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Stacey's Account of the GH Fan Weekend Event
July, 1999 (curlyqgrl@aol.com)

Just recovering from my trip to LA.....we went up on Thursday, stopped at the Hollywood Book & Poster (they carry pics of different actors, including some from GH), then off to take my friend to see Universal City Walk, then off to check into the Sportsman's Lodge. Joan joined us, had a nice evening, dinner with friends.

Friday is really the start of the weekend. First off is the soap boutique held at the hotel. Various GH and other soap merchandise is sold, including pictures. Then we hung out at the pool for the rest of the afternoon. Lisa Cerasoli came by and signed autographs and took pictures with fans, she is soooo sweet! She is doing the pilot episode of "Oh, Grow Up!" with Rena Sofer. Lisa is open to returning to GH if they are willing to give her a storyline. I met her fan club president, Valerie, from Club Cerasoli - she is a real sweetheart. John is also on the new show with Rena and is Lisa's boyfriend, he hung out with her throughout the weekend and is very cute!

The first event of the weekend was Kin Shriner's. This was put on by Jim Warren (PS - Jim was very nice this weekend!). His guests were Lynn Herring, Carly Shroeder, Peter Hanson, Susan Brown and Anders Hove. Kin was very funny, joking that he was hoping Lee would die so Scotty would have all those challenging grief scenes. Carly is a peacemaker, always concerned with how the other actors felt. Kin commented on how he added into the show Scotty hating Sigmund, Lynn teased him about this. The chemistry between Carly and Kin is very real, as is the relationship. Kin also told a funny story about the one and only time he had Carly for the day - she got bitten by a dog! (it was funny as he was only entrusted with the child this one time and he took a lot of razing about this incident). I got the feeling that he really enjoys working with Lynn, and is enjoying the Scotty and Lucy storyline. Lynn commented that she didn't think they would be able to keep the baby. Kin and Anders are roommates and kidded each other quite a bit. It was reported that Anders is on contract with GH as Faison till October. He did mention that he would be interested in an appearance on AMC if asked. This was a very funny event, Kin seemed very relaxed and at ease with the fans. Next onto the PC event, this was hysterically funny. The line of the day was when Jon Lindstrom commented that he was waiting for PC to be renamed "Scotty's World" and later added it was "Scotty's world and they just lived in it". I will do a complete transcript of the Q&A from this event and the GH event so won't try to do it from memory (a friend is sending a copy of these events that she videotaped). It was great to see Kimberlin Brown, she should be a great addition. The behind the scenes people of PC were introduced and there job function. Hope Williams is the PC on set producer and seemed to be very popular with the actors. There were about 200 people at this event. Nicholas Pryor was very popular, and was Grandville (DV) - he was very nice! More on this event once I received the tape of it.

Saturday, we went to Julian and Jackie's event. This was a very nice affair held in the gazebo area of the hotel. It was decorated very festive with balloons, and had a candy theme for "Shameless Candy Thieves". First, there was a very small private meet and greet with Julian for the members of his fan club. Julian was very warm and open, introducing himself to each of the fans and answering questions. Julian enjoys working with Ingo, and the scenes between Jerry and his parents and would like to explore more about Jerry's background/past and his relationship with his parents. When asked if he would like to see Bobbie and Jerry get married, he responded that he would like that relationship to develop slowly as Jerry is commitment shy. Some fans suggested they would like to see Jerry and Bobbie get involved in an adventure storyline with Faison. Surprisingly, Julian is English and his accent is different from Jerry's. After this portion, fans worked in teams to find children's jaxs that were hidden in the garden (my girlfriend and I won and received a silver jax on a chain).

Jackie arrived, looking very slim and gorgeous. She told the audience about Julian's screen test that both her and Ingo wanted Julian for the role! She was asked who her favorite relationship was, and she really enjoys working with Julian and prefers to focus on her current storyline. Much laughter occurred when they were asked the point of the video shown during the Nurse's Ball, they agreed with the audience that it was pointless. Julian reported he took a lot of teasing when it aired. Various cast members reported that they worked 16-20 hours per day taping the Nurse's Ball episodes. They each signed autographs and took pictures with fans and were very relaxed. This was a very nicely done first event! Very classy! Congratulations to Leah and Kathy from the Stone Zone, and to Julius from the "Z" Society (Jackie's fan club). There was a charity silent auction as well.

Next we were off to Real's first event put on by Linda and Nina. The audience was thrilled when Maurice surprised them by casually strolling up the aisle, as people realized it was him, the screaming started! Vanita also came, she looks spectacular and was literally glowing (she's just had a baby and really looks incredible, she will return to GH in 2 weeks). Funny moment was when Real was asked if he was ever going to "take Sonny down", he joked about his never ending threats to Sonny, then asked the audience if they had seen Maurice's biceps (he later had Maurice show them to the audience, quite impressive!). He joked that Maurice always recommends to his fellow actors "to go deep", which was pretty funny considering all Taggert gets to do is threaten Sonny repeatedly but he does try to "go deep" with the threat to take Sonny down! Maurice was asked when Sonny was going to realize that Hannah was just a Brenda clone and he didn't really address that, instead he made a comment about Sonny losing his mind, and is very interested in doing a manic-depressive storyline. Real played "The Dating Game" with three audience members, this was a hoot! Some of the questions were very risqué and drew a lot of laughter from the audience. Real teased Vanita about taking the baby on auditions already, she reported he is a beautiful baby and she is madly in love with him!

Then off to Wally's event, where we discovered Lisa C., Rena, Patricia Healy sitting in the audience! Kurth & Taylor rocked as always and did several new songs. They are starting a Kurth and Taylor charity foundation to raise money for children and their families. They also announced a new record to be released (my impression was this fall), they are doing a music video to go with the screen play that Wally has written (the story sounds wonderful!), and many of the songs were written with the movie in mind! After K&T played, Lisa, Rena, and Patricia all joined Wally on stage - also Jon - the guy Rena co-stars with in the new series. Wally reported that Brook Lynn would be coming for a visit and he figured she would be aged to around 5. Rena looked surprised by this and commented that Lois would never permit her daughter to live with the Q's and would have to be dead first (this gave me goosebumps as if they ever do decide to bring Ned's daughter home permanently I fear they would kill Lois off....amazing how sad I would still find that even all these years after her departure!).

Patricia joked a lot of about wanting a storyline with Ned (when asked which leading man she would like to see Tammy involved with), she is a very funny lady! Many of the fans commented to Lisa how much they missed her, she reported being open to returning and is currently signed up to do only the pilot episode of "Oh Grow Up".

Sunday was another fun-filled day....the luncheon was great! I loved the Q&A and will do a detailed write-up of this (just heard the tape of this is in the mail!) so more on that to come. Questions submitted by fans I thought the luncheon was just as smoothly run as last year and the lines seemed to move even quicker (except for the Wally & Nancy Lee line which was HUGE!). I met Tava (Chloe) and Lisa V (Hannah) and Michael (Juan), they all seemed very nice and very excited to be on GH. It was great to see Sarah Brown (she wasn't there last year due to having her baby), she looked great! I took a ton of pics and I'm off to pic them up this afternoon! (Cross your fingers, new camera with a new bigger zoom lens!).

Steve Burton's event was one of the very funniest, he and Billy Warlock are hysterical together. I would love to see AJ written with more humor as Billy could definitely pull it off. Steve thought that Robin was written off well, felt that made sense storyline wise. He also thought it was a good idea for Jason to give up Michael as "something needed to happen" in the storyline. They both agreed that NO WAY would Lucky be recast! That Jonathan was simply irreplaceable. They commented on Tony Geary being definitely opposed to any recast and they would feel sorry for any actor trying to step into Jonathan's shoes, they also commented that would be pretty funny to be on the set the first day if Tony was forced to work with a Lucky re-cast. Jonathan was asked about a return and does not have any immediate plans to come back. The guys teased him about coming back to the set for free haircuts, he does come back to visit his friends. They all reported really liking Tyler and saying he was very funny and they all missed him.

Jonathan thanked the audience for voting him as one of the top choices for Aniken (Sp?) in the next Star Wars movie in an online poll and said that kind of exposure really does help an actor. He has finished an independent movie (originally titled Purple Haze but currently being re-named). He is currently going on other auditions. When asked if he would return to "finish" up the storyline, he commented that he had stayed an extra 3 months to wrap it up and because he was enjoying his work with Becky in the Liz and Lucky storyline so much. He did watch that last week with everyone grieving over Lucky's death.

We took a dinner break, actually didn't go to Maurice's event as we had volunteered to help with set-up at Becky's event. This was a very classy affair, some of Becky's dresses were on display on mannequin's, her dress sketches with fabric swatches were available for sale as well as many beautiful pictures of her. Amber and Michelle Van Jean (the writer who created Liz and Lucky), and Jonathan were her special guests. When asked about embarrassing moments, Becky commented on the scene when they were taping L&L2's first kiss at the boxcar and she pulls Lucky up saying something to the effect that she wouldn't drop him (then proceeds to drop him out of the boxcar - this is on the TK Blooper tape). When fans asked about Liz's lack of grieving, Michelle reported that Liz's grief was not over - Becky commented that the grief scenes are harder to play. When asked about Liz and Nik pairing, I got the feeling that in the future Becky would like to see Liz move on with her life (as an actress I imagine that would be more interesting to be involved in a storyline that to be in character limbo with nothing to do mope).

Becky looked beautiful in her long white off the shoulder dress, she was very sweet and was very touched by all the fan support. The friendship between her and Jonathan was obvious. Have to say though her boyfriend (John?) is absolutely gorgeous and a great guy, he worked all weekend, I saw him helping out throughout the weekend! It was fun to meet Becky's aunt, Ginny, and her mom, Debbie. She obviously comes from a very strong family and they seem very tight. Her aunt will be running her fan club, her mom is her manager and I get the feeling they really look out for Becky's interests. She even had cousins there helping with the different tables. She's very lucky to have this kind of family support and I think that is why she is so down-to earth. When asked what storyline she was currently writing, Michelle reported the Luke & Felicia adventure. I later asked her if Luke will get back together with Laura at any point in the future and she said that it would be a long road back for them - I'm sure looking forward to that! Michelle also wrote the Kevin/Ryan storyline.

During the live auction, Amber was a hoot! She bribed and cajoled the audience into bidding higher with promises of performing dances - this was a big audience hit. She was very animated and really got into the auction. The TK Blooper tape went for over $300 (and no sorry I didn't get it but the person who did is in the Brigade and said she may make copies of it available as a RAIN fundraiser. She is off on a business trip so I'm sure we will be hearing about this later), two studio tours auctioned for $1200 each, Lucky's shirt was auction (they commented that it smelled like Jonathan - that really increased the bidding).

Again, this year was a wonderful weekend of events...great fun! The actors were ALL very charming, not a stinker in the bunch.

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