My Trip To See Ariadne Meyers Continued.....

Ari says hello to me and extends her hand to shake mine.   The problem was my hand was shaking all by itself.   I've been fortunate over the years to meet many "celebrities" but on this occasion, I was a nervous wreck and I was embarassed as all heck shaking like I was.     Ari asks me to take off my sunglasses (which I didn't even know I was still wearing) and She notices the hand trembling.   Thankfully She seems to find it both amusing and endearing that she'd be the reason for instigating such a reaction.

I calm myself down and thank her sincerely for coming out to say hello to me.   I never in a million years expected that to happen!     She tells me she's seen my site and that I did a lovely job putting AriMeyers.com together.   She adds that she couldn't believe that I flew all the way from Virginia Beach to Rochester just to see her.   I'm delighted she is genuinely flattered by my coming to see her versus thinking I'm some kind of a stalker (lol).

I tell Ari She should be used to fans going nuts over meeting her; hoping I'm not the first to act a little star-struck around her.   She surprises me by replying that she doesn't get approached that often and that she's a very private person.   I take the opportunity to boast that I think she's one of the best actresses I've ever seen. That I wish She was doing more TV And Movie work and being featured in the trade magazines.   She replies by saying it's her choice of lifestyle and the decisions she's made that has played a large part in that.   I remark that Hollywood should be busting down her door to have her appear in big screen movies and she smiles.

As Ari begins signing my photograph, She spots how tan she looks in it.   She notes how she used to love being in the sunlight but that her skin is paying the price for it now.   I say nonsense and mutter under my breath that she looks gorgeous but I don't know whether she actually heard me say that.   As she returns the now signed picture to me, Ari offers to buy me a drink and leads me to the theater cafe so we can sit down and chat. Now I don't normally consume anything stronger than Diet Coke but I asked the bartender for a beer;   hoping that would calm whatever nerves I still had.

We talked about my web site for her and how I put the site together.   That while I had seen all of her tv performances (except for "Haunted"), I didn't own a VCR back then to record and save them.   That I now had to track down copies of her films and tv shows in order to create video clips to share on my site.   She says "I bet you haven't seen "Shakma" Andrew?"   I reply by saying that while that killer baboon movie scares me silly, I've seen it many times and that I (of course) own the video.   I ask her what the heck was with that outfit she was wearing in the movie and she laughs and replies that she was supposed to be some kind of princess or something.

She tell me that none of the actors were ever anywhere near a real baboon and that a puppet was used whenever the creature and the cast shared a scene together.   The only time a real animal was used was when it was filmed alone.   I mention that the movie recently came out on DVD overseas and she laughs and tells me not to buy it.   I tell her it's supposed to be the "Uncut" version and that I already ordered it because I wanted to be able to make better quality clips and videocaptures from it for my web site.

I mention I had just recently obtained a copy of her movie "Kids Don't Tell" and that whenever she cries in a movie, it really gets to me.   That she's quite a remarkable actress and I don't say that about that many other actresses.   I add that while I "like" a number of "stars", there are less than a handful that I've followed their careers with interest .... let alone for 20 years.   She laughs and says don't remind her that it's been that long.

I asked her what's up with all the different spellings of her name?   Why does her mother go by the last name "Meyer" and Ari goes by "Meyers" ?   She says that's just the way her crazy Mom is and she laughs.   She says that for some reason, her name gets misspelled a lot like in the Stanley Cartoon closing credits but that nobody would ever notice.   I say I did and she laughs again and says they're being fixed.   I show her that the "Theophilus North" Playbill listed one of her movie credits wrong.   That the film isn't called "Confessions: THE Faces Of Evil" but is (and we both say it out loud in unison) "Confessions: TWO Faces Of Evil".   She seems impressed at my Ari Knowledge.

I pointed out that different magazines over the years listed her as being born in Puerto Rico while others listed her place of birth as New York City.   She answers that she was indeed born in San Juan and asks me if I had any other questions for her?   I joked that I had a million questions for her but that I didn't want to overload her all at once.   She asks me what I did for a living and what brought a New York boy to end up in Virginia Beach.   I told her about my working in the family printing business and that our claim to fame was that we produced the Playbills for Radio City Music Hall and so on and so on about myself.

I'm flattered and amazed that I'm sitting on a bar stool in Rochester New York chatting away with Ari Meyers!   I told her my friends wouldn't believe it so could I please get a picture taken with her to prove I really met her.   She says of course and grabs one of the actors from the play who happened to walk by and she hands him my camera.   He takes the picture and I joke to him that his shot better be good because it will be available online at my site in a couple of days.   Ari panics a bit and says her hair's a mess because of the wig she was wearing earlier during the play.   I assure her she looks stunning (see for yourself below) and this time I knew that she had heard my compliment :-)