Marc's Con Report Part 3 -- More Guests!

Okay, let's move onto a subject of more general interest -- the other guests
who appeared at "Century 21". I'm doing this by memory, so I hope
that the other people who attended the convention will please correct any
errors
or add details about things I omitted.

There were many guests who were supposed to appear at this convention, but
like all conventions, not all of them made it. I was actually surprised
at how many cancellations there were, as it seemed like only a small
percentage of the announced guests actually were there. Although I'm not
sure what they would have done if more guests showed up -- they were having
trouble fitting things in as it was!

Here are the guests I remember seeing:

* Gerry Anderson
* Ed Bishop
* Gabrielle Drake
* Peter Gordeno
* Shane Rimmer
* David Graham
* Zenia Merton
* Ken Turner
* Alan Perry
* Derek Meddings' two sons

Since I wasn't there during the whole convention, I'd be very
interested to hear who (if anyone) else showed up on Sunday
afternoon.

The Saturday autograph session was attended by Gerry, Ed,
Gabrielle, Peter, Zenia, Ken, and Alan.

Harry Baird didn't appear due to his health -- unfortunately he
had a condition which left him doubled-over in pain, and was
hoping to have an operation to correct it before the convention,
but hadn't gotten it yet.

Dolores Mantez didn't appear, but nobody was sure why. Perhaps she
arrived after I left?

Mike Trim wasn't there either. I can't remember the reason why, but
Chris Bentley spent some time going over the reasons for the various
cancellations, which seemed to be either due to conflicts with
professional commitments, much-needed holidays, or health problems.

Gerry Anderson was featured in a well-attended guest panel. The 5-minute
Captain Scarlet CGI film was shown twice, and got an excellent response
from the fans. Gerry announced that progress is being made into making
a Captain Scarlet film plus a TV series, but also mentioned that all
projects could fall through at any moment! He also talked a lot about
the relaunch of the THUNDERBIRDS. Outside of the guest panel,
Gerry could be seen elsewhere in the hotel giving interviews to various
people, complete with film cameras & microphones.

Peter Gordeno arrived too late on Saturday to participate in the guest
panel with Ed Bishop & Gabrielle Drake. I hear that he provided
commentary on the UFO episode IDENTIFIED with Ed Bishop on Sunday
afternoon, but this took place hours after I left the convention
for my business trip. During the Saturday night dance, the DJ's
had some fun by playing some Peter Gordeno songs, and near the
end of the dance Peter took over the dance floor with his wife,
which was quite a magical moment.

Shane Rimmer (Seagull X-Ray co-pilot in IDENTIFIED, Thunderbirds
voice artist) was there, and did a guest panel with David Graham
(the voice of Parker in Thunderbirds) on Saturday.

Zenia Merton (Sandra in Space:1999) seemed like she was there for the
whole convention, and also seemed like she was wearing sunglasses the
whole time! She gave commentary on the Space:1999 episode THE FULL CIRCLE,
which I only saw a bit of.

Directors Ken Turner & Alan Perry (directors for several Anderson series)
arrived on Saturday morning, and spent a lot of the day chatting in the
cafeteria. On Sunday morning they had a guest panel. Most of this
was about their work on the supermarionation series, but near the end
they discussed UFO. Alan told the old story about Ed Bishop really
hitting Mike Billington on KILL STRAKER, and that perhaps they
should have slapped Mike around more, since it seemed to improve his
acting! When asked about the problems with CLOSE UP, he thought
the only solution would be to throw the script in the trash!

Ken told a story about MINDBENDER that I'd never heard before.
Basically, he thought that the script was weak, because he thought
that the whole moonrock thing was so obvious that the story was over
in the first 5 minutes. Apparently he deviated from the script to
do what he thought was right for the episode, and admitted that he
was taking a big chance in doing this. While shooting the (unscripted)
gunfight scene, they were outside of Sylvia Anderson's office who stormed
out out and complained "Why is Ed wearing a cowboy outfit?", etc.
Apparently he angered the producers so much while filming this episode
that he was fired, but then during the editing process people
began to see that what Ken decided to do actually worked, and he
was rehired.

At the end of the Ken Turner & Alan Perry's guest panel, they invited
Derek Meddings' sons onstage, who discussed their fathers work from
their perspective while growing up. They brought a lot of Derek's
original artwork and were showing it in front of the audience,
and I was quite frustrated that I had to leave for the airport
at that very minute and didn't have time to take proper photos
of all the UFO pre-production artwork. Hopefully someone else
did and will post some JPEGs!

--
Marc Martin, [hidden email]