Four Hours of Hot, Stinkin’ Fun

Friday, September 2, 2005

Page 15

AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)

Four Hours of Hot, Stinkin’ Fun

By J’AMY PACHECO

Ah, celebrity. The unwashed masses bow to it, the paparazzi swarm around (and occasionally drive their cars into) it.

I suppose even the most cynical among us can’t help becoming a little bit star struck when confronted by celebrity.

I first got a personal glimpse of this 10 years ago when I was lucky enough to get to do some writing for Western celebrities Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. That work put me on a collision course with several well-known personalities, including actor Roddy McDowall, Jane (“Josephine The Plumber”) Withers and country singer Randy Travis.

Because I came into contact with them while attempting to appear professional, I avoided making fan-like requests for things like autographs, photos and marriage.

In fact, the only autographs I’ve collected came from authors who spoke and later hawked books at meetings of my writers group. Ray Bradbury is certainly the most well known of them, but I have a whole shelf of books written and autographed by people whose names you probably wouldn’t recognize and whose books I bought primarily because I didn’t want them to think nobody liked their speech.

I normally wouldn’t go out of my way to get an autograph. That changed last year when I took my daughter on a now legendary trip to a book signing by “Series of Unfortunate Events” author Lemony Snicket, and ended up spending the night in a Torrance bookstore.

It was, therefore, with mixed feelings that I agreed to take my daughter to Downtown Disney last weekend for a book reading and signing by author Gail Carson Levine. Levine, the Newbery Award-winning author whose works include the novel “Ella Enchanted,” was scheduled to sign copies of her latest book, “Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg.”

The book stars the very famous pixie “Tinker Bell.” As a lover of all things Tink, my daughter bought the book the day it was released and begged to be allowed to get it signed.

The pot was sweetened when I read that Levine would be joined by the man responsible for the book’s stunning illustrations, David Christiana — and Margaret Kerry, who Disney animators used as the model for the original Tinker Bell in the animated film, “Peter Pan.”

How could I refuse?

We dragged ourselves out of bed unusually early for a Sunday and raced the 70-some miles to Downtown Disney, where a line was already forming. We joined it, only to learn from a Disney employee that the reading was “by invitation only” — and that we weren’t invited. The line, we learned, was for the signing event — scheduled for three hours in the future.

With great dismay, I advised my Tinker Bell costume-clad offspring that we’d have to spend three hours sitting on the ground if we had any hope of seeing Tink. She sat down.

Those hours crawled by as we sat on the hard sidewalk, baking in the summer heat and making friends with strangers. More than once, I pointed out that Disneyland was a short walk through the security gate and our annual passes were in my purse, only to be greeted with a look of such sadness that I vowed to stick it out or melt trying.

After three hours, the line finally began to move, a foot at a time. Although we were relatively close to the front, it took another hour and a half before my little girl faced the author, the illustrator and Tink herself.

They were gracious and kind, and appreciative of the fact that we’d waited four and a half hours to see them. They signed my daughter’s book, a lithograph — and Tink even signed my daughter’s Disneyland autograph book. My daughter was speechless with delight.

We finished with enough time to head for Disneyland — where, as luck would have it, actress/singers Aly & AJ Michalka were singing — and signing copies of their new CD.

I’ll spare you my agony and jump straight to the punch line: my daughter collected autographs from five celebrities that day.

Exhausted, sweaty and sunburned, I asked her that night if it had been worth it. My star struck little girl assured me it had, big time. I wondered aloud if there was a column in it, and confessed that I had no idea what to say about the experience.

“Just tell ‘em it was four and a half hours of hot, stinkin’ fun,” she said.

It was, and I did.