Kathy Najimy... not so much.
In October of 2015 I was invited to Galveston for the second year in a row, to speak at the Dash Beardsley Wake the Dead show.
To be included as a "celebrity speaker" amongst such terrific people was a real honor. Troy and I really enjoyed catching up with old friends and making new ones.
Since my table was going to be so close to Kathy Najimy's, I was looking forward to having an opportunity to spend a bit of time with her. I've always really liked her on screen and in interviews. I had met her previously at Mary Wicke's funeral, so I thought it would start the conversation something we had in common.
So I waddled over to Kathy and introduced myself and explained that we had met before. There was a polite "she was great." with no real joy. She was very kind and nice but clearly not interested in conversing. Fair enough, I thought.
Later in the day Troy and I asked for a photo with her. She very kindly obliged.
She later made the rounds in the room to the different tables. She stopped at ours for a minute and asked what we did. She listened attentively as we described our tour and museum. She said she thought it was a great idea. I offered one of my brochures which she took back to her table.
Later, someone told me that they saw that Kathy was selling autographed cast pictures from King of the Hill, WITH Brittney Murphy's signature on them, for $20.
Eyes bulging, I scurried over to her table and indeed saw two styles of photos. When I questioned her, she told me that she always gets everyone's autographs when she works on something. I asked about Murphy and of course she only had nice things to say.
So I bought 10 of them. They were obviously already signed by the other actors. I asked her to sign one so I can take a photograph of her signing it.
She kindly obliged and signed my photo to Dearly Departed Tours and took my 200 smackers.
A little later in the day, we looked closely at the rest pictures we bought.
They were all color photocopies. Najimy herself didn't even sign them.
I didn't want to ruffle feathers and make it miserable for my nice friends who ran the event.
I ate the 200 bucks and have a fun story to tell.
When Najimy left the show, her table was empty...
except for the Dearly Departed Tours brochure laying there.