I moved to West Hollywood in 1985 after a childhood of seeing no famous people in real life except for Jonathan Frid (Barnabas on Dark Shadows), former Tarzan Jock Mahoney, and the King of Sweden, so I became a veritable celebrity fetishist. If I saw you on tv, I wanted to date you (or, after I moved in with Lane in 1990, hook up with you).In part it was due to envy: my friends were all dating Sylvester Stallone, Rob Lowe, Keanu Reeves, and all I had were Peter Barton, Lee H. Montgomery, and Douglas Barr.
Plus a hug from Michael J. Fox, a sausage sighting of John Amos, and a date with Robin Williams' assistant. Big deal!
I was meeting -- or seeing -- big stars quite often, but none of them seemed interested in dating. So I made the rounds of the lesser known and downright obscure, hoping that the guy I dated last night would make it big, and I could say "I went down on him back when." Sometimes it worked out ok, and I got a nice romantic evening, a sausage sighting, or at least lunch.
Sometimes it was regrettable, to say the least.
Here are five celebrity hookups from hell. I'm sure that these actors are very nice, and some people no doubt find them hot, but for whatever reason our time together ranged from dismal to "get me out of here!"
1. James Faulkner, Herod in the I, Claudius miniseries (1976) and Aldous Huxley in Priest of Love (1981). Not at all my type: bald, pale, chunky, small beneath the belt, and sharing a last name with my least favorite author.
To be fair, he wasn't my hookup, he was Lane's. We met him at a leather bar in London in 1993, and brought him back to our hotel, where wee discovered that he was into wet, sloppy kisses and the biting of nipples
2. Cain Devore starred with John Stamos in the short-lived comedy Dreams (1984-85), and I guess did some soap work after. Not my usual type: skinny, frizzy dirty blond hair, very tan, but cute in a rockster-Bohemian way. Alan and I picked him up at Mugi in 1986 and brought him home, but he was too drunk to rise to the occasion.
3. I had never actually seen Howard E. Rollins, Jr. in anything when Lane and I met him at an AIDS benefit in 1995. He told us about his work in The Heat of the Night (1988-94), but not that he had 3 DUIs and a cocaine problem, or that he was in rehab.
4. Which of the stars of The Incredible Hulk (1978-1982) would you like to date? Lou Ferrigno? Bill Bixby? How about Jack Colvin, who played the sleazy reporter on the Hulk's trail? Nondescript physique, weasel face, small package, and he didn't stick around for breakfast.
5. At least Georg Olden was cute. He was starring in Rocky Road (1985-87) about three siblings who run an ice cream parlor on Pismo Beach, when I saw him at a Greek restaurant in Hollywood -- while I was on a date with someone else! He was only 18, still going to Beverly Hills High, and I was not yet a twink magnet, so I had no way to attract his attention. I made a complete fool of myself, and went home alone.
The full story, with nude photos and explicit sexual situations, is on Tales of West Hollywood.