74 07 23 - On This Day in De History
The first preview night of "Beginner's Luck" at the Hayloft Dinner Theater in Lubbock, TX.
Here's De at the 87 10 25 Convention in LA telling a funny story about it.
De: Oh I wanted to say, is Phil Weyland in the house? Hi Phil, how are you? Phil Weyland called me before I came down. He said I want to come down, he said I’m lonesome today, he said too much William Shatner fellowship. Oh there you are. Oh that’s good because I have a nice little joke to read. Oh that reminds me. I met Phil a number of years ago in Lubbock, Texas. I was down there to do a play and Phil directed the play that I was in, and it was quite an experience. I hadn’t been on a stage for quite a number of years, and it was a very nervous experience for me because I was in every scene in the play.
During the course of this play an odd thing happened. I have really forgotten this play, practically, but there was a scene where- it concerned a divorce; I’d divorced my wife and realized I’d made a mistake and I was trying to make it up to her again, trying to get in her good graces, and she finally invited me back to the house. And I was having quite a nice time, we were having a few drinks, and I feigned the fact that I fell and injured my ankle so I could spend the night there.
So, she went upstairs to get some blankets, and in the meantime I quickly undressed on stage. And I had a gold necklace around my neck that Carolyn had given me for I don’t know which one of those many anniversaries that we’ve shared together. And when I started to take off this shirt, I pulled the necklace off. And it was a theater in the round, more or less, it was a square stage even though it was in the round, and the stage was very unique, the stage lifted at the end of an act. It went upstairs. They just lifted the whole thing upstairs, and the dressing rooms were upstairs.
But anyhow, this necklace came off, and I saw it roll right to the foot of the people sitting there. And here I am taking off my pants, and I got so upset that I pulled my underwear shorts down. True. And I mooned the whole west side. Oh God, the things you do when you’re nervous.
At the end of this play each night they had us do something, which I didn’t care too much to do after being on the stage for two and a half hours, but you had to come downstairs and sign programs for people. And I was signing these programs after dressing hurriedly and coming downstairs to do this and sitting, and after being there about 45 minutes, suddenly I looked up and Phil Weyland is standing there. I said, “What are you doing? Do you want my autograph?” And he said, “No, I just wanted to tell you your fly is open.”
