I went to a film convention recently. You know how people who starred in cult films and television dramas over the last few decades can have a further stage in their careers, after the acting jobs have dried up, by appearing and doing paid for signings at conventions? Well, somebody who was in The Corn Mother was at one of them.
(Actually, even still quite active and famous actors have been appearing at them for a while now, what with science fiction, fantasy and superhero genres having become such big business.)
As far as I know it had never happened before that somebody from The Corn Mother had made an appearance at a convention. A bit unusual that, as you would’ve thought somebody would have done, even if it was just one of the people with a cameo part.
Although it was quite a trek to get there I still went. I was going to ask them about the film. Face to face.
They were doing a signing and I paid my money and queued up. When my turn came they asked me who I’d like the signature made out to. It was now or never.
I asked them if they had any particular memories of The Corn Mother. They just looked blank. Not annoyed. Not like they didn’t want to talk about it. Just blank. They asked me if I was sure I’d got the name of the film right, as they couldn’t remember that one.
I said yes I was sure but I got the same blank response and so I mumbled something and stepped away. I know they’ve been in a lot of stuff, worked on over a hundreds films and television programmes, and it’s heading towards 30 years ago that it was made, and they had a relatively small part in it, so maybe they’d just forgotten about it.
