Tina & Gorgina Spelvin

A true legend… and I was there.

Last Wednesday night, I found myself fighting the Hollywood Bowl
traffic to get to Sunset Blvd. and Book Soup to meet up with my
friend Nina (Hartley) and listen to the one and only Georgina Spelvin
read an excerpt from her autobiography “The Devil Made Me Do It”. I
got there about 5 minutes after the reading had started. Ms.
Spelvin’s read was riveting, not only becuase the words she was
reading were brilliantly written, but her voice is smooth and sexy as
ever. When we were leaving, to have dinner and a post reading
discussion, Nina and I were stopped by a few polite fans and
something suddenly occurred to me. This was only my second visit to
Book Soup and both times I was able to meet heroes of mine, though
heroes for very different reasons.

I consider myself very lucky to
have met Ms. Spelvin, and if she does a reading in your area, I
highly recommend going. The first time I went to Book Soup was also
for a book reading and it was the first time I was ever recognized. I
had gone there to get my book signed by a true icon of the 1960’s. It
was about 3 months after ‘Face Dance’ was released and I really
didn’t expect anyone to know me, let alone the author himself. I was
third in line to have my book signed, when he looked up and spotted
me. He waved me over, leaned forward over the table and said, “I know
you, your name is Tina, right?” I nodded the affirmative, too
dumbstruck to speak. He said, “I’ll sign your book if you sign
something for me.” With that we traded autographs (my first) and
pleasantries and I left the store on a real high. Timothy Leary had
just recognized me! This business does have it’s perks.

I’m on chapter 3 of Georgina’s book and it’s a great read so far. I
was surprized to see that we have a person in common… we both met
Bob Fosse, though she got to dance for him, I was just an extra in
Star 80.

Talk about a small world.

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