Saw Sarah Jessica Parker the other day in Greenwich Village, while doing a Rich & Famous walking tour near her townhouse. Of course I don't show people where she lives....I show them the approximate area of the Village and then talk about various stars who reside nearby. Every time I see her I want to go up and say "hey!" but of course I don't. You see, I knew Sarah Jessica Parker when she was a kid and starring in ANNIE on Broadway...I wasn't much older and was working in the lobby selling ANNIE dolls, records and souvenirs. I became familiar with her Mom, some of the other kids in the show and their Moms, and some of Sarah's brothers and sisters. Her last day as Annie (when she had grown much too tall and develped to believably play an 11 year old), I was invited into her dressing room by her Mom and brother to hang out and to help fill boxes and load the car with tons of memorabilia from her nearly 2 years in the show, first as an "orphan" in the chorus and then as the star when Shelley Bruce, the second Annie after Andrea McArdle, was diagnosed with leukemia and left the show for treatment.
While setting up my souvenir stand in the lobby before and after the show I met all the stage mothers and siblings as well as the people in the show. Since Annie was a show with so many kids, birthdays and other events were celebrated with a regular routine of parties in the downstairs lounge of the Alvin Theatre (now the Neil Simon) on W. 52nd St.
Anyway, I was leading a Rich & Famous Tour a couple of months ago for a group of English ladies and when we reached Madison Ave. near E. 76th St. by the Carlyle Hotel we were stopped in our tracks by the entire film crew of the Sex and the City movie and the attendant horde of paparazzi. My English ladies did not want to budge so we stayed and watched all the hubbub for awhile until Sarah Jessica Parker and then Jennifer Hudson both emerged from their trailers to film scenes in the Carlyle Hotel. Everyone went crazy! The only autograph Sarah Jessica Parker stopped to sign was for a little girl who was walking by with her Mom and had her pen and paper ready!
Again, I almost said "Hi Sarah! Remember me?" but of course I knew she wouldn't and would probably call for her bodyguards to punch me out. So I stood behind the barricades with all the other people watching the situation.
These pictures were snapped by one of my English ladies, Shauna Harper, and emailed to me only recently.
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