YES, you read that headline right.
It is one in the eye for the cynics among you who thought my only celebrity story involved Arnold Schwarzenegger.
You see, I’m not a one-trick pony.
More a dancing monkey with hidden depths.
Hollywood star Val Kilmer’s death this week at the age of 65 brought back memories of a rather bizarre evening I spent in his company.
As well as Top Gun and Heat, one of Kilmer’s biggest roles was the lead in Batman Forever, the 1995 movie in which he replaced Michael Keaton as the caped crusader.
Hollywood studio Warner Brothers shunned traditional London venues like Leicester Square and the Royal Albert Hall to take the film’s European premiere…to Leicester.
Yes, it decided to celebrate the opening of its new nine screen Warner Cinema ‘multiplex’ on the Meridian Leisure Park beside the M1 on the outskirts of the East Midlands city with the premiere of its summer blockbuster.
And just for good measure the after party was held in an empty warehouse on a neighbouring industrial estate.
So far so glamorous.
I’m not being sarcastic either, I’m from the East Midlands and we know about sophistication.
I’ve been to Melton Mowbray.
Anyway, at the time I was a junior reporter on the Derby Evening Telegraph and one of my colleagues had a friend on the free newspaper, the Leicester Herald & Post.
When I was offered a ticket to the premiere, I grabbed my Dad’s old dinner suit, made some arrangements to sleep on somebody’s floor and promptly jumped in my beige VW Beetle and drove to Leicester to attend the event.
Warner Brothers took the premiere seriously and the actors playing Batman and Robin, Val Kilmer and Chris O’Donnell were there along with director Joel Schumacher.
Outside the venue the sky was lit up with Batman searchlights while inside it had been dressed as a film set complete with gantries and hanging lamps as well as huge models of Warner’s famous Looney Tunes cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd.
The movie also starred Jim Carrey as The Riddler, Tommy Lee Jones as Two Face, Nicole Kidman as Dr Meridian Chase and Drew Barrymore as Two Face’s moll.
Sadly, none of these big names were there, but there were plenty of well known celebrities.
Remember, this was a time before reality TV so stars actually had to have achieved something to gain their fame.
The entire Manchester United team were there including Beckham, Cantona and Giggs as well as the Leicester City squad.
Although I couldn’t understand why there were slightly less women swooning at Ian Ormondroyd than David Beckham.
Other celebrities attending included actress Patsy Kensit and Neighbours star Craig McLaughlin who I remember sat on my table at the after party wearing tight leather trousers and singlet with his greased heavily muscled arms and torso gleaming under the strobe lighting.
I’m sorry I didn’t actually mean that last sentence to sound so homoerotic.
As we sipped expensive champagne inside the cinema and watched Dwight Yorke chat up the locals, Val Kilmer swept past us surrounded by his security detail.
Guests were shown into the nine cinemas and before the film I remember the director and Val Kilmer coming into our screening to say a few words of welcome.
After the film we all boarded coaches to the after party on the nearby industrial estate.
The champagne was still flowing – it remains one of the only evenings of my life where I’ve solely drunk bubbly – and the entertainment was by The Bootleg Beatles and there was a DJ set by Radio 1 veteran Alan “Fluff” Freeman.
I’d not thought about that night in years, until the sad news about Val Kilmer’s untimely passing this week brought the memories flooding back.
Did I enjoy myself?
As “Fluff” might have said: “Not half.”
:::
I’M feeling very humbled this morning.
Which is better than I felt yesterday morning as I was forced to strip off at truncheon-point and don a striped prison uniform.
As I mentioned last week, I took part in a charity stunt yesterday called ‘Jail or Bail’ for the wonderful Maggie’s Yorkshire charity.
Six of us went before a judge accused of various crimes of which mine was having too many business lunches.
We were then ‘locked up’ in a cell (actually a meeting room in the very swish offices of law firm Irwin Mitchell at Wellington Place in Leeds) while we endeavoured to persuade friends and contacts to help us raise our bail to get out of jail.
The lady in the photograph above is called Maria and has cancer but volunteers at Maggie’s in Leeds every week.
She fizzes with positivity and took her role as a prison officer for the day very seriously.
At one point when I thought I’d made a witty quip she threatened to don her rubber gloves.
I said I didn’t think there was much washing up to do, but then she explained what she planned to use the gloves for.
There was a lot of banter involving prison showers and soap, which I didn’t really understand.
I was always partial to a Hai Karate soap on a rope during my formative years.
We were all tasked with raising £1,000 to reach a total of £6,000 for the day but by lunchtime as the sum raised edged higher, we decided to aim for £8,000 and then by mid-afternoon we upped it to £10,000.
It currently stands at more than £14,500, exceeding the expectations of the team from Maggie’s.
Yorkshire property luminary Richard Smailes heads our fundraising leaderboard with over £4,600 followed by Bob Elderton, managing director of Access Building Products on £3,500.
I’m in third place with £3,240 raised and I’m feeling humbled because of the generosity and support of many friends.
There are so many great charities out there and I know you all support lots of them.
So for people to take the trouble to donate while I’m making a prat of myself dressed as a convict, is deeply humbling.
They ranged from Lord Lieutenant of West Yorkshire Ed Anderson, who was one of the first to donate, to old friends from school and university.
I’m grateful that so many successful business people have donated, like dealmakers Dave Irwin and Steve Roberts, sock queen Caroline Davis of Fimex, entrepreneurs such as Andy Needham of Surplus Group, storage king Mike McCarthy and business consultant Tom Bottomley.
And then there are those who I know have been long-time supporters of Maggie’s Yorkshire who still made the effort to chip in and support my stunt, including Garry Wilson of Endless, Martin Jenkins of Zenith, who is the chair of Maggies in Yorkshire and lawyer Richard Larking who is undertaking a considerably bigger charitable challenge for Maggie’s later this year when he rows the Atlantic with his golfing friend and fellow lawyer David Knaggs.
I think most people stipulated that they were donating to keep me in jail rather than to let me out to have another business lunch.
“Never knowingly under-lunched.” said Nathan Lane of Campfire PR, while his former colleague Malcolm Cowing took time between rounds of golf at Pannal wearing his red “Maga” cap and watching Fox News to suggest I deserve a life sentence eating only bread and dripping and after that I should be deported to Derby (he was obviously in a good mood after the Trump tariff announcement).
But then others showed deep empathy with my plight.
Top headhunter Adrian Hitchenor commented: Marvellous work DP! We will ask Sous Le Nez to send you a “pack up” to keep you going until our next lunch there!!”
Julian Pitts of Begbies Traynor was also sympathetic, saying: “I assume that you will arrange for a Sous le Nez lunch via Deliveroo!!”
Mitchell Myers, a trainee accountant at TC Group provided the answer to what I’m going to do with the convict outfit in the future.
“You’ve got yourself a decent get-up for the Otley Run once you’re bailed!” he said, which is a great idea, enabling me to take part in the pub crawl through Headingley so beloved by students and stag dos.
If I ever wondered why I was doing what I was doing, it was answered by a generous donation and heartfelt comment from Mark Hodgson of investigations business Tremark Associates.
He said: “Maggie’s is a fantastic charity. The amazing people there gave me compassion and a place to relax in great surroundings whilst I underwent treatment. I will always be grateful to them.”
I usually end this blog with a smart alec wisecrack.
Today I’m just going to say: “Thank You”.
If you would like to donate to my fundraising for Maggie’s Yorkshire, please click this link:
https://www.justgiving.com/page/david-parkin-1?utm_medium=FR&utm_source=CL
Have a great weekend.