Dinner With The Stars At NATPE
I woke up early this morning and was deciding what to write about this week. I suddenly starting remembering all of those fabulous dinners I had at the National Association Of Television Program Executives (NATPE), a national organization with an annual convention where buyers and sellers of TV programming meet and make deals.
If you were attending NATPE during the 80's and 90's, it was very fast paced during the day. If there was a deal to made, you could do it there but you had to beat your competitors before they locked it down ahead of you. But at night, the pace was completely opposite: very relaxed with friends and colleagues -- and sometimes Hollywood stars!
The one dinner that I have fondest memories of was the NATPE convention in Houston in the late 1980's/early 1990's. KTVT was an indie then owned by Gaylord Broadcasting and its group of stations bought the rights to "The New Leave It To Beaver," starring the original cast sans Hugh Beaumont (who had passed away a few years earlier). Also included were Ken Osmond (Eddie Haskell) and Frank Bank (Lumpy Rutherford). Richard Deacon, who played Lumpy's father, Fred, had also passed away as well. The show was produced from 1983-1989 and originally ran on Ted Turner's WTBS, now just called TBS. The show was about Beaver as a divorced father with two kids and the trials and tribulations he dealt with. But as you could expect, Wally (Tony Dow) and June (Barbara Billingsley) were there for him when he needed them. Beaumont was only seen in archival footage as a dream scene.
I was lucky enough to be invited to a dinner with "The Cleavers" and Ken Osmond. Osmond, a retired Los Angeles police officer, was the nicest person you could ever meet, not anything like his role as Eddie. Tony Dow was polite, but you could tell he was tired and really didn't want to be there. Jerry Mathers (Beaver) was very distant that night and barely said anything to anyone. But the person who worked the crowd the best was Barbara.
A mother of two sons in real life, we all played trivia after dinner. She was so pleased that people remembered her (as well as people buying her show too!!) and loved her as June Cleaver (although she had been in some movies in the 80s with cameo roles, one being Airplane). She was in her mid 70's then but she kept up with all of us. I sat next to her at dinner and I felt like Lucy Ricardo......star struck!!
But it also reminded me that Hollywood stars, as much as we tend to conjure up images and perceptions in our minds about them, are still people like us that have families, want some downtime and privacy, and time with their loved ones. Barbara is no longer with us today, but her sons still own and operate a steak/seafood restaurant in Los Angeles, simply called "Billingsley's".
That was one of the best evenings I have ever had in my professional career. God bless you, Barbara, and thank you.
See you next time.
(©2015 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
