Waltons star was wacky for Fats
Worlds collide!
You know Michael Learned from The Waltons and Tom Bosley from Happy Days are here this weekend for a TPAC production of On Golden Pond.
But did you know that Michael has been to Nashville before?
She tells me she can’t remember exactly when, but Michael said she stayed for a week or so at The Hermitage Hotel, back in the day that the late billiards legend Minnesota Fats lived there.
Not that she knew who he was. There just so happened to e this older guy around.
“Every time I would come into the hotel, he’d be there,” she told me.
“Of course I didn’t know who he was at first. And somebody told me and I went, ‘Oh my God.’”
They hit it off.
“We would sit and talk for hours. Ask me what we talked about, I couldn’t tell you. It wasn’t about pool because I don’t play pool. We talked about life and his life. He was just a wonderful guy. Kind of dry. And a little bit acerbic.
“I was sort of young and pretty then, so I think maybe he enjoyed that aspect of our time. But he was a nice man.”
Whoah! Minnesota Fats! Looks like he was a player — even if he wasn’t shooting pool.
Looks like his charms worked. Michael said she wasn’t thrilled with his monicker.
“He wasn’t fat. He was portly. A little portly.”
Many folks think Heather and Neil Orne never see each other because they’re on opposite shifts now.
Think again.
The happy genetically-perfect couple is expecting a genetically-perfect baby in March.
“This could be the very first baby with a silver microphone in its mouth,” said John Dwyer, Heather’s co-anchor for News 2 This Morning.
“To two co-workers who are even better people, I wish them luck and love with their expanded family,” he added.
Ain’t John sweet? And he didn’t even read it off the TelePrompTer.
Several months ago, Heather and Neil picked out the baby name Suri, but now they’re on to plan B.
- Check back here soon to find out who won my CMA “Ultimate Country Fan” contest for free tix to the CMA Awards show, hosted by Brooks & Dunn, and tix to the Oct. 30 Broadway Meets Country event, starring Trisha Yearwood, Jane Krakowski and Barbara Mandrell.
- Hee-Haw producers have released a five-DVD set of the series. Yee haw! It’s Hee-Haw!
