Anna David

I can’t decide if it’s inappropriate or not to share this right now but I did have a very nice Patrick Swayze experience once. Back in my former life, when I worked for Premiere (a hellish job, but that’s another story), I was assigned a story on him pegged to a few movies he had coming out. Even though these things tended to take place over meals (you’ve read all those celebrity profiles, right? Where the writer comments extensively, especially if it’s a thin-verging-on-anorexic actress, on how much the person eats or, if it’s a guy, how incredibly down-to-earth he is with the waiter — that kind of thing). Anyway, it was the only time that I arranged one of those things and the publicist said, “He can’t meet you in public because he literally gets mobbed like you wouldn’t believe. So come to our office.”

I went to their office because back then I was a publicist’s bitch (part of what made that job so hellish btw) and we sat in this conference room and did our interview (which you can read here). He was very sweet and cool but he chain-smoked throughout the entire thing and after 13 years of hardcore nicotine addiction, I had quit smoking maybe two or three months before. So while I was interviewing him, we kept going back to talking about smoking and how I had quit (if you must know, I did a 12-step program where, once you quit, you’re known as “smober” — and that’s creepy and weird enough that of course he was interested in hearing more about it).

So we’re done with the interview and walking to our cars and I mention how the publicist had said that he gets mobbed in public and he tells me it really is out of control and then he goes, “You want to see it?”

Of course I do so we walk across the street and we’re in this part of Beverly Hills where the street (I think it’s Beverly Dr.) kind of goes up. I can’t explain it but it’s this weird touristy thing and anyway we walk over to that and he is, indeed, mobbed like nothing I’ve ever seen before. People are God damn giddy as hell and it’s something of a hectic scene so he just goes, “Follow me” and we retreat into this weird little alcove where no one can see us and we proceed to talk for hours. There were people semi-milling around and he even said he thought he saw paparazzi taking our picture but I never saw anything about that and we just hung out and chatted about everything under the sun for he next few hours.

What made it more surreal was that I hadn’t been on TV yet but randomly, an agent had seen my picture in Premiere like the week before and called me to say he represented hosts and he was going to be in L.A. and we’d agreed to meet in the restaurant of his hotel at 6 pm that day. And that hotel happened to be across the street from where Patrick and I were sitting. So at about 5:30, I tell Patrick I have to go meet with this agent guy and he asks me where he works and I tell him and he goes, “I’m represented there! What’s his name?” So I tell him and he goes, “I love that guy! Tell him to come here and meet us!” So then I call the agent guy and, with Patrick watching me, say, “Hey, want to meet across the street from where we were supposed to? And by the way, I’m sitting with a friend of yours…Patrick Swayze.” The agent is like, “Okay but I don’t know Patrick Swayze” and Patrick’s looking at me and going, “God, I love that guy! Tell him hi!” Anyway, it was weird and confusing and it turned out Patrick was thinking of another guy at the agency with the same first name and the point is that the agent came with his colleague and they ended up representing me for a few years and our signing meeting just happened to take place with Patrick Swayze there, being cool and sweet the whole time.

That’s really the story. He was just about the nicest guy ever. And since many of my high school years had been spent focused on Johnny Castle and how he could put me in any corner he wanted, it was really quite cool.

Also, he drove a DeLorean.

Also, unrelated:
I have a *big announcement* coming tomorrow. Stay tuned…