Personal AppearancesBruce Greenwood was part of the celebrity crowd at The Annual Pepsi Celebrity Ski Invitational, which was held at the Blackcomb and Whistler resort just outside Vancouver. Although Bruce appeared in several ski tournaments during his two St. Elsewhere years, this was a special treat for him, since he grew up skiing on these mountains. The following article appeared in The Vancouver Sun and includes a quote from Greenwood:
WHISTLER -- It was a celebrity ski tournament. It was a wild party. It was a charity bash. It was a tourism promotion. It was a corporate advertising stunt. But mostly, it was a Television Event.
It was the Pepsi Celebrity Ski Invitational, with stars like Alan Thicke, Cliff Robertson, Kevin Dobson, Susan Blakely and Barbara Eden turning out for a weekend of fun in the snow before cameras from Entertainment Tonight, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous and other major American shows.
In addition to selling the wonders of B.C. skiing to U.S. television viewers, the celebrities signed bazillions of autographs, risked life and limb in downhill races, dressed up for a black-tie charity dinner, and suffered through a cocktail party or two.
Vancouver-native Bruce Greenwood, now starring on NBC's St. Elsewhere, attended similar celebrity ski events in the U.S. this year. "This one was so incredibly organized--it's one of the best I've been to," Greenwood said. "This was the most extravagant, and it makes me proud to be from here."
Greenwood is an old hand at Blackcomb and Whistler, but many celebrities had little or no experience on slopes. Olympic gold medalist Nancy Greene Raine, now a Whistler hotel owner, was on hand to give tips to the stars.
"I don't ski at all," Eden said shyly, before her private lesson in front of dozens of cameras, "but I'm trying to learn."
Dobson, who plays Mack Mackenzie on Knots landing, looked to the top of Blackcomb Saturday afternoon, with a concerned expression on his face. "I'm sort of taking it easy," he said. "I haven't skied in awhile and I took a couple of falls this morning."
The hills were a definite hit with the athletic types. "I'm staying here till Wednesday because it's great--the powder is fantastic," said Martin Kove of Cagney and Lacey.
Otto Jelinek, federal minister for Fitness and Amateur Sport, and top Canadian skier Laurie Graham won Saturday's Golden Suitcase award for sliding downhill the fastest in - what else? - Samsonite luggage. Greenwood, after losing a ski half-way down the course and finishing on one leg, was awarded the slalom trophy with his team on Sunday.
Some awards that weren't handed out officially:
* Best Material for Vicious Gossips: Victoria-born composer David Foster arrived for the weekend with nouvelle belle Linda Thompson Jenner, a former beauty queen once linked with Elvis Presley. (So recent is their romance that her typed biography, passed out to the press, refers to "Linda and her husband, Olympic gold medalist Bruce Jenner" - with "ex" scratched in by hand in the appropriate place.)
* Best Under-Dressed Celebrities: Alan Thicke, whose luggage was lost in transit, shared a tuxedo outfit for part of the Saturday evening gala with generous local broadcaster Terry David Mulligan.
* Best No-Shows: The fabulous Landers sisters, Audrey and Judy (Dallas, A Chorus Line, B.J. and the Bear), were supposed to be the headliners at the benefit but failed to arrive. Nervous event organizers speculated that they got lost in a beauty parlor somewhere between Los Angeles and Vancouver.
Personal Appearances