Wednesday, October 31, 2012

These days if I walked into the Skyway at the Peabody I would ask for a party of one. The trip withi




George Hamilton is what he is. And what he is sorry Dos Equis is the most interesting man in the world. So without further ado here is Memphis's native suntan and the star of La Cage aux Folles George Hamilton talking about everything but shoe shopping with Imelda hotel on line reservation florence Marcos.
hotel on line reservation florence George Hamilton: hotel on line reservation florence I m sorry can you hold on for just a second. (off the phone) Come in? Yes, come in. Do you need me to move? I can go in the other room. (back on the phone) Do not disturb signs: one of my favorite things in the world. The great luxury hotel on line reservation florence hotels have really lost something.
Now you have a mini bar. And if you move anything you ll be charged for it. There s a sign posted with skulls touch a Coca Cola you own it. And everything hotel on line reservation florence is turned away so you have to turn it around just to see what it is. You go looking for what you want to drink and now you own everything in the mini-bar.
George Hamilton: My father was the orchestra leader there and when I was a little boy I knew the ducks personally. In the doors at the Peabody there was like a little closet and you could put your suit in it at night and the valet would pick it up and return it in the morning. Do they still do that?
I learned to live in really good hotels where do not disturb signs meant do not disturb. hotel on line reservation florence In America there were only a very few great hotels and many of them were great from another era. They can all tell you how great they were but not how great they are. Now you have a mini-bar in your room. Or you can go down to the Starbucks. All the style is gone.
And they can t even pronounce concierge correctly. I call and they say, Hello, kun-serge. There was a time when I was convinced that if I ever killed somebody I could simply go to the concierge at the Ritz hotel in Paris and he would say Not a problem sir, what else? Those days are gone with the wind.
George Hamilton: My mother hotel on line reservation florence had this huge lust for life and sense for the outrageous. Most of my early childhood was spent in and around Blytheville, Arkansas and Memphis. My dad gave my mom her first real taste of glamor. That s not true. She d been to a boarding hotel on line reservation florence school in New York in the 1920 s Mrs. Simple s Finishing School but my father really brought glamor into her life. Bandleaders were the rock stars of the day. She was beguiled by all of it. I married a woman named Alana Stewart. hotel on line reservation florence She eventually realized that she wanted that kind of glamor. The glamor of movie stars was on the wane and she wanted a Rock-and-Roll lifestyle. So she married Rod Stewart. I remember seeing her right before that divorce. She had that look only combat veterans get. That million mile stare. That was a whole other era of hedonism.
These days if I walked into the Skyway at the Peabody I would ask for a party of one. The trip within is just this huge thing. I come ready to entertain myself because I see the outrageous in everything.
hotel on line reservation florence When I was a little boy I traveled hotel on line reservation florence with my mother and father hotel on line reservation florence in a bassinet. And I d hear the band practice. I liked the full sound of the orchestra so they put me down next to the bandstand in the bassinet.
I got used to the realities of my father s life. He had to be very practical. He had this band with 20-some-odd men or whatever hotel on line reservation florence and they would travel hotel on line reservation florence everywhere by car. And they would set up every night and do a show. They were an orchestra and dressed in tails to look glamorous. Mother wasn t practical at all. My father had to be. He had to make the dates, drive the distances, show up and do whatever the job was. You had to have discipline. And I ve carried that over into my life. My mother, she didn t have that. She was looking for the next party to happen. hotel on line reservation florence It wasn t about practical or discipline. For her it was whatever s just around the corner is what I m looking for. The next man I meet is going to be the one. It s all going to happen. She was always positive about the future. That s partly because of my grandmother s faith as a Christian Scientist and my grandfather who was a doctor.
George Hamilton: I know. I don t know how this combination happened. But it did, and beautifully. My grandfather started thinking, over the course of his life, that no doctor ever really created health or made anything come alive. All he d done was minister hotel on line reservation florence to the sick.
I ve been in that zone. Changing from I have to do this to I get to do this. A little thought like can shift your whole focus. hotel on line reservation florence It s like, if somebody asks to take a picture I say of course. I ve never said no to an autograph hotel on line reservation florence or a photo. It s over in the time it would take you to say no.
Memphis hotel on line reservation florence Flyer: So here s an unusual question: You ve flown planes, you ve been circled by sharks, you ve gone drinking with Robert Mitchum, your romantic adventures are international full of intrigue and well documented. As an actor you ve played Evel Knievel and gay Zorro. Why aren t you the pitch man for Dos Equis? George Hamilton: Ha! I have seen those commercials. But I don't know. ... I'll tell you something interesting that happened a few nights ago, though. Ten pairs of panties were thrown onstage by ladies in their 70s and 80s. Maybe they think I'm Tom Jones? Chris Sieber hotel on line reservation florence plays Albin in the show, and he can't let that go. He bends down, gets a pair, and put them on. On the back it was written, "Mary Anne, call me." And her number.
Memphis Flyer: Elvis s manager Col. Tom Parker is probably one of the most elusive hotel on line reservation florence personalities in the history of showbusiness. hotel on line reservation florence He was also the best man at your wedding. Can you tell me what he was really like? Evel George
George Hamilton: I was at MGM in late 50 s doing Home from the Hill with Robert Mitchum. I was told You re about to begin at top of the chain. The movie was directed by Vincente Minnelli and there was going to be a major push. It was the end of an era. Studios were still about contract players and we all worked as chattel.
The first day I walked hotel on line reservation florence onto commissary was amazing. There was the inner sanctum. Fred Astaire was sitting there and Carry Grant and Clark Gable and Gary Cooper and Robert Mitchum hotel on line reservation florence who I m working with.
George Hamilton: There was a bar around corner hotel on line reservation florence from MGM. He said the trick wasn t to get up early and go to the studio it was to stay up late and then go in and get it done. He made me stay up all night. hotel on line reservation florence We went from the bar to the studio. He told me to lie down on a camera blanket. He got a camera hotel on line reservation florence blanket from another camera and we slept for about an hour. When they woke us up they gave him a Bloody Mary and they gave me a razor.
Anyway I was told that I d need someone to guide me through this labyrinth of Hollywood. Because hotel on line reservation florence the studio s going to take over and there was this man who worked at MGM Jenson Moses who said Col. Tom Parker s the guy for you. He handles Elvis Presley. Having him would be a great help. So I called Col. Tom and he said, Son I understand what you want and I understand what you need but let me just put it this way: Anything I CAN do for you I SHOULD be doing for Elvis. If you ever get to Hollywood I was finishing up the picture and on the road you see call me. I m at MGM studios. Well, we we got back from location in a few weeks and I was at MGM and I saw Elvis Presley and Tom Parker.
The Colonel said he already had the right deal for me. See these elephants, he asked. And there were literally 1000 elephants there. They were made of paper-mache or something. With fuzzy things. It was all Carnival hotel on line reservation florence stuff. I d never seen anything like it. Anyway, he said, All of these elephants are all being sold today and you are the lucky buyer. You re going to get all of these elephants here for just over $1000.
I sat there thinking this man was crazy. Then I said okay. He said, We ve got a deal. It s the first deal you ve made with me and I ll buy you lunch out of the profits. Then he looked around and said, boys, we ve got a live one.
So we ate lunch. It was all heavy Southern food. And while we were eating people packed these elephants in boxes. And it settled in that I had to give Col. Tom a thousand dollars. For elephants. What the hell was I going to do with elephants?
hotel on line reservation florence I called my brother who was a decorator and said Hey Ummmm So look. I bought all of these elephants from Tom Parker That s Elvis s manager you see. My brother asked if Elvis could sign them but the Colonel said that was a whole other deal and would cost a lot more money. So I asked Col. Tom if he would sign them and he said he could do one or two but not all of them. That would take too much time and I ve got arthritis, he said.
My brother was decorating condominiums in Palm Springs. And he actually managed to place every single one of those elephants in the condominiums he was working on. I doubled my money. Doubled it at least. So I went back to the Colonel and asked him if he had any more of those elephants to sell because my brother and I sold all the ones I d bought from him.
Col. Tom said, Now you re worthy to sit down and talk business with me. And we became the best friends. I moved next to him in Palm Springs. He convinced me to marry my wife. Woman s smarter than you, he said. And I can get it all done in Las Vegas tonight but I want to be home by the evening news.
Elvis was smart. He was not a dumb guy. He d come over and sing gospel music and we d have dinner. And I was at his funeral some years later. I flew in on his airplane the Lisa Marie with the Sweet Inspirations. That was a freaky day when we took him out of Graceland to the cemetery and we were all in the white limousines. hotel on line reservation florence A very, very freaky day. Things happened that I ll never forget. The stewardess on the plane told me that his milkshake mug broke that day on landing. And when they picked me up they said the blanket hotel on line reservation florence in back, in his bed had caught fire. And I saw for myself, when they brought his body out of Graceland this huge branch of a tree just cracked. hotel on line reservation florence Not some little willow. There was a weird energy happening there and you could feel it. After the funeral we all went back to Graceland hotel on line reservation florence and sat around. Sam Phillips and those guys were there.
Georg

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