I went to NYC for the Cadillac movie car premiere on Tuesday night. Since it was a special occasion I decided to do it right and sprung for a hotel right on Times Square. Having lived in Chicago for 28 years I'm not exactly a stranger to the big city but this was a real trip!

These pictures were taken at Midnight on a Tuesday! Can't imagine what it must be like on the weekends! Intense........

Sheesh..guess your lucky you made it back home..With all those fans and all. I'm sure Renee leaked the info about your coming to town...

_________________________
"The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one often
comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't."

Mark

Too busy for a small town guy like me. Looks like you guys had fun!

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You can't condemn the bad if you don't commend the good

Renee actually thought all these people came to see HER! Silly girl!

It was quite a zoo but overall a pretty good fun time.......

You clean up pretty well.

Wife dressed me that day. She said the "Woodward Look" wouldn't fly in NYC.......

Early on in the movie the Eldorado is purchased in the showroom scene. The guy in the orange shirt by the car is Richard Loncraine, the director. He also directed in "Band of Brothers".

Thats to cool. Your gonna have to revise your bumper stickers, from i know Greg Cook, to ,i know Hollywood Greg Cook. Very neat.

70 Torino Cobra

"WE'RE NOT WORTHY! WE'RE NOT WORTHY!"

Congrats pal. We're proud of ya!!

All those yellow cars were there when I went to NYC in 1971 too.

Awesome pics Greg!

Did you ever think in your wildest dreams that a Midwest boy like you would see as much as you have in your lifetime my friend!?

You are truly a fortunate man.

Very cool. I suppose you had a VIP card to get that close to stuff, huh?
Yep, NYC never sleeps and looks pretty much like that since Guliani cleaned it up and young folk took to the new vibe in the city. My niece has lived there since college graduation many years ago and loves it.
So how was the movie? And did you sit next to Renee?

The blue card in my hand is the VIP "go anywhere" pass.

There were several celebrities present, quite a few from the Today show but I ignored them for the most part. There were eight people in our group and Marc wanted everyone to sit in one row. I suggested four in a row and four behind in the next row for a tighter grouping. But we did it his way and ended up about the 4th or 5th row from the front. Had we done it my way we would have been one row behind Renee. But whatever....it was still cool.

Since the story is about George Hamilton he stood up front before the movie and gave a nice talk about how the movie had come to be. He introduced all actors present and had them stand up and accept applause. The young man who played George Hamilton is named Logan Lerman. We spent considerable time with him and he is really a nice kid. Just a high school kid having a great time. Good actor, too.

I think the movie is okay, nice nostalgia piece that moves along pretty well. I found myself watching it from a technical standpoint at first but then after awhile I got into the story. Overall they did a good job at making it look "50s". I'd have to watch it again to see how good or bad it really is. It's definitely watchable, though and there is enough car activity to be interesting. In one scene there is a guy working on a Quadrajet but since I was close to the big screen I could see a lot of detail. There were a few cars in the New Mexico shoots that had wrong wheels and stuff, correct detail was not as good as the Baltimore shoots.

I think it's good enough to go see if it comes around.

WARNING! No absurd explosions, No flying cars, No sex, No F*** words......kinda like the way it as in the 50s that I remember.

Remember this???

I know I don't remember much from 1953, but I'll go see it anyway. Yes, I remember that picture, but the ones you took before any work looked scary too.

Saw an add for it on tv a few nites ago. Cool deal Greg.

Cook with a tie? Man alive. Was that what all the people in Times Square were gathered for?

You know, Greg has the proper way of holding himself - the proper bearing if you will, that all dressed up like that --- He could Ferris Bueller his way into convincing someone that he owned the movie studio.

Greg, did it seem to you that people were kind of deferring to you that perhaps would not normally?

I could see Greg playing in two types of movie roles....Ruthless corrupt power figure.....or Relentlessly Moral authority figure in the mold of Ayn Rand's John Galt or Hank Reardon. I think Greg would have fun playing a bad guy. I can see him as the guy with the tommy gun in that tv scene in the movie Home Alone.


Chuck, now, that is a different story. With certain enhancements, he could play in a biographical picture --- as the main character.......The story of Ron Jeremy.

Sorry Chuck... I had to...de deble maid me dew it.

Cook with a tie......a rare sight indeed.....

David, I can fool some of the people most of the time and I can fool most of the people some of the time.....if I ever get a movie part I want to play Chuck.

Aw, come on you guys. This one is simple. Cook is the walking epitome of Clint Eastwood without the twitching eyebrow. In fact, word on the street is that Clint is being tagged to do the autobiography pic of Cook...

Yeah, but I refuse to drive a Gran Torino....

Sorry, it's in your contract...

A couple more.....

First one is posing for the "official" photo.

Second is a cruisin' pic......

Way to go Greg! Good job! Looks like you guy's had a good time.Glad you were able to get in on all the hype!

Overall it was a pretty cool experience. On the morning we left for NYC if my wife said, "It's no big, we don't have to go", I would have said okay, cool.....I didn't really care. But then after we got there and got into the game it was quite a unique experience. Whole different world.

That's a really neat experience that you had. Maybe one day Chuck and I can do the same thing with the Oscar Meyer Wiener mobile and a cartoon premier:).

Gary, I really hate to break it to you, but Chuck beat you to it. You HAVE seen the movie, "Tron"??

That last pic is a really good one

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You can't condemn the bad if you don't commend the good

Well, now I went and done it. I show'd the wife a pic of Cook all spiffed up in a tie next to the Caddy. She said, "Hmm, nice lookin' man". Crap....How's a man gonna compete with a celebrity in a Caddy???

It's okay Doug....lotsa miles between here and there.....

Just as a point of clarity, this car is not the one you worked on right or is it? I'm getting to like the color combo the more I see it. By the way, is that top cover fiberglass?

Looks like a cool time. I'm getting a kick out of the crowd watching you and Anne getting pix taken. I imagine them saying, "Wow, look who it is! I loved them in "Cook's Garage- A true Story"!

That is correct, Tom. The car at the Paris Theatre is not "my" car. I didn't mean to misrepresent the situation, I thought everyone knew that there were two cars. Both cars appear in the movie. There is a very slight difference and eagle eyes might be able to tell the two cars apart.

As of the Friday before the Tuesday showing "my" car was going to be used but since the other car is being shipped to Australia it was decided to take it to NYC and put it on the boat after the showing.

Here's a pic of both cars. "My" car is the one in the back. Note that it looks better than the front car but there is some left over "road dirt" on the foreground car. At this point "my" car was spiffed for the premiere. The owner of the other car wanted to leave the "movie dirt" on his car til he got it home to Australia. But that plan changed.

Oh yeah, the boot is steel. It is not removable like the later cars, kinda works like a manual "retractable".