Waiting for a Sign

Autograph hounds seek the signature of a star at the Toronto film festival. (Donald Weber/Getty Images)

Monday, Sept. 11
8:47 pm
I’m standing across from Roy Thomson Hall, TIFF gala central, behind the metal barricades that have turned this stylish Toronto thoroughfare into Ring 1 of the festival circus. Amid such hoopla, it’s easy to forget today is the fifth anniversary of 9/11. The klieg lights are glaring, the press pit is humming and the fans are inching closer to the barricades — and each other — craning their necks and bouncing on their toes so as not to miss a single second of the action.

Tonight is the gala screening of Bonneville, and hopes are high that some of its stars, including three of Hollywood’s most revered leading ladies — Joan Allen, Jessica Lange and Kathy Bates — may find it in their hearts to wander over and say hello, maybe even scrawl their names on the dog-eared festival catalogues that will be waved at them.

Some fans do brisk business in autographs, selling their take on eBay or moonlighting as sources for the paparazzi. One photographer told me he’d flown two autograph hounds up from New York City and paid them $200 each to keep him abreast of celebrity movement at TIFF. The hounds are relentless and their network is vast.

Through the tumult, I overhear three autograph hounds talking shop. They’re critiquing a fellow collector who’s been crowing about the directors he’s bagged. “Scorsese will sign and return sent photos,” one of them decries. “And Spielberg, he bought.” Not cool. To an autograph hound, the thrill — and sense of achievement — is in the chase. And you can get burned ponying up cash for a signature.

“Don Henley of the Eagles,” the fellow continues, “you pay and you meet him for, like, two minutes. You only get a picture with him!” I see the speaker now. Mid-30s, frayed jean jacket, a knapsack at his feet. He’s holding court to a handful in the front row, all with books peeled open and markers uncapped. I join his audience. “Glenn Frey, I’ll try,” he adds. “Henley, I’m done.”

Joan Allen attends the gala screening of the film Bonneville. (Nathan Denette/Canadian Press)

He’s interrupted by a buzz passing through the crowd. A white limousine has pulled up next to the red carpet. “Get ready,” he warns. The crowd, now 100 thick, crushes forward to look. The limo door opens. “Who is that?” someone shouts. “Is that a star?” It doesn’t matter. A black sedan follows. Its doors open. Joan Allen steps out. All around me, pens and pads are thrust into the air with shouts of “Joan! Joan!” My man at the front seems to be leading the charge.

“Joan! Can you come over and sign our books, please?” Polite but firm. She obliges, sauntering toward him. Flashbulbs fire and cellphones click. He flips his festival catalogue at her. “Joan, it’s so good to see you back in Toronto,” he grovels. She smiles. He talks as she signs. “I’m sure I’ve told you a million times: You’re so awesome.” Joan has no time for reunions. There are dozens more hands outstretched and she moves down the line, signing and posing.

My man has little time himself, for no sooner has he finished with Joan when another star emerges: Tom Skerritt. My man is ready. “Tom! Tom! Alien, Tom! ALIEN!” Skerritt, like many stars leaving their dim vehicles for the glare of a gala, looks a little dazed. He has a row of press calling to him on one side and a horde of fans doing the same on the other. My man tries another tack. “Mr. Skerritt!” He alternates between shouts of “Tom!” and “Mr. Skerritt!” and hopes one finds the mark.

In the meantime, Kathy Bates has arrived. For the first time tonight, the crowd applauds. She leads Tom to the rabble and both start signing. “Thank you, Mr. Skerritt,” my man says with the lilt of a schoolboy getting a hall pass.

Another black sedan. They’re coming fast and furious now. Several vaguely famous people step out. One of them might be the director, Christopher Rowley. “Mr. Rowley?” my man shouts. “Christopher?”

My man turns to a fan and confesses, “I don’t know what he looks like.” (It’s Rowley’s first feature.)

Now, Jessica Lange arrives. This is what they’ve been waiting for. The screams of “Jessica!” grow desperate. My man: “You were good in Tootsie!” When that doesn’t work: “Mr. Rowley?”

A man next to Jessica snaps his head to look. My man senses recognition. “Christopher Rowley?” The director can’t tell who’s calling him, but he acknowledges it with a nod. My man pounces. “Can I have your autograph, sir?” Rowley, possibly unsettled, beelines for the press pit.

9:20
Jessica is in the media scrum. Her attention drawn, the autograph crowd loses a little of its vigour. A guard keeping watch on the barricades shakes his head. “Guys,” he says, loud enough for a dozen of us to hear. “If you want her, tell her. Yell at her.” This momentarily ignites the crowd, which bursts into scattered calls. “Jessica, PLEASE!” one man shouts impatiently, like he was scolding his daughter.

Kate Winslet is swarmed by autograph collectors at the screening of Little Children. (Donald Weber/Getty Images)

9:32
Jessica has left without signing and the crowd now disperses. I approach my man, who’s comparing his haul with that of his cohorts. I ask him how it went. “Not bad,” he says. He turns to the others. “I think, after Winslet, I’m gonna go home and get some sleep.” Kate Winslet? That’s another screening, at 11:10. I want to chat, but he’s in a hurry — he has to be in position early if he wants to get something. And there’s a Mena Suvari film exiting in less than 30 minutes. He’s feverishly packing his books and pens into his knapsack. I ask if I can come along. “If you want, but don’t use my name. If people at work see this, they’ll laugh at me: ‘What, you do this nine hours a day?’”

9:37
We’re on the subway to the Suvari film. “I feel stupid doing this,” he tells me, “but I’m addicted. It’s like a drug.” This is his eighth year on the star path. He started planning weeks ago, as soon as the festival catalogue came out. He booked his vacation around it and has been strategizing with other collectors across the city. “It’s so crazy,” he says. “Staying out late, eating on the run. The doctors are not happy when you do this. It’s not good for your system.”

9:51
Outside the Ryerson theatre. Another collector is on the phone, getting the Mena lowdown. My man is deconstructing the previous gala. Lange would have been a prize. “I know all the collectors. They all say she’s tough.”

The goal, he says, is just to meet the celebrity. “The rush is when you get to talk to them. The autograph is just icing on the cake.” I ask if he was at the Brad Pitt screening the other night. Of course he was. “He’s a great guy. And I’ve met Aniston. She’s not that friendly. I blame her for the end of that relationship.”

He tells me he once travelled to Cleveland to meet his hero, Paul McCartney; when that didn’t work, he followed Macca to Detroit. “You had to be at the airport [to meet him], and I wasn’t gonna follow a police escort. So I went and met Bonnie Raitt instead.” He eventually met McCartney in Toronto. “He was nice, but it all happened so fast.”

Does he ever glean insight into his subjects from their signatures? “Oh sure. I’ve taken some psychology classes. If they put in every letter, maybe they’re more meticulous — a type-A personality. If they take a little longer and it flows a bit, maybe they’re more artistic. Ron Perlman’s autograph is all gibberish. Just a mess.”

He tells me he’d like to stop hunting one day, that he’s written several screenplays and even given one to Atom Egoyan. “I want to get into this business. I’d feel silly, if I were in it, going up to a director, 'Excuse me, can I have your autograph?’”

9:58
His friend gets off the phone. The Mena Suvari movie started late. That gives them time to regroup. They decide to go for drinks. Sorry, he tells me: Collectors only.

Guy Leshinski is a Toronto writer.

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