2 posts tagged “dr. rob yeung”
So, back to London.
The first week we were there, the production company making Jade's PA decided that they would have a dinner so all the cast could meet before we actually went into production.
I got a cab to a restaurant called.....oh my, what was the name, Hotel Charlotte? I think. All I remember was being late (because the car that was supposed to pick me up never arrived.....foretelling many incidents like this to come) and walking in to the most crowded restaurant I'd ever seen. Nothing like being thousands of miles away from home, not knowing a soul, and being late to boot.
I finally found the table and met Jade, her boyfriend Jack, my co-star judge, Dr. Rob Yeung and a few of the other above-the-lines from Ruggie Media. Sitting next to Jack who is all of 19 years old made me feel old and decrepit. He barely spoke and it was so loud I couldn't hear anyone else. So, I sat at the table, smiled alot, shook my head, laughed when everyone else did and somehow scraped through the night. The bottles of wine being passed around helped....couldn't hear a thing but felt good anyway.
Toward the end of the night, my son was brought to the restaurant by a young blonde who had taken him to the movies. After all the goodbyes and see you laters, Jade hugged me goodbye and said into my ear, "Thank you for coming here to help me find an assistant."
That I could hear.
Jade was a delight. All my worries about the monster the press had created melted away and I found out very quickly that I got on with her wonderfully. And after working with her the first couple days, i saw that she didn't have the formal education and opportunities others had but she had smarts (not only street smart) that alot of other people don't have. I still have trouble putting that intelligence into words but I can feel it. She can identify and understand people in a way that's quite difficult for most people.
True, she had never heard the word, "construction" and she couldn't remember the name of her car that was almost repossessed...she kept calling it a "lorry" but meant Ferrari. I was so shocked by this I was convinced she was making it up. I soon found out she wasn't. She had no idea what charisma was or how to spell it even though she has a ton of it.
After living in Hollywood for decades and dealing with folks who knew everything and would, God forbid, ever let on that they didn't know something, Jade was a breath of fresh air. Not an ounce of pretense in her. I knew from then on that we would do very well.
I was right.
The driver who dropped us off at the wrong hotel and left me stranded...the thought of this man was weighing on my mind. Instead of admitting he was lost and breaking down and turning on the GPS system that was sitting on his dashboard, he dumped us.
I called the production manager, Dilin, and she promised to complain to the car company and reimburse me for the tips I wrongly gave out.
Our hotel, a rather nice affair, was weighed down by the longest name. We were staying at the Radisson Edwardian Marlborough. Fresh off a plane, that's a long name to memorize...and all the Radisson's in London had what seemed like a first, middle and last name.
First thing after check-in, we made our way down to the lobby to check out the "business center" to get to a computer and email home that we had arrived in one piece. I waited my turn, since there were only four computers, one out of order. The keyboards in England are not like ours in America so I FOUND MYSELF WRITING LIKE THIS. In fact I cut this actual sentence from an email to my manager........"HEY ARE GETTING ME A CELL PHONE THIS WEEK AND i SUPPOSE \I'LL BE GETTING THE PERDIEM ON MONDAY 'CAUSE \I HAVEN'T SEEN A SOULD YET. Excuse this caps typing--british comps are different and I'm making all sorts of typing screw ups." When I reread that sentence I had no idea what some of the words were....SOULD turns out to be soul.....HEY is they........PERDIEM is per diem. I had this same problem in France and Italy. The keyboards are laid out differently so every email written on them looks like a hostage/kidnapper's note.
AM OKAY.
WILL wRITE soon,
Right after I wrote our "We got here okay" email, and Cayman had a turn playing computer games, we got in one of only two small elevators (for 200+ hotel rooms) with four other people. The elevator raised about four feet then came to a lurching stop. (Later it was explained to me that alot of hotels are in buildings that are on the listed with the Historical Preservation Society and cannot have elevators added to them.)
This is Cayman's worst nightmare--being trapped in an elevator. Not mine. You'd have to raise the bar a bit to get me excited and worried. But six people stuffed in an ancient elevator with Cayman trying not to hyperventilate and the gent at the front doing just that was not pleasant. The man who started to have a panic attack worried me.
We rang the emergency buzzer and could hear the concierge trying to force the doors open. We hadn't left the lobby level, we were just levitating above it.
"We've called the Fire Brigade. They should be here soon," the concierge announced through the crack he managed to open. "If I can open this more, does anyone need a glass of water?"
Panic attack man did.
Cayman, not used to being stuck in elevators whispered in my ear, "Fire Brigade? Water? This is serious, isn't it?"
About ten minutes later the elevator was getting mighty stuffy and its occupants irritated. The concierge had managed to get a glass of water through and the panic man had drank the entire thing in one swig. He'd needed something a bit stronger to calm him down and make it through the event without starting to thrash around and hurt someone.
Finally, the Fire Brigade appeared, used some cranking device and pried the doors open. We were a good four feet above the ground. After squeezing through the opening, a fireman held out his hand and helped us jump to safety.
Now something I find to be true in America I see has jumped the Pond and extended to our brethren in the UK. I've never seen an actual application for employment in order to be come a fireman, but I am convinced that somewhere in the job description it is stated that you must have exceptionally good looks. It doesn't extend to all firemen and certainly not to other service men, but the overwhelming majority of firefighters are strapping, mustache-wearing love gods. I confess, I was happy the concierge couldn't pry the doors open. I'd much rather be rescued by the London Fire Brigade.
I was sure that was all the excitement we could handle that day what with being dropped off at the wrong place then getting stuck in the elevator.
But, we had the British Museum a block away. After Cayman had napped he wasn't going to let the first day go without some type of exploration of the neighborhood. We traipsed down the street and started to explore the museum. I was delighted to find out it is free to enter. Barely past the entry though, I started to get very sleepy. Cayman though had his second wind and wanted to see the Elgin Marbles and the Rosetta Stone and on and on. We went to the museum cafe for lunch and I literally fell asleep at the table.
When Cayman woke me up I had this recollection of a trip I'd made to Italy before Cayman was born. I was sitting in a trattoria in Florence watching a man with narcolepsy. Now, you hear about the "sleeping disease" but how often do you really get to see it in action? It was fascinating. He would be talking to his table mate and in the middle of a sentence he would fall asleep! Thirty seconds later, miraculously, he would wake up and finish the sentence where he left off. I couldn't leave the restaurant--it was, quite honestly, one of the most interesting things I'd ever seen. In order to stay there though, I continued to order more rounds of food. The waiter later told me that I was the type of tourist (I hate that word--I prefer traveler or explorer...more romantic) he liked...one that ate like an Italian not like a salad-eating American!
I probably had to sleep to avoid digesting the price I had just paid for our lunch. For a couple meager sandwiches, a juice and a diet coke, twenty British pounds, forty US dollars had just slipped out of hand. FORTY DOLLARS! Holy smokes. We were going to be in London for three months at forty bucks per meal...and that was living small. This was no great place to eat, just convenient. What is that, $10,800 for food for two people for three months????? Something had to give.
Our hotel package came with breakfast....at $33.00 per person. Again, the buffet was nice but how much does beans on toast and blood sausage cost to make? I was trying desperately to see if I had calculated the money conversion wrong but Cayman confirmed it for me....we were living in one of the most expensive places and I'd better just get used to it.
Ruggie Media had told us we would be in the hotel for nine days and then our apartment would be ready for us. I figured cooking for ourselves had to be healthier and cheaper. I love going out to eat but cooking at home becomes a distant memory real quickly, and distant memories become romanticized when you can't have it. And, I don't like living out of bags for too long, especially when at the end of the first week I was expected to look somewhat presentable and be on tv with no wrinkles in the clothes. My contract had stated that I was supposed to have an apartment immediately, plus per diem upon arrival. I hadn't seen either, yet.
But there was a message waiting for me at the hotel that a couple people from Ruggie would be coming by to meet me, drop off the money and fill me in on a shooting schedule. I was also told that there would be a dinner where I could meet Jade Goody and the other judge for the reality show, Dr. Rob Yeung. Cayman would be taken out to the movies by some young, blonde girl who worked at the office.
Cayman was fine with this but my mama instincts were hiccuping. We were five thousand miles from home, things had already gone wrong and my son was being escorted away by a stranger. I tried not to, but a little panic set in.
