Hello, good evening and goodbye... David Frostset

Cindy Garland aka Lady Grudnick
ON MEETING DAVID FROST

Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock were posing for pictures at the SciFi Channel booth.

The Atlanta Convention center was easily the size of a small country, yet word spread like lightning. Normally stoic cable TV industry professionals streamed into place in the rapidly forming line. Even the younger stars of the other SciFi Channel shows were jockeying with the rest of us for a moment with Shatner and Nimoy.

By 1998, I had attended at least five of the National Cable Shows. Those were the days before consolidation in the cable industry, and every national network brought out their finest stars to draw cable system executives to their booths on the convention room floor...directors, actors, writers, politicians, sports figures, celebrity chefs...rock stars the caliber of Elton John, Stevie Nicks and Peter Frampton were hired to play at private industry parties in the evenings...these shows were lavish, rollicking spectacles.

While I stood in the SciFi Channel line with the rest of my colleagues, I noticed David Frost in the booth across the aisle. CBS Eye on People was a short-lived cable network - sort of a Biography Channel with a brain - that had persuaded him to do a weekly one-hour series, “David Frost: Interviews I’ll Never Forget.” The show would include his personal reflections on interviews with Richard Nixon, Nelson Mandela, Robert and Rose Kennedy and John Lennon to name a few.

It wasn't the first time I had seen him. A decade earlier, my husband and I had traveled to London once we could finally afford a honeymoon. By chance, we happened upon the BBC Paris Studios one evening. On a whim, we stood in line for left over tickets to see some radio show called "Pull the Other One." It was a light comedy show hosted by David Frost and featured a panel consisting of British greats Ken Dodd, Frank Carson, and Alfred Marks. It was a scream. We went back the next night, stood in the rain again, and sat in the audience for another taping.

Now he sat a few yards away, pleasantly chatting and signing autographs for the folks in his line. I couldn't wait to get over there. I was thrilled to meet Shatner and Nimoy, and while they were very professional and gracious, they were somewhat less thrilled to be meeting all of us. I didn't blame them. That line was killer-long.

I was pleased to see that despite the competition from the neighboring booth, David Frost's line always had people in it - a steady and persistent flow of fans. While he clearly didn't need me to prop him up, I felt it was important for me to go stand in his line so he would feel the warmth of his American audience.

I'd heard of people like him, but I'd never met one...those people in whose presence you immediately feel valued, at ease, and intensley interesting. He had an energy that was sparkling, that somehow made me feel good to be alive and to be there with him at that very moment.

"This isn't the first time I've seen you in person," I commented after we exchanged greetings. "It's not?" he leaned forward and fixed me with a penetrating gaze that not only urged me to go on, it pulled the story out of me.

When I had finished, his easy smile flooded his face. He lifted his arms out and gestured around us. "My dear Cindy, out of all the people in this huge facility, I have no doubt at all that only you and I have EVER heard of that radio program. What a WONDERFUL story!" We chatted a few minutes more about the gentlemen on the show's panel, and I said something about what an honor it was to meet him, and I even remembered to call him Sir David.

Out of all the people I had the honor of meeting on that day and at other conventions in the course of my career, meeting him was the most affecting. It is the story I share the most.