A driver picks up the arriving thespians at the Toronto airport and delivers  Bubba Smith (whom I had not recognized on the plane) to the hotel and me to the  production office of the set. There I meet Mr. George Gains, who is playing the  Chief of the Police Academy.

“My script says you are to perform an unspeakable act upon my person in our  scene together tomorrow. I thought perhaps we might get to know each other a bit  first over dinner this evening, if you’re available.” Mr. Gains is positively  Victorian in his demeanor toward me as we shake a hello.

I don’t know what I expected. Leering? Slathering? I’m so damn defensive about  my image as a so-called star of the Golden Age of Porn that I become what I’ve  been told comes across as stand-offish when meeting new people as my alter ego. When I’m just Chele, I’m fine.
So I said, sure, and we met for dinner.

“I never worked with your wife, Allyn Ann, but I sure know her by reputation.  She’s one hellova dancer,” I enthuse. Allyn Ann McLerie was one of the Broadway Gypsies whom I envied and tried to  emmulate. I admired her from afar. Why did I feel the need to have the first  words out of my mouth to my “leading man” be an indication that I not only knew
he was married – most mature men are – but that I knew to whom? More  defensiveness.
“She still does a barre every morning,” he remarks. “That doesn’t surprise me. You don’t get that good without being prettty serious  about it.”

Dinner was just lovely. Nice restaurant. We sat on the patio. Mr. Gains was a  font of Broadway lore and I ate it up – along with a boss spinach salad.

Next day is the long shot of Steve Guttenberg smuggling me into the Police  Academy dorm. Exterior. No set dialogue, though I did improvise some lines that  they kept in. It’s a thrill when that happens. One feels as though one has, you know, actually contributed.

Back at the hotel, I share an elevator with Bubba Smith! I’m tongue tied. He asks if I’d like to have dinner with him! Do I blush and say something sane,  like “Why sure.” No. I stammer that I “don’t eat dinner when I’m shooting the  next day.” Not only a lie – a transparent, easily refuted lie. You see, I was at  that point in my life where I’d found my true love and wasn’t about to do  ANYTHING to mess it up. I think I was afraid he might make a move on me and I
think I feared – KNEW – that if he did, I’d roll over like a cheap IRA.

The scenes I shot the next day went as smoothly as anyone could ever wish. The  director – Hugh Wilson, at the time, though he was replaced. I never knew why -  could not have been nicer. The same for all the cast and crew. Even doing my  standoffish, Miss Prim act, I managed to exchange friendly banter with everyone.  No one asked me about porn. I’m not even sure any of the rest of the cast knew I  had what you might call something of a reputation in that area.

My second day of shooting involved a scene with Donovan Scott, an improve maven who knew my house mate and husband to be, John. They’d worked together, but I didn’t know that until later. Scotty, as he was known, was a cherub of a guy who could make you laugh just by walking in the door. I loved doing the scene with him, and still adore him, even if he hasn’t asked me out to his house with the great pool for MONTHS.  Well, of course, it’s only beginning to get warm. Maybe soon.

All in all, it was a great time and I even got invited to a wrap party back in L.A. several months later.

Even better, I got invited to repeat my role in Police Academy III. This was not quite as grand an experience.

I was put into a sparkly what we used to call perfum ad dress – i.e. a dress for posing in, so tight sitting down was out of the question. Each day of the three days of my booking, I reported to wardrobe, was shoe-horned into the dress, handed over to hair and makeup and then left standing around the set for ten hours. The director who had hired me for the first film, Hug Wilson, was long gone and a guy named Jerry Paris was in charge. When I finally got on camera, he was sarcastic and very short with me. The next day, Leslie Easterbrook asked me to join her for lunch. After the usual background check chit chat she said, “I just wanted you to know that the reaon Jerry is being so, well, mean to you, has nothing to do with you. He wanted his girlfriend to play your role, and Paul (Maslansky, the producer) insisted on having you repeat the role you had established in the first movie. Jerry’s just mad at Paul – not you.”

You know, she didn’t have to do that, and I thought it was damn nice of her. The next day of shooting, I had like a whole real scene with dialog and everything. Of course, I had my lines down and could not have been more cooperative, but the chill was still there. Oh well. When is anything perfect?

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