Serving Celebrities: The Complete Collection Read Online Free PDF Page A

film.” I kindly asked her to step out into the hall with me because I didn’t want to bother the other patrons, since this scene was becoming more interesting than the film. She hemmed and hawed, but I finally got her into the hallway. “I’m giving you two choices,” I told her, in the cinema hallway, “You can go back and sit in your seat or you can leave but those are the only two choices.” She glared at me defiantly, “Do you know who I am?” she asked. “FAYE DUNAWAY!!!” Bette Davis shrieked again in my mind and Johnny again broke up laughing. “And who do you think you are?” she asked me. Blocking the door to the theater, I said, “I’m the guy who isn’t going to let you back in and who will call the police, first and Entertainment Tonight, second, so if you don’t want to get arrested and have your face all over the Indie Wire (the festival’s gossip rag) tomorrow, you’ll go in there and sit in your seat.”
    Pissed, but complacent, she went back into the theater and I followed her to her seat. Of course, the next three times I went into the theater, she was either standing or sitting in the aisle. Each time she went back to her hated seat when she spotted me, as Bette Davis continued to scream, “FAYE DUNAWAY!!!” in my head and Johnny broke up laughing. Eventually, the film ended and Faye left, her assistant secretly apologized to me for her behavior and I went to take a dump (actually, I can’t remember if I did or not... I only wrote that as a tribute to Charles Bukowski).
    Elton John, Shoot the Piano Player

    W orking at the Sunset Marquis Hotel could be filled with surprises. One night I finished my shift as the Villa Butler and came down to the main hotel to turn some checks in to the cashier. As I entered the front lobby, I saw there was a large boisterous crowd gathered around the piano. Walking by, I was surprised to find Elton John sitting at the piano, tickling the ivories and talking to some of his friends.
    I dropped off my checks, but instead of going downstairs to the locker-room, I slipped back to the foyer and listened as Elton played songs for his guests. He had stopped most of the traffic entering and exiting the hotel but since it was after eleven in the evening, there wasn’t much anyways.
    Elton was laid back and enjoying himself. He played some of his songs like Your Song and Crocodile Rock and some Beatles songs and even a little Frank Sinatra. Some songs he finished and some he didn’t -- stopping to talk and joke with his friends. I couldn’t believe I was standing there, just listening and watching this superstar hang out with his buddies. At one point, the piano player that worked for the hotel arrived, holding a glass of water. He also stood watching, as I was, or so I thought…
    The piano player never really considered himself a part of the hotel staff; he didn’t socialize with us and the only time I ever saw him not at the piano was the half hour that he took for dinner in the employee’s cantina, downstairs. I didn’t have much to do with him the whole time I was there. Once, before Elton, when I was working in the restaurant as a waiter, I passed through the lobby and spotted two guests napping on the couches in front of where he was playing. Trying to have a little a fun on a hectic night, I went up to him and suggested that he play something “bouncy” for his audience. He turned to me and dismissively said, “Do you want to play? Can you play? Just what I thought -- I play what I want to play!” I gave him a “whatever” shake of my head and went back to my party of eighteen, that I was working alone, except for a bus boy. The piano player was a wet-blanket in my opinion.
    Still holding his water, the piano player spotted me from across the room and came over. He leaned over to me, as Elton played Candle in the Wind , and asked “What’s this?” I smiled and answered, “It’s cool, isn’t it?” He didn’t seem to see the coolness.