It has been 7 years since actress Diane Franklin came to visit Misty Moon, at our Art Gallery in London during the summer of 2013, where she spent a week meeting fans, talking about her films and exploring London and trips out for english cream teas with us in the Kent countryside! Happy days indeed and lovely to reminisce!

On Saturday our ‘visit’ this time from Diane, was online to chat to us and her fans about her tv and film career. Diane being full of exuberance and fun, chatted readily about her experiences in acting, from commercials, which resulted in her regularly being recognised in the street, to tv and film, including Last American Virgin, (what a great soundtrack!) Second Time Lucky, Better Off Dead and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure! Our tech help,  Martin Rudman chose some brilliant clips, including a role Diane played in ‘Murder She Wrote’, where she plays an outrageously obnoxious wealthy lady in a strop!

A deeper and darker discussion occurred about Diane’s role in Amityville 2: The Possession and the effect this film had on some of its viewers, including Mr Moon, who watched it as a teenager and was scared witless! I have seen it several times too and have to say the prosthetics in the film really do make it more terrifying than modern day CGI nowadays! The real life murders and continued events at the property where it happened, over the years have fascinated so many and have been recreated again and based on truer events in the form of The Amityville Murders, which Diane stars in and is available on Sky Store right now! Mr Moon and I watched this the other night and really enjoyed it. Definitely worth a watch if you enjoy a good horror! And yes, it did creep us up! We woke up in the middle of the night hearing a scraping sound coming from somewhere in our bedroom! Even our two cats Molly Mog and  Suzie Sue leapt off the bed to investigate and started growling  (yes, Suzie growls like a little dog!) But don’t panic (she says) it was only the window knocking in the wind (sigh of relief from all four of us, drama over and  back to bed) I think I’ll lay off the horror for a few days and watch some of Diane’s comedies!

Diane answered questions directly to her fans and there was a lot of love and warmth for her career. It was great for some of the regular Misty Mooners, such as Ian Crosdale, who met her the first time round, to be able to chat to her again. See the great photograph below of Ian, taken back in 2013, trying on the coat and hat Diane wore, as the character Monique Junet in the film Better Off Dead!

Diane’s autobiography is available signed via her website http://www.dianefranklin.com
I revisited this during the week and find it a really inspiring  positive read, no matter what your chosen career path is, especially during these times of uncertainty.

Overall in the words of Bill and Ted, Saturday was an excellent and most triumphant Misty Moon online event! Can’t wait for the next time! 🎬🎭

Next Misty Moon online event Saturday 5th September (British time) Screening of short film ‘Ready For My Close Up’ and interviews with horror actress Lynn Lowry, director Jason Read and producer Stuart Morriss 🎬🎭

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_N4xwNPz0TMqo65n8KGezbw

Check out our Misty Moon Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages for the link

During another balmy August Saturday afternoon, Misty Moon had yet another fun filled Bill Reunion, with actors from the show, Graham Cole OBE, who played PC Tony Stamp, Ashley Gunstock, (PC Robin Frank) and Victor Gallucci,  (DC  Tom Baker) The Bill’s longest running regular background artist, appearing in over a thousand episodes! Everyone got comfy for a few hours with their favourite tea, hot chocolate, jelly tots (the curators favourites) and a gin or two for me (well they don’t call me Gin Jen for nothing!😃🍸) with some of their favourite actors brought virtually into their own living room! 🍷☕️🍸

Despite a few gremlins in the system when we first started (well there’s a first time for everything 🧐🤔) it was quickly sorted by our tech extraordinaire Martin, and was a smooth ride from there on.

MC and Misty Moon curator, Stuart Morriss, started the proceedings with  Ashley Gunstock in the hot seat, which led to a revealing story regarding his on screen moustache!

Great stories followed of the excitement of onscreen car chases (Graham being a stunt  driver before his days on The Bill and being the main driver in the show) and the attention to detail and advice given directly by the police themselves, which added to the realism portrayed, plus lots of location secrets.

We heard from the actors of their fascinating careers before and after the Bill, including time in many theatre productions, Ashley’s directing and Victor’s producing career and time working onset with the likes of Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino, who I think the whole audience agreed, Vic  very much looked like  (see photo!😃)

Of course we had lots of lovely Bill fans, including the lady who runs The Billaton fan account on Twitter! Lovely to be finally able to put a face to the person who runs this fabulous account and thanks to her, for all her support for our Bill reunions 😃

It’s great to be able to catch up with some of our regular Misty Mooners too, especially during these strange times, when some feel quite lonely and isolated and to find out how everyone is coping in their different ways and discovered some are even back in lockdown.  As Misty Moon is online at the moment, we also get the pleasure of connecting to audience members in more far flung areas, who would normally struggle with travelling the distance to the venues we normally use, especially from abroad!

Our next Misty Moon online event will be this Saturday 29th August with Diane Franklin to chat to us about her career on films such as, Amityville 2, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventures, Last American Virgin and her autobiography ‘The Excellent Adventures of The Last American, French-Exchange Babe of the 80s’.