I'd been getting kind of cranky about all the celebrity hype surrounding the Democratic National Convention.
Where were the big parties? a radio producer wanted to know. The only party that we should be covering was the Democratic Party, I huffed.
Have you seen any stars today?, a reporter asked, to which I snorted, Forget stars, let's talk issues.
Well, forget that.
Last night at the Pepsi Center, seconds after Joe Biden finished his speech and after hours of being clobbered by discussions of the issues, I looked up -- and saw stars.
Mad Men Jon Hamm and John Slattery, the actors who play '60s advertising execs Don Draper and Roger Sterling, respectively, on AMC's stylish, smokin' hot original series, had just flown into Denver and were in the house, along with Talia Balsam, who's Slattery's wife both on the show and in reality. She was also once married to George Clooney, which I found out when I Googled for her credits, because her part somehow doesn't rank the AMC cast list on the home page. For that matter, I didn't find any mention of a movie Slattery made with Sela Ward, Catch a Falling Star, which played on Lifetime -- and Slattery would have been a refreshing sight at Tuesday night's Lifetime party, when the most famous person in the room was some Washington, D.C. official. According to that official.
But the stars were definitely out Wednesday night at the Pepsi Center, and none shone brighter than Hamm, whose Draper is a very complicated character, a man who's reinvented himself and wants to be good, but can be so very, very bad. While he's looking unbelievably good.
"He's so handsome, I can't even look at him," said an equally starstruck colleague. "It's like an eclipse. You can try to look at this amazing sight, but if you do, you know your eyeballs will get seared in your head or something."
We're Mad as hell, and could take this for a very long time. -- Patricia Calhoun
