David Ogden Stiers Hates Me

Does every freakin’ “Must-see” movies list have to include ‘Beauty and the Beast’? Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fine flick. Hell, I have it somewhere in my house… one of the long forgotten DVDs my children lost interest in a week after we purchased it for them.

Admittedly, I too was captured by its enchantment when I first saw ‘Beauty and the Beast’. But then, I came to realize that not only the narrator, but also Cogsworth (the butler/clock) were the voice of David Ogden Stiers, and watching the film became a good dose of salt in the wound.

 

You see, for several years, I tried my hat in the hospitality industry. Beginning as a blue-collar worker pushing a laundry cart, I slowly worked my way up to front desk manager of a luxury hotel. It seems an unlikely position for me, considering my social-phobia. I never was able to summon the charm I’d hope to acquire and overcome my anxieties to chat with our guests freely and openly. The best I could do was to develop a gentlemanly professionalism to interact with people with cordial politeness.

 

It was an interesting job which I enjoyed immensely. Everyday, I met people from all over the world. Many of them were horrendously behaved snobs, but even their obnoxiousness would give me something to tell my friends and family at the end of the day.

 

These days I never have anything interesting to say. I simply can’t talk about my job anymore… All the intrigue and adventure in a police department happens to other people, I just work with the computers. Even when I do hear funny, exciting, or horrible stories, they’re more than likely classified… and they’re just not as good when told in the third person. When I talk about my own job, people’s eyes glaze over even before I finish the acronym “SQL.”

 

Someone, somewhere in the department will enjoy the results of my day’s work, in which I spent hours fine-tuning a query that used to take 28 minutes and now takes a fraction of a second, but no one will ever be fascinated by it. To this day, after 6 years on the job, Brandy still has no clear idea of how I spend my day. Even when we were married she tried with heroic effort to stay engrossed in my how my day went. But, due to an undeniable link between software engineers and “Dungeons and Dragons” fanatics, she merely knows that I spend my days consulting “Oracles”, manipulating “Crystals” and playing with “Toads”. She thinks I practice witchcraft.

 

This is a polar opposite of the hotel gig, where I once came home, and we quickly took of to a northern metropolis concert hall to deliver Amy Grant the wallet she accidentally dropped in the hotel’s parking lot. We got free backstage concert tickets, a complimentary hotel room and a huge tip. We’re not really fans of Ms Grant, but it was still a fun adventure.

 

In my tenure at the hotel, I met Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Weird Al Yankovic, Maya Angelou, and of course, David Ogden Stiers. It is a source of shame that I confess that Mr Stiers is probably the only one of the group (including Ms Grant) that would likely remember me.

 

David Ogden Stiers (pronounced ‘Styers’, remember that… it’s important), was initially a name I wasn’t familiar with. My supervisor finally was able to make the connection for me through Mr Stiers’ long time role on the show “M*A*S*H” as Major Charles Winchester III. But, once you’re embarrassed enough by his memory, you begin to realize that he’s in practically every other movie and a guest-star on virtually every TV program you’ll ever see. You can’t escape the man. Turn on re-runs of “Matlock”, or “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and there he is. He’s the mayor in the film “Doc Hollywood”, starring Michael J Fox. He’s the voice of Dr Jumba in Disney’s “Lilo and Stich” and apparently every sequel thereof (which my kids are all too fond of). His portfolio is far too thick to publish it all here.

 

After my supervisor oriented me on the importance of our soon to arrive guest, I had the honor of checking Mr Stiers into the hotel. I quickly realized that in my efforts to connect him to “M*A*S*H”, I had forgotten to memorize how his name is pronounced. Addressing people by their surname is a golden rule in the hotel business. Only the truly charismatic can get on a first-name basis with guests, and frankly I wasn’t amongst those ranks. No matter… you can always mispronounce something once.

 

A fuzzy-memory re-enactment of my first interaction:

 

“Welcome to the Inn, Mr Ogden Steers”

 

“It’s ‘STY-ERRS’”

 

“Oh, I’m sorry Mr Ogden Stiers”

 

“Quite alright.”

 

…insert a bunch of stuff about registration, credit cards, etc…

 

“You’ll be staying in room #412, sir. Here are your keys. I hope you enjoy your stay Mr Ogden Steers.”

 

“STYERS.”

 

OK, there’s really no defense… I’m an idiot. I was so nervous. This was still relatively early in my hotel career, he was the first celebrity with whom I had personally interacted. My supervisor was a fan… hell with all the David Ogden Stiers movies he’d rattled off the top of his head, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he was president of the D.O.S. Fan-club.

 

I then had the odd fortune of checking-out Mr Stiers the following morning. I won’t bother to list the dialog on that… it’s creepily similar to the check-in conversation. His sheer presence made me an uptight wreck. I took consolation when he checked out in knowing that it was over… I’d probably never see him again.

 

As it turns out however, David Ogden Stiers apparently had some family that lived locally. He was actually a frequent guest at the hotel. And though it’s probably my imagination, it feels as if I was somehow fated to deal with him each time he came. NEVER did I get his name right. Every time he approached me I’d think “Oh God! Steers or Styers! I think it’s Styers… therefore it’s gotta be Steers.” Our interactions grew more and more awkwardly quiet… the silence of my intentionally not saying his name was deafening.

 

After a couple years, he no longer stayed at the hotel. Either his local family member(s) died, moved, or he started staying at the Hilton. I’ve always believe the latter and I feel personally responsible.

 

It’s a strange experience to know that you are disliked by a celebrity. It wouldn’t be so bad if he’d behaved badly, but he was fine. I could tell that my insufferable stupidity was wearing on him, his visibly irritable glare, the firmness in his voice when he corrected me yet again… But he never raised his voice and he never called me names like some of our other guests who were atrocious even though I hadn’t made any mistakes at all.

 

Thus, I wince when Cogsworth the clock-butler gets angry. When Dr Jumba goes on one of his lunatic shooting sprees, I feel afraid. In Disney’s “Atlantis”, when David Ogden Stiers’ voiced Fenton Harcourt berates poor Milo Thatch, I shudder, knowing that during recording, while he was speaking into the microphone, David Ogden Stiers was thinking of me for inspiration.