This year’s Open House hosted a new round of celebrities and a number of new attendees. Having heard so much of the fun that was had by the “invitation only” event, they decided to find out for themselves. Invited art buyers from as far away as England and Germany crowded Gary Hasson’s LIGHTSPEED FINE ARTS GALLERY in Laguna Hills, California. I was asked to host for the third year in a row and was flown out there, wined and dined and put up in a very nice hotel nearby.

The gallery is a combination office and shipping warehouses where thousands of pieces of art both original and prints are hung and sold via the internet and LIGHTSPEED’S traveling gallery at conventions around the world.

The food was catered by a great company managed by a great guy named John and his fiancée and included shrimp, bacon wrapped baked chicken, champagne, desserts and a ton of other good food.

The celebrity guests for this weekend split their appearances over the 2 days which gave for a variety of excitement amongst the attendees. They gave out autographs (none of which I had the time to get for myself), Vaughn Armstrong provided ukelei music and singing, and the Enterprise boys were the hit of the weekend with an incredible gesture to be mentioned later in this report.

There was a silent auction and the main auction with me as “the mouth to rob all pockets!” Items for bid were many one of a kind items from the actor’s private collections as well as items provided by LIGHTSPEED through their mutual friendships with other celebrities who could not attend including Leonard Nimoy, Patrick Stewart and William Shatner. Those in attendance were the following:

• Marina Sirtis: Deanna Troi from Star Trek:The Next Generation and SG1
• Conner Trinneer: Commander Charles 'Trip' Tucker III from Star Trek:Enterprise
• Dominic Keating: Lt. Malcolm Reed from Startrek: Enterprise
• John Billingsley: Dr. Phlox from Startrek: Enterprise and Stargate SG-1
• Cirroc Lofton: Jake Sisko from Star Trek: Deep Space 9
• Robert Duncan McNeill: Tom Paris from Star Trek: Voyager
• Jeff Conaway: Zack Allen from Babylon 5 and Grease
• Tony Amendola: Bra'tac from Stargate SG-1
• Alexis Cruz: Skaara from Stargate and Stargate SG-1
• Stephen Furst: Vir Cotto from Babylon 5 and Animal House
• Andrew Robinson: Garak from Star Trek: Deep Space 9
• Tracy Scoggins: Captian Lockley from Babylon 5
• Patricia Tallman: Lyta Alexander from Babylon 5
• Jeffrey Willerth: Kosh from Babylon 5
• Vaughn Armstrong: From several Startrek Series including Enterprise
• Robin Atkin Downs: Byron from Babylon 5
• Herb Jefferson Jr.: Lt. Boomer from Battlestar Galactica
• Lolita Fatjo: pre-production coordinator on St

All were very entertaining and as the crowd stood in line for either their autographs or the Photo Session, it was comfortable enough to have numerous conversations with many of the celebs.

My auction duties raised thousands of dollars for the charity (The American Cancer Society) and I insulted as many people as I could in order for them to literally “throw” money at me! It was great!!!

Some of the actors helped me and took part in the auctioning off of some of their donated items with a thunderous applause from the audience. All in all there were approximately 150 people each day at this nice private event.

Sample of auction items:

Entire year of original first year scripts from Enterprise signed by John Billingsley, and perhaps other actors. Script from Animal House signed by Stephen Furst. And other signed scripts.
Actors personal Playmate Toys with edition numbers below 50.
Signed celebrity hats and clothing.
Shekina - the photography of Leonard Nimoy signed by him.
Battlestar Gallactica script owned and signed by the late John Colicos.
Autographed photos and prints.

After each day’s auction, the crowd was introduced to a 20 minute movie directed by Tim Russ and called RODDENBERRY ON PATROL. It was a fantastic parody about the life of Gene Roddenberry during the days of his job as a LA cop and his struggle to come up with a “Wagon Train To The Stars” series soon to be named STAR TREK. It starred Walter, Nichelle, Robert Beltran, Ethan, Robert O’Rielly and Tim himself. It was one of the funniest movies I had ever seen and showed various situations that “may” have given Gene ideas for klingons, the Enterprise, tribbles and other familiar items known to fans of the show. The crowd was in tears most of the times from laughing so hard.

It was a great event with different actors each year but there was something really special that happened on Sunday evening approx. 4pm that went down in this auction’s history. I’ll explain.

As I was moving along to my next item, having twisted hundreds of dollars from attendee’s pockets, John Billingsley yelled to me from across the room to hold on for a second. It seems that he had something to say. “Marc”, he said, “I was talking to the boys (Connor and Dominick), and we decided to add something really cool to the auction. To the highest bidder, we will provide the following: A lunch for 2 with the 3 of us in the Paramount Commissary with the possibility of other E actors joining us including Jolene and Anthony and a tour of the ENTERPRISE set. We would like to do this as our donation to this worthy charity”.

Needless to say the crowd went wild and as John and Connor and Dominick stood to take a bow, it erupted into even more applause. What an incredible opportunity, I thought, and what a gracious gift given by 3 of the nicest guys you will ever meet. As I struggled to calm the room down, I pondered to myself how I would handle this. I have a knack for thinking while I’m talking and I thought of a way to start this while I was repeating to the room what John had said.

“OK, OK, OK”, I said. “This is incredible and for something like this, I would like to start the bid off at $500.00!” The crowd quickly fought to be heard by me as their hands wildly pierced the sky. “I have 600, 650, 1000, 1100, 1350, etc.” As bidders fell from the field of battle, two lone warriors eyed each other as they snapped their looks for me to accept their bid. As we got to the $2800 mark, one of the injured warriors began to falter. She looked at the worthy opponent across the room, tears streaming down her face, she gathered the will for one more final assault which took the opponent by surprise. $2850! $2900!................a pause, a conference with her girlfriend and a final plea for cessation of hostilities: “Three thousand dollars” she whimpered. War is hell and the only winners are the ones that leave the battlefield unharmed. If you win the battle, you’ve won the war. The male partner in this battle for utter supremacy looked me square in the eye and quietly spoke: “$3100”.

As if it was a Quentin Tarantino movie shot in slow motion, my head turned towards the wounded warrior and without a word between the two of us, I saw the blood run from her face, her eyes swelled with an ocean of tears and the quiet hand of a friend standing next to her assured her that it was ok. We did well.

$3100 going once……………I hoped………..$3100 going twice…………I prayed…………and…………..and………here comes the good part. I glanced at John the entire time I started the last bidding cycle. As he caught my eye, our minds locked together in an instant and he got what I was suggesting without a word between the two of us. He interrupted! “Marc! STOP! I’ll tell you what. I’m sure Connor and Dom would not object to us having TWO lunches if the two bidders don’t mind”. John got it, I thought to myself. He got the message and agreed. The lovely crying injured warrior woman cried in a completely different way now, just as the audience was doing also. Even me. What an electrical charge in the room at that moment. TWO lunches, TWO tours, and the 3 Wise Men who set it up. $6000 going once, $6000 going twice……and SOLD! Two Invitations For A Total Of $6000!!!!!!!!

I need not go any further. You got an idea of how the weekend went.

Thanks for listening.

Marc B. Lee