Goodbye, mate.
Feb. 16th, 2002 04:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
logansrogueToday I learnt that the actor, Kevin Smith, who played the unforgettable Ares: God of War on Xena died from the fall he had in China. I thought he had only been in a serious condition and not critical, but obviously they'd kept us in the dark. Needless to say, I'm totally saddened by the whole thing. Anyone that knows me knows how very much I loved the character of Ares, and how much affection I had for the actor. I was so incredibly *lucky* to have met him in Los Angeles at the Pasadena Xena Convention in 2000. He was so sweet and funny, and he was so decent to me, despite the fact that at cons I'm a raving freakin' lunatic.
I remember seeing him for the first time in the flesh. He was walking over, and although he's a modest fellow, he totally had this laid back saunter that knocked me off my feet. Literally. Something came over me and I dropped to my knees, clutching my camera and clicking wildly. I started going in a bad brit accent, "Oh yeah! Do it baby! Make love to the camera darling! Show me love! Look! I'm not even trying, the shot takes itself! Click click!" At this, Kevin could have done a thousand things. The guy laughed with me, and started quoting Austin with me. I have the photo of his smile, which I cherish dearly. It was a smile just for me (just that single little one). I was babbling away at him about - well I don't remember. But the whole time he smiled, nodded, made eye contact. Treated me nice, which not all celebs do. He even let me hug him, which he didn't have to (especially considering he had just hugged some other chick and I jumped on the bandwagon - which was totally skeezy of me to do).
Later that day he played it up with me again when I walked past as Aphrodite, getting my autograph from him. I'd mentioned to him at the breakfast that I'd bring him a drawing that I'd had signed by him before, but that *I* would sign it for *him*, and a hand drawn sketch he'd get to keep. He liked it (Though I think he was being nice - it wasn't my best picture of him at all), but he really got a kick out of me kneeling down, looking at him quite seriously but with a mocking campy voice going, "Now... would you like me to write anything special for you?"
He got all excited, and said, "Oh! I've always wanted to do this!" Then slips into 'fangrrl mode' (He played the excited fangrrl really well, btw, despite being a huge hulking God of a man), and says in a similarly campy voice, "Can you put... 'To Kev'?" I cracked up and nodded, writing it down and reading it out as I put it down. I'd given him a bell with "Hero of Evil" on it, (cause I was Dite, see?) and then I walked off... with the pen he'd been using. I stopped a couple of metres away, did a turn about and ran back to him. In my Dite outfit (which was pretty much JUST like Aphrodite's costume). So it was all bouncing breasts, bouncing wig and me tip-toeing along in six-inch platform heels. Kevin burst into laughter, and I waved his pen.
"I forgot that I had your pen!" I say. I place it down, and wave and run off. He's there, shaking his head, helplessly laughing whilst signing someone else's things. It was totally rad.
He made that trip so much fun. Then that night he did his thing at the cabaret, and I even danced along next to him, and he pointed at me when I did the Xena yell above the din of EVERYONE and the band in the place. Cause it takes a real set of lungs to do that. And he thought that was cool. So yeah - he was fabulous. Sexy body, sexy voice, good person, great father, obviously a great friend to have (not that I knew about that personally), and a talented amazing person.
I miss him terribly, because I won't be able to watch him in anything new. He was just about to make it big in a Bruce Willis movie. Such a freakin' shame he missed out on that. Worse, he missed out on watching his boys growing into men, and starting families of their own.
Kevin was a part of my life in the silliest and smallest of ways. He's all over my wall in my room. My older sister Helen joked about getting me a dildo and calling it 'Big Kev' (to make me blush. To this day the mythical dildo is called that). In a silly Xena Amazon RPG, his character of Ares is my head boy-toy. He always popped up in my posts on the GJRS. THere were a few "Ares & Nacey Reviews" of Xena episodes, and Ares always would give the ones with him in it the best thumbs up. The character of Ares was so amazing and so much fun that he permanently became a part of my psyche. Ares *is* me now, in some way. No, I'm not burning villages and lusting for Xena in a range of inappropriate ways (mainly because Xena is *so* not my type, and neither is Gabs so get your head out of the gutter. I'm a Calli kinda gal *^_~*), but I'm a lot more confident in myself, I have a sense of humour about my ridiculous ego and I learnt that being evil can be fun. (Oh so maybe I AM burning villages, so sue me). Most of my fan-fics were all about him and Xena too... hell I could go on forever.
He was 38. He leaves behind three children, the youngest is three, and a wife that was his childhood sweetheart.
To such a great human being, I say cheers mate. I hope you come back soon.
I remember seeing him for the first time in the flesh. He was walking over, and although he's a modest fellow, he totally had this laid back saunter that knocked me off my feet. Literally. Something came over me and I dropped to my knees, clutching my camera and clicking wildly. I started going in a bad brit accent, "Oh yeah! Do it baby! Make love to the camera darling! Show me love! Look! I'm not even trying, the shot takes itself! Click click!" At this, Kevin could have done a thousand things. The guy laughed with me, and started quoting Austin with me. I have the photo of his smile, which I cherish dearly. It was a smile just for me (just that single little one). I was babbling away at him about - well I don't remember. But the whole time he smiled, nodded, made eye contact. Treated me nice, which not all celebs do. He even let me hug him, which he didn't have to (especially considering he had just hugged some other chick and I jumped on the bandwagon - which was totally skeezy of me to do).
Later that day he played it up with me again when I walked past as Aphrodite, getting my autograph from him. I'd mentioned to him at the breakfast that I'd bring him a drawing that I'd had signed by him before, but that *I* would sign it for *him*, and a hand drawn sketch he'd get to keep. He liked it (Though I think he was being nice - it wasn't my best picture of him at all), but he really got a kick out of me kneeling down, looking at him quite seriously but with a mocking campy voice going, "Now... would you like me to write anything special for you?"
He got all excited, and said, "Oh! I've always wanted to do this!" Then slips into 'fangrrl mode' (He played the excited fangrrl really well, btw, despite being a huge hulking God of a man), and says in a similarly campy voice, "Can you put... 'To Kev'?" I cracked up and nodded, writing it down and reading it out as I put it down. I'd given him a bell with "Hero of Evil" on it, (cause I was Dite, see?) and then I walked off... with the pen he'd been using. I stopped a couple of metres away, did a turn about and ran back to him. In my Dite outfit (which was pretty much JUST like Aphrodite's costume). So it was all bouncing breasts, bouncing wig and me tip-toeing along in six-inch platform heels. Kevin burst into laughter, and I waved his pen.
"I forgot that I had your pen!" I say. I place it down, and wave and run off. He's there, shaking his head, helplessly laughing whilst signing someone else's things. It was totally rad.
He made that trip so much fun. Then that night he did his thing at the cabaret, and I even danced along next to him, and he pointed at me when I did the Xena yell above the din of EVERYONE and the band in the place. Cause it takes a real set of lungs to do that. And he thought that was cool. So yeah - he was fabulous. Sexy body, sexy voice, good person, great father, obviously a great friend to have (not that I knew about that personally), and a talented amazing person.
I miss him terribly, because I won't be able to watch him in anything new. He was just about to make it big in a Bruce Willis movie. Such a freakin' shame he missed out on that. Worse, he missed out on watching his boys growing into men, and starting families of their own.
Kevin was a part of my life in the silliest and smallest of ways. He's all over my wall in my room. My older sister Helen joked about getting me a dildo and calling it 'Big Kev' (to make me blush. To this day the mythical dildo is called that). In a silly Xena Amazon RPG, his character of Ares is my head boy-toy. He always popped up in my posts on the GJRS. THere were a few "Ares & Nacey Reviews" of Xena episodes, and Ares always would give the ones with him in it the best thumbs up. The character of Ares was so amazing and so much fun that he permanently became a part of my psyche. Ares *is* me now, in some way. No, I'm not burning villages and lusting for Xena in a range of inappropriate ways (mainly because Xena is *so* not my type, and neither is Gabs so get your head out of the gutter. I'm a Calli kinda gal *^_~*), but I'm a lot more confident in myself, I have a sense of humour about my ridiculous ego and I learnt that being evil can be fun. (Oh so maybe I AM burning villages, so sue me). Most of my fan-fics were all about him and Xena too... hell I could go on forever.
He was 38. He leaves behind three children, the youngest is three, and a wife that was his childhood sweetheart.
To such a great human being, I say cheers mate. I hope you come back soon.
