Frank Reighter and I went to visit Adrian Booth Brian at the SerialFest event this weekend. She was very happy to see us and forced us (well, little force was required) to sit next to her for a couple hours as she signed autographs for fans. I'm happy to report that she appears to be in good health for age 87, and seems mentally as sharp as she was when she came in for the fan club meeting in 2004.
It was interesting learning about her non-Stooges films, as the SerialFest crowd is as passionate about that film genre as we are about the Stooges. While we love Adrian as "Mattie Herring" and "Sherry Rumsford", they adore her as "Vultura" (from "The Perils of Nyoka").
I also picked up a few tidbits of info about each of her 4 Stooges film appearances. In "Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise", after Curly says that April, May & June are three of the prettiest months of the year, Adrian replies (in a deep Southern accent) something like, "Why y'all say the kindest things". I asked her why she spoke with a Southern accent, since neither the Widow Jenkins nor the other daughters had any accent at all. She said that Jules White instructed her to do so and in fact, White was so taken with the way that she delivered that single line that he gave her the lead role in the next two Stooges shorts ("Three Sappy People" and "You Nazty Spy").
I also asked her about the much-repeated story that during "Three Sappy People", a piece of pastry that was thrown at her lodged in her throat and she required emergency medical attention. She said that was way overblown, however Jules White did instruct that the pastry was to be thrown at her at the precise moment her mouth was wide open to get the most comic effect.
Adrian was not aware that "You Nazty Spy" had been colorized and was curious to see it. I told her that her hair color in the colorized version appeared to be a reddish brown, not dark brown or black. She confirmed that it was indeed auburn for that film.
As for her final Stooges film, "Rockin Thru the Rockies", Ed Bernds had said that Adrian was deathly afraid of the bear that was on the set and that Larry Fine had sneaked up behind her and piched her on the leg, scaring the heck out of her because she thought it was the bear. Adrian had no recollection of this at all, and claimed she wouldn't have been afraid of the bear.
Adrian sends her regards to all the Stooges' fans and hopes that we'll have her back at one of our meetings in near future.
Gary
