Brush with Fame, Episode 1.

In this popular feature of our blog, we will share the stories that define our lives: our interactions with celebrities. The first tale we will tell is one very close to our hearts: Tim Curry.

At the end of April we were informed that, "that guy from that weird transvestite alien movie that you guys like is going to be at the LA Festival of Books". Our first thought was, "which weird transvestite alien movie? That's half of the movies we like!" Once we narrowed it down to being "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", and the doctor himself, Tim Curry, we knew we had to go.

The LA Festival of Books was a two day fair that featured many authors, actors, and activists (there were actually no activists that we remember; we just added it for flow). They were there to promote their material and meet fans. Luckily for us, we live close enough to Los Angeles that it was no problem to convice someone to take us.

On April 28, 2008, we enter the LA Festival of Books with the explicit purpose of meeting Tim Curry.

But the thing was, Tim Curry is not an author. It turns out that he was going to be interviewing John Landis, who was no author that we had heard of either. A quick Wikipedia search lead us to the finding that John Landis is an American film director responsible for "The Blue Brothers", "An American Werewolf in London", "Animal House". and more. However, neither of us had seen any of these movies, so we still just wanted TC. Anyways, it turns out that someone had written a biography of John Landis and for no explainable reason, they chose Tim Curry to interview both John Landis and the author of the book.

We passed the day away waiting, eaiting frozen lemonade, getting free Bibles, and seeing Harry Winkler read his new children's book aloud.

Finally, it was time. We waited in front of Tim Curry's stage for about an hour to make sure we got front row seats. And then. There he was. Well, it wasn't really his time to come on. He just walked in front of the stage to get back to the backstage area. But still, we caught a glimpse of him.

We were sitting next to a lady who very luckily for her had both an "An American Wereworld in London" and a "RHPS" tattoo. Can you imagine how happy she was when she found out that Tim was going to interview John?

But then it really was time for Tim to come out. The interview was nice enough and lasted about an hour. He even spoke about himself a few times and mentioned his infamous role. A memorable moment was when Tim opened it up to questions from the audience:

Creepy Audience Member Speaking to John Landis: I show your film, "Innocent Blood" to everyone who comes to my apartment.
Tim Curry (interuppting): Do you ever get laid?

The audience member was shamed. By Tim Curry. That's embarrassing.

So after the interview, John Landis stuck around to sign copies of his book. But that sneaky Tim Curry was literally rushed offstage by a body guard and ran into a golf cart and was quickly driven away.

It was an honor to be in his presence.

Here is a photo we took of him on that day. Please pay special attention to the bleach stain on his shoulder.