lcfc party reports

1999: Leslie's New York Luncheon 1999
Johanna and Magnus Jakobbson

We arrived in New York from Sweden on Thursday, June 3rd. Friday we had the opportunity to meet some on line friends for dinner. We had a wonderful time, but since we were a bit jetlagged and rather tired we went back to our hotel rather early to get some sleep before the luncheon on Saturday. We were both nervous and excited on Saturday morning when we prepared to go to the luncheon. I had wanted to go for several years and now it was finally happening! It was a wonderful feeling when we arrived at the beautiful Algonquin Hotel and the first thing we saw when we stepped out of the elevator were all my online friends that I had never met before. It was so much fun to finally meet them. The fan club had a lot of things for sale like photos, T-shirts, mouse-pads, raffle tickets and more. We, of course, bought almost everything.

The luncheon was in a beautiful room with fantastic decorations at every table. Krista and Kay welcomed us all and then Leslie was introduced. She was so beautiful; she really is a"Goddess". Leslie welcomed us all and talked a little about the luncheon and the Algonquin hotel and then we ate. Leslie then walked around to every table to talk with all the fans. She was so nice and fun and thanked us so much for coming all the way from Sweden to see her. We talked for a while and we told her "General Hospital" was not shown in Sweden any longer but we had been watching for several years. Leslie made us feel so welcome and she is so natural. I felt the nervousness disappear as soon as she talked with us.

After lunch it was time for the question and answers. We all wrote down questions for her earlier and Kay and Krista asked the questions. There were a lot of great questions and Leslie had some great and funny answers to all of them. One of my questions was "If you could play any other role on GH, which one would it be?" She answered that it would be fun to play Luke but she honestly thought she would stick with Monica. She also said that one of the things she liked most about Monica is that she is not all-bad and not all good and you don't know what she's going to do tomorrow. She told us a lot of funny stories about her dog, Feather and how she managed to get her on the plane although pets weren't allowed and that Feather was the only dog allowed on the ABC lot. After the questions, Magnus and I gave her yellow roses and a Swedish souvenir, called a Dala horse. It is a hand-painted, wooden horse, which have been made in Sweden since the 18th century. The carving and painting of the horse s carried out entirely by hand so no two horses are exactly alike.

After that Chrissy and Julie gave Leslie a picture of her from "Adam 12". Then there was the memorabilia raffle. There was Monica's sweater, Emily's shirt, T-shirts, ties, Monica's ID badge, autographed scripts and more. We were lucky and won Emily's shirt and Ned's tie. We had a fun time trying to figure out which episodes we had seen these clothes. Leslie then signed autographs and took pictures with everyone.

They all did a great job and we had a fabulous time. It was even better than I ever imagined. Leslie made us feel so welcome and I really hope we can come to the luncheon next year too.