Brush With Celebrity

In a time BEFORE camera phones and digital photos, I met one of my favorite heroes!

It's been a few years since I met Margot Kidder. She played Lois Lane opposite the late Christopher Reeve in the Superman movies in the '80's. She was travelling with the costume Reeve wore as Superman.

Reeve was "MY" Superman. Just like Adam West will always be my Batman. I'm a Batman fan. I would say "huge" fan, but I am sure than there are other, "bigger" fans than me. I grew up on reruns of the '60's Batman. I got to meet him once. It was a year after Cathy and I got married. 1991 was the 25th Anniversary of the '60's Batman television series. There was a two-day comic book convention for the anniversary. It was at a hotel on the north side of Chicago. Adam West was there. So was Frank Gorshin who played The Riddler; along with actor Werner Klemperer, who played Colonel Klink on Hogan's Heroes. Klemperer had a cameo in an episode of Batman. Twenty-one years after the end of World War II, Klemperer's Klink was a famous cameo. When Batman and Robin are climbing up the side of a building, there was Nazi Klink, appearing through an open window.

There was also another famous celebrity there at the convention. Actor Van Williams, who played The Green Hornet.

Williams was there, showing off the famous Black Beauty; the car that Bruce Lee's Kato drove him around in on the crusade against crime. The Green Hornet and Kato guest starred on the Batman series. There was an infamous fight scene between Lee's Kato and Burt Ward's Robin.

It was really kinda cool to be able to shake hands with both celebrities, and spend a few minutes talking with them. I had brought a Kodak camera with me. I took some pictures and then had them developed at a photo lab. They're in a photo album packed in a box somewhere. I haven't had the chance to scan them onto a computer yet.

Word has just come out that Van Williams died last week in a health care facility. He was 82. It's a bummer that he's gone. But he had a pretty successful career and lived a long life. And I consider myself pretty lucky to have had the opportunity to shake his hand and let him know I was a fan.