Waiting for Lucy

Originally published December 5, 1997, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1255

Well, it’s ironic. I’d been writing articles about how people in a position of celebrity oftentimes find themselves in situations where, no matter what they do for the fans, it’s never enough. And then, lo and behold, I found myself on the receiving end of that exact same situation.

The “culprit?” None other than Xena, Warrior Princess herself: Lucy Lawless.

Lawless had been starring on Broadway in Grease. For those of you poor, unfortunate devils who live outside of the New York area, the lighthearted 1950s musical has become one of the biggest family hits on Broadway through retooling of some of the raunchier lyrics, a toning down of profanity, and some extremely ingenious stunt casting. One of the key roles used for the stunting has been super-šlûŧ Betty Rizzo. The role was originated on Broadway by Adrienne Barbeau, and played in the film by Stockard Channing. Channing acquitted herself nobly in the role, despite the fact that she was clearly too old for the role, and couldn’t sing a note, thereby proving that the role of Rizzo is virtually actor-proof.

(Then again, the roles in Grease seem to defy age. Years ago there was a special on PBS that was a salute to Broadway musicals, which had a variety of original cast members re-creating their roles and performing selected numbers. In that special, Barry Bostwick—clad in jeans and sleeveless t-shirt—revived his role of Danny Zuko and performed the zippy doo-wop number, “Summer Nights.” Bostwick was easily at least twenty years too old for the role by that point, and his hair was already streaked with gray. Didn’t matter. He was so much fun to watch that I realized I’d rather have seen him in the movie than John Travolta, gray hair or no. But I digress.)

Actresses as varied as Rosie O’Donnell and Brooke Shields have taken turns playing Rizzo on stage, and the latest inhabitant of the role was Lucy Lawless. Newspaper ads ran photos of her with the declaration, “You can’t be a warrior princess all your life.” And these print ads caught the eye of six-year-old Ariel as I was flipping through the Sunday paper one day.

“Xena!” she fairly exploded.

You have to understand, Ariel and I always watch Xena: Warrior Princess together. She can take or leave Hercules, but Xena she simply never misses. I have been judicious enough to shield her from some of the more intense episodes. (The one with Xena’s sidekick, Gabrielle, giving accelerated birth to a demon-spawn creature was a bit much for a six-year-old, I thought—although that’s probably more my sensibilities than anything.) Knowing Ariel, who watched the lawyer get eaten by the T-Rex in Jurassic Park and didn’t bat an eye, she’d probably have had no problem with it—but by and large she gets a kick out of the show. For that matter, she’s the only Xena fan I know of whose favorite character is the ultra-klutzy Joxur. She lives for Joxur appearances and giggles uncontrollably every time he comes on screen.

So Ariel’s discovering that Xena herself was going to be in town in a show was irresistible to her. I explained carefully that it wasn’t Xena per se, but rather Lucy Lawless, the actress who portrays Xena, playing another role. Ariel, savvy enough about the concept of actors and actresses after hanging out on the set of Space Cases, had no trouble grasping the concept. She still wanted to see the show, though.

So what the hëll. I took her.

What with one thing and another, I wound up not getting tickets until the very last day of Lawless’ tenure in the show. Naturally I got tickets for the 1 p.m. matinee, which seemed to me much easier on the average six-year-old than the more demanding late-night performance. I was told that we should be sure to arrive early, since at 12:30 p.m. there was a dance contest geared towards the younger audience members. That certainly sounded like something Ariel would get a kick out of, so we made certain to arrive somewhere around 12:10. We were surprised to see a crowd gathered outside the stage door entrance, and they were hooting and shouting the name of Lucy Lawless.

Conversations with onlookers indicated that they were waiting for Lawless to arrive. Furthermore—and this was the frightening thing—people that I spoke to seemed to know precisely what time Lawless would arrive. They had her movements time down practically to the second. And sure enough, Lawless arrived at exactly the moment—almost to the second—that the authorities in the crowd said she’d get there.

As her limo pulled up, a hundred female throats uncorked that ululating, trademark, (and frankly, slightly annoying) battlecry that Xena always shouts when leaping into battle. People crowded in, held back by the police barricades, as Lawless headed towards the door, stopping to sign a few autographs as she moved towards the stage door.

I’d brought along a replica of Xena’s circular weapon, the chakram, which I’d picked up at a convention, and Ariel—who was up on my shoulders—waved it and called “Lucy! Luuuuucy!” like a six-year-old Ricky Ricardo. Ariel, at age six, couldn’t have cared less about getting autographs. She didn’t want a signature. She just wanted Lawless to talk to her, to say hi or blow her a kiss or something. Just notice her. But Lawless (understandably) didn’t hear her over the shouts of adults yelling, “Just one signature!” Thirty seconds after she’d arrived, Lawless had entered the building and was gone.

“Can I meet her later, daddy?” asked Ariel.

Now it’s more or less tradition that, after shows, the more enthusiastic fans hang out around the stage door (“Stage Door Johnnies,” they’re called) to get autographs from cast members. I figured Ariel and I would simply hang out after the show, wait for Lawless to emerge, and Ariel could meet her then. I had my camera with me; I’d try and snap a picture of them together.

We entered the theater and, sure enough, there was a dance contest going on. Little kids were gyrating on stage as the character of “Vince Fontaine,” the show’s DJ, oversaw the proceedings. Ariel scrambled up on stage and joined the festivities. After the kids danced about for about twenty minutes, “Fontaine” went through the crowd of little dancers, selected about ten finalists, and then let the audience pick the winners through applause response.

Who wound up winning? My daughter, the lord of the dance. The audience adored her from the moment that Fontaine—in doing intros for each of the kids—asked her where she was from. He put the hand mike to her mouth, and instead of answering, she looked at him suspiciously and clammed right up. Fontaine waited a few moments, saw she wasn’t responding, and then said to her (apparently having run into this situation before) “You don’t talk to strangers, right?” She aggressively shook her head, and the crowd ate it up.

She was one of three final winners, her prize being a Grease t-shirt (which pleased me no end; saved me something like $20 at the souvenir stand).

She enjoyed the show, having no trouble making the transition of accepting Lucy Lawless in her non-Xena role. Although there was one point where Lawless herself muddied the waters: During one sequence, a Latin spitfire character named “Cha-Cha” was introduced, and she was constantly punctuating her sentences with those “Ay-yi-yi’s” made popular by such actresses as Chita Rivera and Rita Moreno. Finally Rizzo, having had enough of Cha-Cha’s throaty exclamations, unleashed a sustained “Ay-yi-yi” right back at her, except naturally it was in the form of Xena’s war cry. It was a tip of the hat to the audience (who went nuts when she did it) as Lawless then clapped her hand over her mouth in “embarrassment,” as if she’d accidentally slipped up and “revealed” her true identity.

At the end of the show, Ariel had not forgotten the concept of meeting Lawless face-to-face. Our seats were right next to an exit, so we were able to get right up against the police barricades this time.

There was absolutely no way that Lawless could possibly miss her when she came out.

Ultimately there had to be at least 150 fans, maybe more, waiting outside for her. There was a sign on the door which read, “Lucy Lawless will not be coming out between performances. Sorry.” Not a single person believed it. The general belief was that it was a “test” of sorts. That the more faint-of-heart, the less determined, the less worthy, those not possessed of the right stuff, would walk away and that if people just hung out long enough, they’d be graced with Lawless making an appearance for the real, true, fans.

She didn’t come out.

We waited and waited and waited some more. I told Ariel that it looked like she wouldn’t be coming out. But Ariel didn’t want to leave. Neither did a lot of other people.

One guy tried to rouse the crowd, leading people in chants of “Who do we want?! Lucy!” It was done with such fervor and intensity that, if I’d been Lucy Lawless, I’d’ve been hiding in a closet whispering, “Make them go away, please.”

Some of the more ardent and knowledgeable fans—not to mention the guy who was the guard at the door—started sharing some stories of Lawless’ time on the show vis a vis the fans. Apparently when she’d first started with the show, she’d signed autographs for all the fans who’d shown up. She stand there for an hour, singing 300 autographs at a clip, and it was never enough. One time, it seemed, she’d wanted to leave and some fans had gotten so aggressive that they’d jumped onto her limo and started shaking it violently. As time had passed, disenchantment had set in. A distance had been created, the addressing of the fan’s requests become a distant second to her own safety and sanity.

But go explain that to a six-year-old, looking up and you and saying, “When’s she coming out? Can I meet Lucy, Daddy? You said she’d come out.”

Slowly the crowd began to thin out. Ironically, this raised the hope of those remaining, the feeling that one the crowd dwindled to a manageable size, Lucy Lawless would emerge.

Nope. Time passed, and more time, and still nothing. Ariel waited with amazing patience, still determined to meet her idol. I was trying to urge her to leave as it was starting to get colder, but she wanted to wait. One person in the crowd muttered in regards to Lawless, “She’s got a public that adores her. Why should she be afraid?”

To which I replied, “Yeah, I hear John Lennon felt the same way,” which got low moans from others within earshot.

Only one person wound up getting an autograph that day: A comic book dealer from Nutley, New Jersey, who looked at me and said, “Aren’t you Peter David?” I wound up signing the back of his Xena photo, and he was at least able to feel that the time spent waiting wasn’t a complete waste.

Ariel was bitterly disappointed when I finally called quits to the vigil. Little tears were running down her face, and I knelt down and said, “Aw, come on, honey. You won the dance contest! You saw the show! Don’t forget that! Don’t let this ruin that, okay?” I eventually calmed her down, and I took her to one of her favorite restaurants for dinner—McDonalds, where she drowned her sorrows in a cheeseburger Happy Meal. And as we sat there eating our luxurious dinner, I couldn’t help but think, What if I screwed up? What if, a minute after we left, Lawless did emerge for the remaining faithful? What if I was the one who hadn’t done enough?

Nope. As we walked back past the theater, the same stragglers were still waiting for the warrior princess, who never did emerge to satisfy the hopes of the matinee attendees. For those fans—and, for a six-year-old—it hadn’t been quite enough.

But I let Ariel wear her new t-shirt to bed that night, so she got over it.

Although she didn’t get to sleep with the chakram. Only daddy gets to do that.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)