What follows is a first hand account of meeting Alex’s dad- courtesy of Lips. Thanks!
It was about 2 hours' drive from London to Swindon. He was supposed to appear at 4.30pm but I got there around 3pm so I had a lot of time to kill. I was feeling very excited and nervous at the same time. The venue was in a shopping mall so I could walk around the shops. When I got bored I started taking photos of the venue where David was going to be appearing but the security guard asked me what I thought I was doing!!! Like as though he couldn't tell I said a film star is coming into that shop!! I don't think he believed me and told me to push off. Taking of photographs are not allowed in the mall. Funny, there was nothing around to say David was appearing until you stand right outside the shop (InfinitelyBetter Bookshop) and they posted a couple of A4 posters of him on the window.
The shop was shut until 4.30 so his fans had to queue outside and for some reason I cannot explain I couldn't bring myself to join the queue. Could it be because most of them were big, burly macho men discussing James Bond and clutching books, dvd covers, etc related to Bond for David to sign and I felt out of place??? I waited until the shop opened and joined the end of the queue. Silly me! I could have been first in the queue! We were let in the shop one at a time so that there are only 3-4 people mingling around.
When it was my turn, I was so excited. It was a long walk to the shop and David was seated at the back with another chap who handles the money. It felt like an eternity to reach him. David is truly a very sweet, soft spoken, polite man who makes you feel so at ease. There are no airs about him. He wasn't as tall as I expected him to be. Maybe he had shrunk??? Anyway, he said hello to me with his beautiful smile and showed me all the photos he had brought with him. I had to buy one so that I can get one of my own for him to sign. There were photos of him with Roger Moore, with Timolty Dalton .There was one of him in ‘The Fly’’ I told him I watched that film last week and asked me if it was on tv and I said I have the dvd of it and I love it especially when he was trapped in the web at the end going ‘help me help me’. I bought one of his pics in License to Kill coming out of the helicopter. While he was signing I sneakily took a photograph. He is so sweet, he asked me who to sign for.
Then I was allowed to bring out my own photo for him to sign. So I pulled out a photo of him I had printed. I said to him 'I love this photo. It is so beautiful'. He looked at it with amazement and said ‘Oh it is an old photo. I don’t remember when and where it was taken but it is old’. By this time there were quite a few people mingling around his desk looking at his photos so I whispered ‘Your daughter took it’. Suddenly he remembered but he couldn’t understand how I knew. So I said ‘I’m a big fan of hers. I love her work. I bought one of her photos from her exhibition last year.’ He couldn’t believe it and wanted to know how I managed to buy a photo from Alex. He said ‘So my daughter must know you.’ So I explained that I had bought it through her website via the internet. He was really fascinated and started asking me questions like whether I saw the photos displayed on the internet. I told him his website has an advert for Alex’s website and he was really happy about that.
I had another photo I had printed for him to sign but I had to buy another one of his first. By this time he was getting busy. I wanted a bit of privacy with him as I wanted to ask him about Alex so I pretended to look around the shop and let the people behind me see him first. Then I bought another photo of his from Voyage to the bottom of the sea. Before I brought out my own photo for him to sign I said ‘You’re not going to believe this, I brought a photo of you at the premiere of License to kill (The one of him with young Alex)’ He didn’t believe me at first, but when I showed him, his face lit up.!!!
Pointing to Alex, he said ‘Do you know who this is?’ It was too funny.!! I said ‘Yes! I know! she is your daughter Alexandra.’
He said I seem to know a lot. He was sooooo happy and proud of Alex. He wanted people to see her. He showed it to the chap next to him and said ‘This is my daughter’ Then he asked me who do I want the photo signed to. I showed him a piece of paper that said ‘fanofalex.com’ He read it slowly and then suddenly he remembered ‘Oh, fanofalex!! Who started it?’ So I said Becky.
While he was signing, I said ‘I’m really surprised you know about fanofalex.’ He just smiled. I think Alex must have told him. Then I thought, this is my big chance, it’s now or never so out came the question I have been dying to ask . ‘How’s Alexandra?’ He said ‘She’s doing very well. She’s very well’ He said it with a big smile and really meant it. Then I said ‘ Is she planning anymore exhibitions of her photographs?’ He said yes, July 15th in LA same gallery (White room). I told him I’m thinking of buying another photo of hers. He was very happy.
We shook hands and said goodbye. I said ‘July 15th’ just to make sure I had the date right. He confirmed. July 15th!! As I was walking away he shouted to me ‘Her birthday is July 10th’ I put a ‘thumbs up’ sign to him and said ‘and yours is May 20th’. He said something like you know a lot about me. I said ‘You are a lovely family’ and he said ‘thank you’
2 comments:
you said you bought one of her photos from her exhibition through her website via the internet..Can I ask you which one you brought and how you went about getting one? I heard they are around $1500.00 can you tell me why they are so much?
Um, the reason they are so expensive is that they are art. And artists need to support themselves. Its their bread and butter.
Post a Comment