After a Fashion

Big daddy Dennis Quaid (Photo by Stephen MacMillan Moser)

BEST ACTRESS Well, it certainly has been a season of surprises, hasn't it? I wrote my holiday columns so far in advance that it was hard to really know what was going on with me. Let's step back to the week before Christmas when I made my unforgettable star turn as Mother Ginger in Ballet Austin's Nutcracker. Naturally I was thrilled to be asked; Mother Ginger's shoes are big ones to fill. Now, everyone who plays Mother Ginger tends to look the same. Same wig, same hideous dress, same rolling scaffolding to get the old broad around. How would anyone know it was me under all that? I mean, if they wanted me bad enough to play Mother Ginger, didn't they want to see me? So I personally added a couple of props (with permission, of course) that made me more recognizable: sunglasses and a fan. All I can tell you is that I was an unforgettable Mother Ginger.

LOVE LETTERS (BITCH, PLEASE) After my silly, innocuous remark a few weeks ago about being Rosa Parks and refusing to smoke my cigarettes in the wind and rain at a recent party, needless to say, a thin-skinned, humorless reactionary wrote me a scathing letter asking who the fuck I was to call myself Rosa Parks when I was nothing but a lowly cigarette smoker and Rosa Parks stood up for racial equality. He then went on to suggest that I had been smoking "wacky tobacky" when I wrote the story. Though I do live near the puff-puff-pass section of South Austin, I most certainly was not under the influence when I wrote that. Really, I just say things like that to rile up readers whose sense of humor has gone on hiatus.

A CHRISTMAS STORY It's always so fun to hear from old friends during the holidays. My dear friend Lea Buffington called two days before Christmas telling me that she'd forgotten something critical. Several years ago, Lea called me and asked if I'd whip up some of my deluxe Christmas stockings for her sister and brother-in-law, Kimberly and Dennis Quaid. I was thrilled, needless to say, and designed a pair called Romeo & Juliet. I saw a photo of Dennis standing in front of the mantle at his Malibu home in front of the stockings. I thought my life was complete. The next year, Lea called and needed a stocking for Jack Quaid, Dennis' son with Meg Ryan. He wanted to be a director, and so his stocking was done in black and white and silver. So this year, Lea calls breathlessly, "Omigod, I forgot about the twins!" So I rustled through the samples of stockings that I had left and picked out a handful to show her. Upon awakening, I realized that I had missed her call scheduling a time for pickup. I was mortified. "No problem," says Lea, "but could you bring them out to us at our house?" No problem. I rushed over there like Santa on Adderall and brought the stockings. My nephew Tyler drove me, and we went to the door where Lea met us and ushered us in. And there in front of us was Dennis Quaid with his arms open wide saying, "Merry Christmas!" Okay, I have to admit that that is one of my favorite ways of meeting a movie star. We had a little drink; Dennis visited with Tyler while Lea, Kimberly, and I looked over the stockings. Dennis made the final choice: one red satin stocking appliquéd with a green velvet Christmas tree loaded with hand-sewn beads, crystals, and bells, and for the other, a green moiré taffeta appliquéd with a white velvet snowman, embellished with snowflakes, crystals, and sequins. Dennis posed for pictures in front of the Christmas tree holding the stockings. I was in heaven. On the way home, Tyler kept saying: "Uncle Stephen, you are the shit! You know Dennis Quaid, and he gave you his cell-phone number!" Tyler spent the rest of the afternoon texting his friends to share his Christmas Eve story.