Saturday, October 29, 2022
I
Dream of ……
By
Steven P. Marini
Have you ever met a movie star before the person was a
movie star?
A long time
ago in a galaxy far away, I was a thirty-year old married man taking a one-year
leave of absence from work to complete a Masters in Educational Technology from
Boston University. That’s a small clue. Have you guessed the star yet?
I was given a
Graduate Assistantship, which is a form of financial aid. I had to work fifteen
hours a week in the Educational Technology Department along with several grad
and undergrad students. Among them was my future movie star.
She was very
tall (six feet, I believe) and strikingly beautiful of face and figure,
including great big……..dimples. Hey, what did you think I was going to say?
Clean it up. Her style of dress might be
labeled a cross between Early Fidel Castro and Disneyland. A typical day might
find her in baggy green fatigue pants, a Mickey Mouse t-shirt and different
colored socks. Now you’ve got the gender. Have you got her name yet?
Although I
never had a personal conversation with her, there was usually talk among the
few students on duty at any time. A memorable group talk was dominated by this
young lady about the movie Carrie. What struck me was the depth of her interest
in the movie. She spoke of Carrie, the character, as if she was a real person. I
guess that for a future movie star, you must really have to be able to get into
it like that.
A few years
after my B.U. experience, I ran into a former colleague named Mary. We talked
about the people we remembered and she mentioned a girl named ……… who had
become a model in New York. I wasn’t surprised because of her beauty and
height.
Several years
later, I was attending a conference in Colorado Springs. As it turned out, it
was Oscar night, the presenting of the Academy Awards. That’s something I have
little interest in, but I decided to leave it running on the hotel room TV
while I nursed a drink and directed my attention to something else. Something
happened, however, that caught my attention. A young woman was announced as the
winner for the Best Supporting Actress for her role in The Accidental Tourist
and, as she made her acceptance speech, I focused on the TV and this striking
young lady. I couldn’t place her, but I think you know where I am going.
The sound of
her voice stunned me. It was the same voice I had heard many years ago talking
about Carrie. Surely some of you have identified her by now. When I studied her
face closely on the TV, it all came together for me. It was Geena Davis. She
had gone from a college kid in fatigue pants to a glamorous movie star. I was dumfounded when I learned that she had
also been in The Fly and Beetlejuice, both of which I had seen and had not
recognized her.
I also learned
of another coincidence with Geena. My alma mater is a very small school in New
Hampshire called New England College. I graduated in 1973. Geena Davis attended
NEC in 1974 and 1975, and we met up at Boston University in 1976 working
financial aid in the same department. I told my wife, “She must be chasing me.”
