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Cute story: Decades ago, Kurt’s son Boston was in a San Fernando Valley children’s theater group with my daughter Cara. Goldie and Kurt came to the parent performance and afterward everyone went to a picnic in North Hollywood park. Sweet regular folks. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/movies/kurt-russell-goldie-hawn-christmas.html?referringSource=articleShare
That's it. That's the story. Just a picnic. They even introduced themselves like they had to. "Hi, I'm Kurt, this is Goldie." Same think happened, by the way, when I met Hal Holbrook and Dixie Carter at a party. "Hi, I'm Hal, this is Dixie."
I told them I was Cary Grant.
I told them I was Cary Grant.
This brings up an uncomfortable truth about my career in film and TV-- despite being surrounded by and working with hundreds of actors over 25 years, I was and still am hopelessly intimidated in their presence. It's a side effect of my massive social anxiety.
Anyone who's encountered me at a con, seen me on a panel, listened to me on a podcast, might be surprised to learn that I'm a quaking anxious nightmare in ordinary social and typical work situations.
In public I step outside my anxiety to become "Gerry Conway," a gregarious, (hopefully) friendly figure. In private, with people I don't know at parties, premieres, on TV and film sets (but not, thank my career gods, writers' rooms) I am mute and withdrawn and shy beyond words.
This is particularly true with actors, artists and craftsmen I hold in awe. On my first TV assignment, "Father Dowling" I hung out with the crew and barely spoke with the actors, though Tom Bosley was quite friendly and often talked with me.
Same with every other show I worked on. Probably most of the actors I "worked with" concluded I was an egotist too self-important to be bothered with them. (One crew member I dated early on in my career told me other crew members thought I was "aloof." Truth? I was terrified.)
This self-imposed intimidation was so bad I worked on L&O CI with the amazing @vincentdonofrio for five years and barely exchanged a few dozen words with him. God knows what he thought.
So, when I tell stories about actors like Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn behaving like just folks, it's with deep gratitude and an awareness that they have to live with the reality that "ordinary people" react to them as if they're super beings.
Sadly it falls to stars to put *us* at ease-- and over a lifetime, when you think about it, that's its own burden of a kind of reverse social anxiety. Or maybe they're just doing what I do at conventions-- concealing my social anxiety behind a gregarious persona.
Anyway, next time you meet a Legend remember they're probably just as intimidated to meet you as you are to meet them. They're just better at hiding it.
