Philadelphia: 15 Years Later
The other day I saw a commercial for the 15th anniversary of the movie “Philadelphia”. At first I didn’t believe it was that long ago, because that made me feel old. And then I remembered the story of how I came oh so very close to meeting Tom Hanks, only to be foiled by a pudding cup.
Let’s get in the way back machine and go back about 16 years (it’s takes awhile for a movie to come out). That would be about 1992. I was going to high school at the Phila. H.S for Creative and Performing Arts, not too far from Palumbo Playground, which was across the street from where we found out they were shooting a scene for a new Tom Hanks movie! It turns out the building housed the loft that Tom’s character lived.
So, being the great academics we were, we ditched school for the day and decided that we would stand around and try and meet Tom Hanks. I don’t remember what month it was, but I remember it being freezing cold. We stood on that corner all day, watching the silver trailer and all the people who were going in and out of it. The Production Assistants were pretty arrogant, acting very important (and as kids, we thought they were, we didn’t know they were the low men on the totem pole) and yelling at us to be quiet when they had to lock down the set (I sincerely doubt they heard us on the second floor of an old brick building while we were talking normally a half a block down the street). We heard a lot of “What’s your 20?”, “Can you go to channel 4?” and “Where’s Crafty?” (craft services that feeds everyone). It was exciting for awhile.
As the day wore on, we got tired and scrounged what we had in our backpacks to eat: a nice combo of sandwiches, granola bars and chips. It was fun to talk about what we’d say to Tom when we met him as some of us were writers, some were actors and some were a combo of both. When you are 16, you probably haven’t met too many famous people. But there we were, freezing our asses off and staring holes into that damn trailer parked in front of the playground. We were kids who were into the arts and Tom would get that, we all knew it.
Then, we heard one walkie talkie say to a PA that Tom was going to be on the move in 5. We got very excited and the PA’s all focused thier attention to the steps that Tom would be walking up into the big brick building. We kept across the street and stood on the corner of the actual block. We were all kind of giggling with excitement. What would he say to us? We all grew up watching his movies, would he be as nice as he seems?
We krept a little closer and the PA’s still were preoccupied with Tom and not with us.
Suddenly, we saw a shadow of a door swing open.
There he was, walking around the trailer to cross the street. He looked like shit, very drawn and had this grey stubble. We were a little puzzled by this look (not really knowing the plot of the movie yet), but we were still excited. He was getting closer and so were we.
That’s when we heard it.
“TOM!”
We turned around and saw this skinny, tall, homeless dude barreling up the street. He had something in his hand held up over his head.
“TOM! I GOT IT TOM!”
Tom Hanks had crossed the street and was now halfway up the steps. He turned and saw who was calling his name.
The homeless guy is still barreling up the street.
“TOM I GOT YER PUDDIN’ TOM!”
It was a half eaten pudding cup with a spoon in his hand. He was swinging it like, well, a madman.
We couldn’t believe it. We were frozen.
Apparently neither could Tom, because his eyes got superwide and he high tailed it into the building.
The homeless guy stopped, threw the pudding cup into the street and walked away talking to himself. Something about why someone would say no to pudding. Hoe could they say no to puddin’?
We stood there, mouths hanging open. If it were summer we would have caught flies. All day waiting in the freezing cold and this is what happens. Someone asked one of the nicer PA’s how long he’d be in there and the PA told us a few hours.
By this time it was around 4 and it was starting to get a little dark out. We all had to get home to eat dinner and continue our lives as anonymous high school kids. We didn’t get to meet one of the biggest movie stars today, but, as we all agreed on the trolley, we had a helluva story.
