with the band.
Everyone migrated to the valet parking booth to claim their
vehicles. For discretions sake we will not describe the actors'
cars in detail. Kin was the first to get his car, a classy convertible.
He was giving Carly Schroeder and the person who we presume
was her mother. Jon shouted at Kin, "Nice ride, Shriner."
"I go in style," said Kin. As they drove away, Carly waved to
Jon and said, "Bye, Dude" He waved back and said, "Bye,
Dudette."
We went over to the valet window, stopping for a moment
to stare at Jay Pickett. Jon's car was brought up and he
left. Then they brought up Rib Hillis' truck. Nolan went
with him as did a female person who we couldn't identify.
Jay left while we were talking to the valet. Jennifer
Hammond had someone come pick her up. Nancy Lee
Grahn was the last to leave. Well, except for us. The
Valets seemed to have forgotten us. We had to go and
remind them and point out our set of keys hanging on
the little board. Then it was off for the last part of our
adventure, dinner and a play (Part VII).
Top Ten Things Overheard At The GH Luncheon
10) Dozens of cameras simultaneously rewinding
9) "Ingo, Aaaaahhhh!"
8) "I own Tony Geary's pants"
7) "Maurice, Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhaaahh!"
6) "Jackie Zeman is a Goddess," (w/Australian Accent)
5) "Remain in your seats,"
4) "Is this the line?"
3) "I think it's supposed to be Lasagna
2) "We don't get Port Charles"
And the number one thing overheard at the GH Luncheon:
1) "Why isn't Simone here?"
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