Orange County Takes EastEnders Seriously
By Nancy Tel
Irvine, California — Saturday, 7 February 2009, was a very exciting evening for the Orange County EastEnders Club at the Auld Dubliner Pub here. Larry Jaffee, editor of the Walford Gazette, was the guest speaker. He had travelled from New York City earlier in the week for a media business conference in Los Angeles, then journeyed to Orange County for the monthly club meeting.
Sixty-five EastEnders fans were in attendance. The evening began with everyone settling into the cosy booths, chatting with EE mates, placing pint orders and then listening to Larry’s riveting presentation.
Larry shared his personal history with EastEnders — how the Gazette was conceived, how he first learned of EE in Washington, DC., how he was able to connect with the BBC, and, most important, how he started a series of interviews and friendships with cast members.
Over the 17 years of publishing the newspaper, Larry has had the honour of meeting many EastEnders cast members — most notably Gretchen Franklin (Ethel Skinner), Wendy Richard (Pauline Fowler), John Bardon (Jim Branning), Pam St. Clement (Pat Evans), John Altman (Nick Cotton), Michelle Collins (Cindy Beale) and Deepak Verma (Sanjay Kapoor), among them.
Larry also knows the whereabouts of former castmembers. For example, he has also met Michael Greco (Beppe DiMarco), currently a professional gambler, and Tom Watt (Lofty Holloway), now a successful sports journalist who rarely works as an actor.
One of the most touching anecdotes was about Larry’s many meetings with Franklin. She’d typically welcomed Larry into her home, serve him champagne at 10 a.m., and he ended up drinking the whole bottle himself.
Another time, Larry was walking with Altman in a London street when people recognized the actor and yelled out, “Hey, Nick!”
Larry said that Altman is a very nice person, nothing like his sociopathic character..
The conclusion of Larry’s presentation was Question Time from the audience. Many people wanted to know about the continuity of the show, know more about the actors and how the production is created.
Larry concluded his discussion by presenting everyone there with a back issue of the Walford Gazette, which we all appreciated.
Larry was bombarded with requests for pictures after his presentation, and before he departed to make his red-eye flight home to New York from Long Beach Airport, we wished him well, expressed our thanks and extended the offer to return to Orange County again at any time.
The Orange County EastEnders Club admires the tireless effort Jaffee has made for almost two decades to perpetuate fans’ burning desire to know ALL THINGS EASTENDERS!
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