Man it was a long time ago. Maybe the
early 80s? Yeah that sounds right so let's go with it. It was the
wary 80s, I was maybe 13 or 14, give or take. Whatever my actual age,
I was young, physically and emotionally. I was a shy kid anyway, from
a small school, in a small town.
I was lucky enough to have a
television in my bedroom at home, so I had some freedom to watch
television without parental permission or scrutiny. That liberty
comes with the caveat that there was no cable, so no late night
skinimax or HBO. No, I was stuck with the three networks and PBS. The
most risque thing I could normally hope to catch was the Celebrity
Battle of the Network Stars. Until that night when I found All That
Jazz.
Now while I was a definite TV addict, I
was not really one for musicals. I grew up watching late night horror
movies with my dad. As a young kid I also enjoyed a cowboy flick, and
eventually became a fan of those guest star studded series like The
Love Boat and Fantasy Island. Basically I'm trying to say I don’t
know how I ended up even giving All That Jazz a chance. But flipping
channels I came across it and lingered a bit. With only having a
handful of selections maybe I flipped around a few times before
either I settled on it. But whatever happened I ended up watching it
long enough.
You may know where this is going. Yeah
eventually the movie got around to THAT scene. Airotica, a very
sexualized dance scene featuring maybe a dozen dancers of both sexes.
Now if you haven't seen it, it's hot. It starts out sensual and gets
hotter, ended with quite a bit of nudity.
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| Sandahl Bergman and me at Pensacon |
Remember now, this was before streaming
media, before internet porn, basic cable (at least where I lived) and
you just didn't see nudity on the TV. It was a time when VCR’s were
still expensive and some what rare. To say I was in shock would be an
understatement.. It was a very happy exuberant shock, but still
shock. There in front of my eyes, in my very bedroom, on my
television were several sexy, mostly naked dancing women, and one of
them was a goddess.
That goddess, blonde, statuesque, and
beautiful, dancing in nothing more than heels and a thong was Sandahl
Bergman. She made an impression, an impression I have yet, and
probably never will forget. Enough of an impression that I was able
to find out her name. Which was a bit of a feat back in the dark days
before Wikipedia and IMDB. Maybe I didn’t know who she was until I
saw her in Conan the Barbarian a few years later, but I think I knew
her before then. Who knows the memory becomes a bit tricky after 30
years.
The point is she made an impression.
She is the first woman I can remember seeing naked. Now I know she
wasn't the first. I vaguely remember a school mate bring a worn and
wrinkled girly magazine to school once. There was a naked woman but
that's about all I can tell you about that experience. This was
different. This was a woman who was moving, walking, dancing, shaking
her long mane of blonde hair.
It was a fairly short dance scene, but
it seemed to last forever. I was glued to every movement by Sandahl
and the other dancers. It was my first real taste of growing up. I
followed Sandal's career though Conan, Hell Comes to Frogtown, Red
Sonja and other films before finally, I let her slide toward the back
of my mind. She didn't seem to be making as many high profile films
(If you can call Hell Comes to Frogtown high profile). So she slid to
the background, but I never totally forgot her.
Now I'm older, a little more
experienced and a lot more jaded and world weary. I can still
remember All That Jazz though. I still remember Sandahl Bergman.
That's why I was so incredibly excited when she was announced as a
guest at Pensacon's 2017 convention. I finally get to meet that
golden haired goddess who stole into my room that night. On Feb 18th,
2017 I did just that.
I was nervous which says a lot. Over
the last ten years, I have met a lot of celebrities. I have met them
at conventions, interviewed them in person and over Skype and hung
out in bars with them. I don't get excited or nervous very often, but
this time I did. I had decided to tell her this story, but now I was
getting cold feet.
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| Autographed photo of Sandahl Bergman as Valeria |
Would she find the story perverted?
Would I look perverted telling it? Would I stutter or drool. OK I
think I did stutter a little, but I got it out. She laughed, grabbed
my hand and told me what an awesome story it was. Readers of this
article may disagree, but Sandahl liked it and that's all that
mattered. We ended up chatting several minutes, before I picked out a
nice 8x10 of her as Valeria to sign. I got a photo with her, said
goodbye and she thanked me for sharing my story, then I went on my
way.
It was just a shirt meeting between a
celebrity guest and their fan. Just one of thousands of meetings at
Pensacon, which is one of hundreds of conventions, but for me it was
a lot more. It was meeting a vision from the past. It was taking a
trip back to another time. A time of innocence and beauty, when my
whole life lay in front of me. When my parents were still alive and I
wasn't as closely acquainted to death as I am today. A time when a
golden haired beauty danced on the screen of a small television,
lighting up the screen and igniting my heart.
Thank you Sandahl
