Survivors drop into the Big D
From dallasnews.com
‘Africa’ cast descends on city for Brandon’s charity fund-raiser
01/25/2002
By MANUEL MENDOZA / The Dallas Morning News
Brandon says Kelly was trying to pick up Sean Astin backstage at a late-night talk show.
“‘Cause he was hitting on Sean Astin’s publicist doesn’t mean I was hitting on Sean Astin,” Kelly replies. “It’s a boldfaced lie. If I wanted him, I could’ve had him. Oh, no, maybe not.”
Welcome to Survivor: Adam’s Mark, where good-natured ribbing is just one of the privileges of the fame game.
The hotel’s 38th floor Chaparral Club was the site Thursday evening fora press event and dinner starring all but one of the 16 contestants from CBS’ Survivor: Africa.
Afterward the group was headed to a charity fund-raiser at the Throckmorton Mining Company, the Cedar Springs bar where contestantBrandon Quinton works.
Arriving on a later flight, Lex van den Berghe would complete Brandon’s coup: raising money for the Resource Center of Dallas, an Oak Lawn nonprofit that helps AIDS patients with medical care, and the Walt Whitman Community School, which educates gay and lesbian students fromaround the country.
“I never thought I could make a difference with something that meant so much to me,” he says. “When I was upstairs, I was about to start crying because everybody’s here. I’m about to do it again … I’m a big girl.”
The 500 advance tickets sold out, and another 200 to be made available at the door had people camping out in front of the bar since Thursday morning. Brandon says he expects the event to raise about $30,000.
Kelly Goldsmith and “Little” Kim Powers (to distinguish her from “Big”Kim Johnson) have been hanging out with him in Dallas since Tuesday, his birthday. They went to Voltaire on Wednesday night and plan to hit the ultra-trendy downtown bar Umlaut and a drag show on Friday.
“I’ve had them out drinking every night of the week,” Brandon says.”We’re not going to have to wait in line. We’re the big stars right now.”
“I can’t handle Dallas. It’s too much for me,” says Kelly, a behavioral research analyst from San Diego who describes herself as “really nerdy.”
It was hard to tell with all that cleavage. “Oh, these are our tame outfits,” she says, promising to change before the fund-raiser. “We got to raise money.”
Goat farmer “Big” Tom Buchanan, not known as a clotheshorse, wasn’t as fortunate. The airline lost his luggage. Wearing a T-shirt that read, “Nothing Feels Like a Bear Butt,” he looked about the same as he did on the show.
Ethan Zohn, the curly-haired soccer player who won Survivor: Africa, said he was enjoying his first two or three hours in Dallas. Ethan has a side gig giving brand names to new products, and he had a suggestion for downtown’s green-neon skyscraper: “Change the color to indicate the weather.”
Ethan, who proves that nice guys can finish first, says the strangest request he’s had so far is from female fans who want their body parts autographed. “Usually what I say is I’ll sign it, but I have to hold the piece of paper. They seem to like that.”
He’s also had banana bread and scarves sent to his apartment in Manhattan, and he’s been told that his address is posted on the Internet.
Silas Gaither says he hasn’t had as much luck with the ladies, though he recently signed with an agent and has gone on four auditions that he won’t talk about because he doesn’t want to jinx them.
Any porn?
“No porn,” he says.
But he did meet Billy Bob Thornton in the greenroom at Live With Regis and Kelly and Whoopi Goldberg when the survivors taped Hollywood Squares.
“She’s a sweet lady,” he says. “And she’s a very talented actress as well.”