“It’s an opportunity to give something back, because without the fans there would be no motion picture industry.”The ballroom of the Beverly Garland hotel – a grand name, but really a down-at-heel venue near a freeway off-ramp – was packed for the two-day meeting with middle-aged women in cowboy gear and chubby men with sideburns and thick glasses.It was a dismal setting, like something out of Paul Thomas Anderson’s bittersweet portrait of the Los Angeles porn industry, Boogie Nights. But that didn’t stop Busey and his colleagues from saying they were having a swell old time.In a corner was David Carradine, the gaunt star of kung fu movies and brother of the more successful Keith, trying to flog his autobiography. In another was Cynthia Myers, Playboy’s Miss December 1968 and star of Beyond The Valley of the Dolls. Her nude pin-ups were going for $20 a pop – a bargain for a certain kind of collector – but were kept off display in deference to the organisers and children.Charlton Heston made a brief appearance to promote his book. Geoffrey Scott – Mark Jennings on Dynasty – admitted cheerily he was there to help send his 19-month-old twins to pre-school. “Sure it’s corny and tacky,” he said, “but I get to meet old friends and it’s fun.

Hey, a man’s gotta work.”For the public it was all simply marvellous. “It gives the common man the chance to get close to the stars,” said Winnie, a 40-ish nurse from North Carolina. “In other settings meeting a star would be intimidating, but here I don’t feel intimidated.”Even she, though, acknowledged the cruel pathos in seeing someone like Corey Feldman, once a promising member of the 1980s Hollywood brat pack, pushed out of the limelight by drugs and rehab. “He’s the youngest one in here and he’s already a has-been,” Winnie said sadly.The Collectors’ Show is not just a showbiz version of panhandling For some it is a genuine opportunity. Cynthia Myers was promoting her website, recognising that the internet offers a new chance for glamour-pusses such as her, too old now to contemplate taking their clothes off. “It’s a fan site, with old photos and merchandise for sale and a members-only area for subscribers,” she said proudly.The show’s organiser, a Florida entrepreneur called Ray Courts, has undeniably struck gold, playing host to a subculture of people trading off the celebrity of others. He holds shows four times a year in Los Angeles, and others in the Midwest and rural South.At the back of the ballroom were the real pros, the dealers and autograph collectors who lurk in shadows outside award shows, restaurants and theatres ready to pounce on a celebrity with a pen and a clipboard of publicity shots Most of the stars’ signatures went for $55 Julia Roberts was worth twice that.

Real rarities – recluses or reluctant autograph givers such as Marlon Brando or Michael Jackson – fetch more than $500 a pop.Star Trek star DeForest Kelley, on the other hand, seems to have done little other than sign autographs before his death last year; his photos, personal sketches and posters were everywhere.Giving something back to the fans, the actors like to say It has launched an industry.. A Silicon Valley buccaneer who was host at a $12 million start-up party in Las Vegas just six months ago to mark the launch of his company, Pixelon , will be spending this weekend in the less than glamourous surroundings of a jail in his native Virginia. A Silicon Valley buccaneer who was host at a $12 million start-up party in Las Vegas just six months ago to mark the launch of his company, Pixelon , will be spending this weekend in the less than glamourous surroundings of a jail in his native Virginia.
David Adam Fenne, who billed his splashy dot com as the Internet’s first online broadcast network, turned himself into police in Wise, Virginia, late on Wednesday.For four years, it turned out, Fenne was on Virginia?s most wanted list as a fugitive from the law. The secrets of Fenne are only now being revealed.His real name is David Stanley, who in 1989 pleaded guilty to 55 counts of taking money a fraud scheme in Virginia and in Tennessee.A judge gave him a suspended sentence to allow him time to refund his victims. But in 1996, he vanished.With his new name, Stanley did what so many American outlaws had done before him.

He made for the Wild West, which nowadays means dot com country.But what with raising $35 million for Pixelon from trusting investing and staging his outrageous Vegas party, he hardly kept a low profile. Held at the MGM Grand, the event, dubbed ‘iBash’ ‘99′, featured performances by Tony Bennett and a rare reunion of The Who.Special tribute to Stanley and Pixelon was paid by Roger Daltrey Pixelon has since hit hard times. It parted ways with Stanley last November.Since then, it has also scaled back its ambitions, dropped plans to broadcast programming itself and focused on developing software for other broadcasters.Nobody at Pixelon, however, could have anticipated such a surprise as this.”It’s just absolutely shocking to everybody here,” said Stephanie Kietzes, the company’s chief lawyer. “We’ll be conducting an investigation into exactly who this person is.”Stanley told the authorities that he decided to turn himself when he realised they were closing in on his Silicon Valley house The sheriffs, at last, were riding into town.. With a stroke of the pen, India’s Minister of Commerce, Murasoli Maran, consigned a particular version of India to history.