Blake Edwards…one hell of a driver.

I believe it was around the year 1999 or 2000, a friend of mine from university, Alan, was planning on moving to LA. He asked me to come along with him for the road trip. I am always down for a road trip so I, of course, said yes. Side note: I later moved to LA but that was in 2002.

After an adventure-filled trip, we finally arrived in LA. Alan was going to be rooming with a friend of his, David, I believe was his name. The other roommate was named Amy. Turns out, Amy was Blake Edwards’ and Julie Andrews’ adopted daughter. Amy was welcoming and sweet. For anyone who may not know who he is, Blake Edwards is the director of older movies such as Breakfast at Tiffany’s, the Pink Panther movies, & Victor/Victoria.

For the next week, I was going to be staying with them before I was to fly back home.

One night, it was decided that we would be going to see her parents. Um. What? This is not what I thought would be happening on my trip out there with Alan. I had been to LA before with family on vacation but never on my own to really experience it.

So we show up at her parent’s apartment. I believe it was on Wilshire somewhere. Blake was there but Julie was filming and was not going to be attending.

We all sat down to eat. I sat to Blake’s left and we started engaging in conversation. He asked about me and was very friendly. He also had a whole conversation with me about caviar. I don’t do caviar but it was interesting to talk with him about such normal things.

I took a picture of Blake and Amy together that night. It was after I took the picture I noticed the 2 Golden Globes, an Emmy, and the Oscar behind him on the shelf.

Another night, we went out to eat at an Asian restaurant. Pretty fancy place, obviously. It’s Blake Edwards, hello. Anyway, he was impressed I could use chopsticks. I didn’t think anything of it. Can’t everyone? ::shrug::

Many years later, after I had moved to LA, Alan and I got together to hang out. Turns out, Alan was now Blake’s assistant. So this time, we went to Blake’s new house. Once again, I missed meeting Julie Andrews because she was away filming. However, she did call while I was there and Alan put her on speakerphone. I could listen to her talk all day. So soothing.

I digress. We were in the kitchen and Alan says, “There are some frozen pizzas in the freezer if you are hungry.”

Blake walked into the room at the same time and said, “Frozen pizza?! No, no, no. You take this lady out to dinner.” Blake proceeds to pull out his credit card. He was so offended that Alan was going to feed me frozen pizza instead of taking me out. So off Alan and I went to California Pizza Kitchen. I remember being surprised that Alan was able to use Blake’s card but apparently they were familiar with him.

Another night, Alan was supposed to go pick up some groceries for the household. So I went with him since we were already hanging out. We pulled up to Vicente Foods grocery store off of San Vicente Blvd and there sits Blake’s black Mercedes. Alan said, “What is he doing here? I’m supposed to pick up the food.”

We go in and there is Blake with a cart, walking through the aisles throwing random stuff into it. Just whatever his little heart desired. So we walked around with him as he proceeded to tell us to throw anything we wanted in the cart to finish up the shopping. I didn’t add anything but it was like hanging out with a sweet grandfather who tells you that you can get whatever you want at a candy store.

We had a lot of grocery bags. So Blake told Alan to fill his car with them and I should ride back with him. That was unexpected but I went with it. Blake and I had a lovely conversation on the way back to the house though I was a bit white-knuckled because Blake’s driving was, how do I explain this, pretty wild, I guess. Not sure how else to put it. I was thankful when we reached the house. I giggle as I type this because it was just interesting to experience and a very fond memory.

When I heard he passed away in 2010, I felt so very sad. Though I did not know him well, the times I hung out with him were always entertaining.

“Didn’t I tell you that this was a wonderful place?”- Holly Golightly Breakfast at Tiffany’s

M.