Thursday, July 06, 2006

Orlando Bloom must deal with more than just the Pirates of the Caribbean

Orlando Bloom was appearing on Good Morning America earlier this week. His fans and the professional Dealers lay in wait by the Stage Door for his exit. It is here that some celebs will sign and pose for the fans. The front row of 5 girls must have gotten there about 7AM to have that position, because many Dealers get there about 7:30AM as to catch the celebrity on their way in, and then on their way out too. The Dealers are actually employees of an agency and turn their signed items over to the agencies for a $20 - $40 fee per item signed. If the celebrity is hard to get, watch out the dealers are out for blood as they need to get their item signed to contribute to their wages. A tell-tale sign that someone is a dealer is the Fed-Ex or USPS Express envelopes they carry to hold their photos of the celebs. Some dealers bring expanding file folders filled with celebs A-Z, just in case they see someone they weren't expecting. Some celebs are aware of this and are able to weed the dealers out from the real fans (George Clooney, Anthony Hopkins), but most just don't have the time to figure it out, and in turn many fans miss out on a autograph or a good picture of their idol. Below and right is Steve, he is the doorman at the GMA Stage Door. He entertains the crowd as they wait for the door to open and the celeb to appear and he trys to maintain order as the celeb exits. Most celebs exit about 9AM, but some take a little longer. Today is one of those days. Orlando finally exits at 9:15AM. See the dealers surge forward and over the top of the fans that had been waiting for hours to see him. You can even see the girl just to the left of Steve in anguish as the crowd pushes her up against the fence and she realizes she has a lot of competition for the coveted photo. Then it's my turn to get the photo. The crowd was decent, but then those damn dealers pushed forward and I missed what would have been a decent shot. Orlando was then led away, never to look back. Oh well, there's always a chance for me to catch him at Letterman after work where I will have to deal with another set of dealers.
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