My “Love Boat” of celebrity photos

Maybe you remember the Love Boat TV show, where B- and C-list actors kept working well past their prime making cameo appearances. My very dated collection of celebrity photos reminds me of this scenario, since they’re so old, taken from the late ’70s until about a decade ago. If you look these people up now they are so much older (if they are still alive)… Surprisingly, many are still out and about.

I’ll present the photos in loose categories, with IDs and maybe a little story to go along with them.

First, country singer Bryan White, 1997. I was living in Nashville at the time and was doing freelance photography around town for City Search and others. This photo of Bryan was taken at the Country Music Hall Of Fame, the morning before he did a live radio show for his CD “Love Is The Right Place” from Ocean Way Studio:

The shot below is at Ocean Way after the live broadcast, where Bryan is posing with announcer Charlie Chase and fellow stars Neil McCoy, Leann Rimes and Steve Wariner:

While we’re in Nashville we’ll revisit Ocean Way and hang with Faith Hill and Tim McGraw (1997, the year the studio opened) as she recorded her album “Faith”, released the next year. I was dropping off prints of the Bryan White photos for the studio manager when he asked Faith if I could take some photos. Surprisingly she said yes! I got some shots in the lounge before we headed off to the studio, where I ended up with Faith in the vocal booth for a few brief minutes…:

While we’re in Nashville we’ll go back a decade further to 1987, when I caught Roy Acuff at the Grand Old Opry while passing through the area:

Country picker and fiddler Ricky Skaggs (right), TX, early 1990s:

In 1998, after I had moved to CA from Nashville, who should come from Nashville to my new town and suddenly appear at the local Target to promote her album? Wynonna Judd! Once I heard about this I had to run back home to get my camera:

Don’t worry, the actors and politicians are coming soon, but here’s another singer, ’60s icon Tommy James. He was following a Love Boat trajectory in 1977 or 78, appearing in the gym of my high school in NJ while I was a student. I had no idea who he was… This shot was taken in the locker room after the show as a fellow student interviewed him:

Let’s begin the actors’ section with David Duchovney, who in 2001 was filming the movie “Evolution” at a university in SoCal where I work (don’t bother to seek it out unless you like really bad sci-fi) . I actually managed to walk into the busy gym where they were filming, camera in hand, and stand on the volleyball court during this scene where he was speaking with actor Orlando Jones. Duchovney looked at me standing there as he walked by between takes and I stayed cool, like a good (unofficial) extra would. My shot is first, followed by the scene as it appeared in the movie:

Our next actor is Mike Farrell of M.A.S.H. fame, who spoke at a university event about 2001:

Here’s actor Michael York in Pasadena, CA in the late-1980s:

To transition between actors and politicians we need someone who was both, and that would be Arnold Schwarzenegger. I took this photo at Ontario Mills food court in 2004 (the first digital photo on this page so far). When he finally appeared, this was the event where he first made his famous “girly men” comment when referring to his political opponents. Fun fact: In the 1970s when Arnold was new in the US, my father ran into him on a street in New York City where Arnold was working as a bouncer for a club (or just standing there looking good, one or the other). This was my turn:

I’ve photographed two sitting presidents. The first was George H. W. Bush in Palm Springs, CA, 1990 (airport). As an extra bonus, Palm Springs Mayor Sonny Bono got some love from the press afterwards and I think I was his favorite: