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By: Ian Trussler, Star Wars Autograph News Correspondent
Over the years I have managed to get many autographs from actors who have never done a convention or appear very rarely. I thought it might be interesting to share some of my stories together with a few tips on how to go about "stage dooring," as I like to call it. What I’m referring to is the practice of obtaining autographs from actors at the stage door of theatres when they are appearing in a play. This is something that I have been doing for many years now and it’s a different and interesting aspect of autograph collecting.
One of the great things about living in London is the huge and thriving theatre culture; the only other place that comes close to London is New York with its Broadway district. Pretty much at any time of the year there will be numerous actors, some big names, some lesser known, appearing somewhere on stage, in and around London. Many of these actors have a connection to the Star Wars saga, some original trilogy actors, although these are becoming fewer as the years pass and some prequel trilogy actors.
TIP #1: TIME COMMITMENT
First up you have got to be prepared to put the time in and also be prepared to come away with nothing. That said if you do your homework you can minimize the risk of failure but there is never any guarantee. In all the years I’ve been doing this I would say my success rate is well up in the 90s percentage wise but I have had some crashing failures and disappointments.
One disappointment that still haunts me is the 7 hours I spent attempting to get Greg Proops (voice of Fode, one of the Pod Race announcers) in The Phantom Menace. He had been listed as appearing at a one off charity comedy event at London’s Globe Theatre so I thought I’d give it a go as I didn’t have him and he hadn’t done a convention in the UK. The theatre unfortunately had a stage door that was behind a gated entrance so all I could do was camp out at the gate and watch the cars arriving to see if he was inside and then call out and hope he’d come to the gate. 7 hours passed and he never showed, it was winter, so it was cold and it rained, I have no idea how I held my bladder that day, but Star Wars drives me to do things I wouldn’t normally think possible. Unless he slept the night before inside the venue, he never showed up for the show so that was one of my worst experiences. That alone gives you an idea of what you have to be prepared to do.
Something must drive you to do it, and for me the satisfaction of gaining a “free” graph is more enjoyable than going to a convention. Anyone can walk up to a table, slap some money down and get a graph, not everyone can do stage dooring. You could argue that they aren’t really free, and I dare say if you did a cost to time analysis, it works out more expensive than paying at a convention, but that’s not the point.
On average I spend about 2- 3 hours waiting for people these days, you get to know what time actors are likely to turn up for performances so can generally time it right. I tend to ere on the side of caution and get to theatres a bit earlier than most people as I hate to miss out. I find the best times to go are weekday matinees, most people are at work so less people are likely to be waiting at the stage door, I usually go for arrivals rather than after show departures, again more people wait after the show, often a lot of people who just saw the show come straight out and go to the stage door with their theatre programmes.
TIP #2 ONE OR TWO ITEMS
Another tip is don’t be greedy, one or two items is usually as much as I try to get signed, sadly in London there are a lot of dealers who do stage dooring, and when they have just presented a huge pile of photos to an actor, it often puts them off as they see it’s not a real fan and then assume we are all the same and stop signing.
Be polite and respectful also, sounds obvious but not everyone is. Always use their last name, I never approach anyone with their first name, they don’t know me and it’s too familiar.
Don’t expect too much and you’ll often come away happy.
One of my most satisfying autographs to get was also one of the hardest in terms of time and effort. It took me three separate attempts to get Marton Csokas (Poggle the Lesser in Attack of the Clones) and I finally got him on my birthday. He was doing a play at the National Film Theatre and this venue didn’t have an actual stage door, just multiple entrances to the large building. The first time I went, he didn’t come through the main entrance, where I was waiting but came in a back door, but did come to the lobby to sign in. I spotted him and went into the lobby and respectfully approached him, and then the receptionist had an absolute fit and started screaming at me and basically had me thrown out. Second time I went I never saw him at all, total strike out, then third time (my birthday) he came in via the entrance I was waiting at, he stopped, chatted and answered a few questions and signed a couple of pictures and posed for photos with me. Total time spent waiting over three attempts, probably 15 hours but the end result was so worth it to me.
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Not every actor is as nice as Marton Csokas was to me that day. Ironically at the time I was trying for Marton, Benedict Cumberbatch was doing Frankenstein in the same building, at the time Sherlock had just started and he wasn’t the huge star he is now. I wasn’t that interested in him then so never tried to get his graph but saw him each time I went and he was always polite and friendly to me and others who did want his autograph. Not so now. I recently tried to help my best friend get him on his Hobbit poster while Cumberbatch was doing Hamlet at the Barbican in London. He was not pleasant. Three times I was directly in front of him, twice of those I was the only person asking and he refused every time. Sadly his reputation precedes him now, so moral of the story is, get them before they get too big and change. Not everyone is like that though and that sort of experience has been rare for me.
A few years ago I got Dominic West; he was already a big star due to the success of The Wire. Early in his career he had played a Naboo Guard in The Phantom Menace. He was very pleasant but did seem a bit wary of signing too much stuff. I was lucky and got him very early in the run of the play, first weekend I think. I heard that very soon after he started to refuse to sign Star Wars items at the stage door. I assume that as he was a rare Star Wars signer, he got inundated with dealers or maybe just fans and got sick of signing. I was so happy to have gotten him.
TIP #3: VISIT THE THEATRE EARLY IN THE PLAY'S RUN
So there is another tip, go as early in the run as possible before they get tired of signing for everyone and start to avoid the fans outside. Knowing the venue well is also essential, as mentioned before many theatres have multiple entrances and some actors will vary their entry point as a deliberate attempt to avoid autograph hunters. You can’t be in two places at once, so this is why you sometimes have to put the time in and be prepared to go home empty handed while you get the lie of the land so to speak.
Be prepared to get some weird reactions as well. The time I got Lindsey Duncan (voice of TC-14 in The Phantom Menace), I was the only person waiting and when I approached her she looked terrified as if I was about to attack her. She did sign but it took me aback as I didn’t expect that reaction.
Also actors have good days and bad days, I got Hilton McRae (Lindsey Duncan’s husband and an A Wing Pilot in Return of the Jedi) a few years ago and he was really grumpy and dismissive of Star Wars, I recently got him again and he was totally different, friendly and chatty, you just never know.
Another thing with stage door autographs is that they can be good quality graphs or pretty poor, depending how much time the actor is prepared to take, and how many people are waiting. A few years ago I got Micheal Pennington (Moff Jerjerrod from Return of the Jedi) and his graph looks nothing like the graph I got from a convention signing years before that. It’s all luck on the day really. Just a couple of weeks ago I got Imelda Staunton (Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter) for my friend and although she wasn’t very friendly she gave a perfect full signature. Stage Door graphing is somewhere in between convention signing and red carpet signings when it comes to quality of signatures. Red Carpet graphing is another article on its own.
TIP #4: HAVE A BACKUP ITEM
Another tip is to have a backup item to have signed; some actors will sign some things but not others. Some have hang ups about certain roles, sometimes which they are best known for, but to them are a very small part of their career. Denis Lawson is a prime example, for years he would not sign Star Wars items but sign pretty much anything else. I got him a few years back at a theatre in London and at first asked him to sign a picture of Wedge and he refused saying he didn’t sign Star Wars so I had to settle for an index card. If you put all your eggs in one basket you may end up disappointed.
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I love to get obscure Star Wars related graphs; one of my favourites was getting Adrian Dunbar several years ago. Adrian played Bail Organa in The Phantom Menace but had his scenes cut from the movie and then the role was recast with Jimmy Smits for Attack Of The Clones. As I arrived at the theatre Adrian was sitting on the steps outside smoking and having a break, he invited me to sit with him and he told me all about his time and experiences on the movie, signed stuff for me, posed for pictures and even offered to help me get autographs from the rest of the cast in his play. He was surprised that anyone was interested in his Star Wars connection. Having a personal experience like that is so much better than 30 seconds at someone’s table as part of the convention conveyor belt.
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Over the years some of my favourite autographs have been from stage dooring, here are a few other names I got this way: James Earl Jones, Oliver Ford Davies, Brian Blessed, Celia Imrie, Genevieve O’Reilly, Ewan McGregor, Clarence Smith to name a few.
My most recent success was one I’d been after for a long time and a pretty hard get, although she does do theatre fairly regularly, and that was Ayesha Dharker (Queen Jamillia from Attack Of The Clones). I’m pleased to say she was an absolute delight, super friendly and happily signed, posed for pictures and talked about the movie, again she was surprised people are even interested still, as it now over 15 years since she filmed that movie.
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Star Wars autograph collecting is a never ending task, and I’m happy to say I have my sights on my next target already and am sure there will be many more to come.
