Blog :: Celebrities Celebrity!

I was amused by the article in the Bee yesterday about the premiere screening of Revenge of the Sith.  George Lucas is originally from Modesto (though the general impression has been that he'd like to forget it) and threw his hometown a bone with a pre-screening of the latest Star Wars Edition.  Full tickets were $250 (benfitting the new Performing Arts Center apparently) and inluded the red carpet treatement with Champagne, dessert, and ... CELEBRITIES!

Celebrity guests — including original trilogy Luke Skywalker actor Mark Hamill — have lined up to walk the red carpet.

Now that is cool.  I can't name another thing Mark Hamill has done, but he is Luke Skywalker.  The list got more , um, interesting after that.

Those scheduled to join them on the red carpet are Modesto resident and Broadway legend Carol Channing,

That's nice.  Carol is a nice old lady who can still kick up her heels and sing!  (Last summer she showed up at MoBand and led the crowd in singing "Hello Dolly".)  She's really embraced Modesto since moving here to marry her childhood sweetheart.  Makes for a nice story and she's a crowd pleaser.

third-season "Bachelor" Andrew Firestone,

Ok.  I've never heard of him but probably people will recognise his face...

Kate MacMurray (the daughter of "My Three Sons" actor Fred MacMurray)

Hang on.  Is this implying that Kate MacMurray isn't an actor?  Google says: Your search - site:imdb.com "Kate MacMurray" - did not match any documents. I guess she's related to a celebrity at least, but this is starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel... Not.  Lots more "celebrities" will be there including Marieh Delfinio (from the spectacular piece of cultural cinematography Jeepers Creepers II) and that chick from Coyote Ugly.

Now I don't mean to run down any of these two-bit actors (who undoubtedly are talented, attractive etc etc etc).  More to the point is that the perception exists that Modesto is still hicksville USA.  I happen to disagree with that perception, but when the newspaper of record raves about "Celebrities" loosely defined as people who may be related to people who used to be famous, it certainly does nothing to dispel our reputation.

It's not all bad of course.  At least my brother can still go to the party and try to pick up on Natalie Portman's best friend's brother's niece ... Yeah something like that.

Posted on May 14th 2005, 10:11 AM