Review: ADVENTURES OF A BUXOM BLONDE by Demetria Daniels

These days, a book about celebrities is normally incomplete without a collection of indiscreet confessions about intimate and embarrassing details of celebrity lives, either containing lurid detail of what the author did with said celebrity, or else what said celebrity did with John Kennedy, Frank Sinatra, a murdered rap star, or one or more Kardashians. Other stories of celebrity encounters are more like the old David Letterman LATE SHOW routine, "Brush With Greatness," in which ordinary people recounted their bumping into Brad Pitt in an elevator or serving coffee to Judi Dench - the encounters for which people now attempt demanding cell phone selfies.

But there's a third type of close encounter with celebrities - the one in which a professional, either someone in media or someone else in the industry, has a chance to socialize with people further up in the pecking order. Demetria Daniels is both of those, having been a journalist and now the writer of the GOTHAM GOSSIP blog, as well as being a playwright. Her new book, ADVENTURES OF A BUXOM BLONDE: MEETING CELEBRITIES IN NEW YORK is a bit of a misnomer, since Daniels is a minor celebrity herself: most chroniclers of celebrity encounters don't have portraits of them by Peter Max hidden in their work. But it does contain stories of her meetings with everyone from Ziggy Marley to the President of Pakistan, from David Frost to Bill Clinton, and all points in between. Some of them are chance encounters while others are professional ones, and Daniels recounts them with enthusiasm.

Some of her encounters are also social ones - meeting Gloria Gaynor at a Beaux Arts Society ball, as Daniels is a Beaux Arts Society member; and meeting Lauren Bacall, among others, at dinner at the Players Club, of which Daniels was also a member. Such tales are reminders that Daniels has had access where celebrities' regular fans might not. Club memberships, reporting and interviewing, and attending the same parties are backstage passes most people don't have, so Daniels is able to provide insights that a fan meeting these same celebrities on the sidewalk might not have. If you're a fan of Steven Spielberg, Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger, or Billy Joel, among many others, Daniels will provide kernels of insight that you might never have gained through meeting them on the street or stopping them in a coffee shop for their autograph.

A woman who's been known to travel with a cocktail dress in her bag just in case she needs a quick change for a random invitation - such as press-crashing an event at Radio City Music Hall and being invited down to dinner by Steven Spielberg - Daniels also provides celebrity fans, through her own examples, with some intelligent ways to further their own possibilities for encounters with people they admire.

Daniels has a number of fascinating stories about her encounters, which are fast reading and very enjoyable, marred primarily by some poor reviewing and failed editing of obvious errors ("Eva" rather than Ava Gardner, Hugh "Jackson" rather than "Jackman," and a persistent misspelling of Spielberg's name). Still, her recounting of meeting John Kennedy as a young Presidential candidate in a fast red sports car is as breathless as it must have been when she first told her friends, and her details of certain stories, such as her bumping into Michael Jackson and then meeting Robert Redford and Jane Fonda by accident out of that encounter suggest a possible retitling of the book as "MISadventures of a Buxom Blonde."

If you're dashing off for a spring weekend in Florida or St Kitts, this is a perfect beach read. It's a short, easy read in comfortable segments, with the right tone of gossipy fun that's no longer seen in magazines and is only occasionally hit by Perez Hilton on line. Don't expect sexual revelations, notes about cocaine on rest room counters, or stories of barroom brawls and arrests - despite their both having alliterative names, Demetria Daniels is not Kitty Kelley. Those who remember Rona Barrett will recognize the writing style as well as the decorum. If you're looking for dirt, move along - if you're planning to be in Manhattan and you'd like to get a better idea of how mingling with the interesting and famous happens without trolling outside stage doors for autographs, the book is an education.

Available through Amazon, it's just shy of 100 pages and is illustrated with many of Daniels' photos. This collection of close encounters of the celebrity kind should prove interesting to fans who want to know more about meeting and greeting their idols.

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