Troy Donahue Wants Your Fondue Pot

Reflections on 30 years in La La Land, and why I stay

I accidentally moved to Los Angeles from New York in 1990. Most New Yorkers tell people at backyard parties in Silverlake they’ll be moving back home soon. But they stay. They stay for the excellent tacos, the 72 and sunny (Steve Martin got that one right in L.A. Story) and they stay because they secretly know someday they will be discovered.

In my case, I had a dose of that early on when the first script I wrote randomly landed me a meeting with Norman Lear. That was it. I was smitten with La La Land. I was gonna be a screenwriter, have a bungalow on the lot, drive an aqua Karmann Ghia to work from my spot in Malibu, and groove on some vintage Napa Valley pinot while waving to the buff surfers from my deck.

That relationship had some real highs and lows, see Lessons from the Bumpy Ride of a Career in Screenwriting. But I remain in this high desert, (what even is that), because I still love the tacos, and the beach, and the 72 and sunny. As for the people who think you see celebrities every time you stop to fill up your car at the gas station, it depends what gas station you go to.

Is this another reason why I stay? Yes. It adds a kitschy element of surprise to think you might pump gas today side by side with Adrian Brody.

These are my greatest hits celebrity encounters from being a waitress in the ’90s and then being in and around the entertainment business over the years.

There was the time Lenny Kravitz showed us excited waitresses the latest tattoos he got in Japan. The time Keanu Reeves, injured after a motorcycle accident had to limp across the restaurant to find me to ask me for more coffee (which he did very politely).

Faye Dunaway (not as polite) asked me to bring 9 separate checks to her party as I was learning the restaurant’s new “Squirrel” computer system, and freaked out when I couldn’t make that happen.

I chatted Lois Chiles up at a funeral.

And then there were the Chili Peppers, who I waited on every day at a Votre Sante on La Brea. Anthony Keidis’ standing order: one blue-corn banana pancake and one yellow-corn blueberry. Once I approached the table when he was alone and Anthony asked me if I thought it might be fun if we got a hotel room and rolled around naked for a few hours together.

In response, I held up the coffee pot and said, “So…refill?” His Blood Sugar Sex Magik didn’t work on me. I guess I just don’t have the groupie gene, and besides, if I was going to be Penny Lane and have a raunchy fling to regale my grandkids with, it would be with Mick Jagger or possibly Dave Grohl in his unkempt, unplugged, Seattle hippy ’90s phase.

Many years later at a party in Malibu, I joined in a game of soccer where Kate Hudson and I were the only two female players. I was mortified to twist my ankle about three minutes into the game, and as I iced my injury on the deck overlooking the lawn, Flea flopped down in the lounge chair next to me with a gaping, bloody wound that definitely upstaged my little swollen ankle. It didn’t seem to faze him.

Flea couldn’t remember where he knew me from. I recited: “One blue corn banana pancake, one yellow-corn blueberry!” He smiled. He told me he never forgets a face. My kids thought I was actually cool that day. (It didn’t last.)

But by far my favorite celebrity encounter happened when my friend Abby and I had a garage sale circa 1993. We were selling, among other crap, a fondue pot, and some silverware. This tall, weathered guy with blonde-grey hair and a shy polite manner asked about the fondue pot. He poked around and didn’t end up buying anything. When he said goodbye and walked back across the street to his Brady Bunch looking duplex Abby said, “that was Troy Donahue.” I was stunned. “As in Surfside 6 Troy Donahue?” Yes.

In Annie Hall, Woody Allen remarked that the biggest cultural advantage LA has over New York is that you can make a right on red here. That’s not fair. The pretty trail of Thanksgiving tail lights lined up on the 405 can be seen from space!

And Troy Donahue might stop by your garage sale and check out your fondue pot. I love this town.

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