IndyFest and APOTAC's Collectibles Swap Meet

Guests:

Peter Mayhew:

Peter Mayhew, an English hospital worker who inadvertently found himself catapulted into films, was the towering gentle giant responsible for bringing Chewbacca to life. Mayhew, who stands 7'3", was born in Barnes, England. By chance, his photograph was noticed by the producers of Ray Harryhausen's Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977), starring Patrick Wayne and Jane Seymour. Sinbad's producers subsequently cast Mayhew in the role of the Minotaur.

When writer/director George Lucas began searching for a tall actor who could accurately portray Chewbacca, he initially turned to David Prowse. The bodybuilder opted for the part of the sinister Darth Vader, leaving Lucas free to seek out Mayhew for the role of the Wookiee.

The decision to cast Mayhew as Chewbacca proved wise. The giant actor threw himself into the role with great determination. Shortly before filming began on Star Wars, Mayhew visited a zoo where he studied the movement of bears, monkeys, gorillas and other animals with traits reminiscent of a Wookiee. Once inside the costume, Mayhew created one of the trilogy's most memorable and popular characters. Although Chewie's vocalizations were later dubbed into the film in post-production, to cue his fellow actors Mayhew simulated the character's dialogue from within the mask. On set, he was known to growl, grunt and shriek.

After Star Wars, it was clear that Mayhew clearly embodied the role of the Wookiee, and he was asked to reprise the role for the second installment, The Empire Strikes Back.

Between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, Mayhew worked at Mayday Hospital in suburban London. He resumed this position after Empire, only leaving the hospital again to join his colleagues on the set of Episode VI, Return of the Jedi, the film which he remembers most fondly. Once Jedi wrapped, with the exception of a phony taping of Larry King Live, Mayhew did not don the Wookiee costume again until 1997, when he appeared on the annual MTV Movie Awards to accept the Lifetime Achievement Award to honor Chewbacca. Afew years later, he would again reprise the famous role to help bring the Star Wars saga full-circle in Revenge Of The Sith. Mayhew currently lives in Texas when he's not touring.

Burton Gilliam:

Burton Gilliam was born and raised in Dallas where he was a fireman for 14 years prior to become an actor. He says his only "claim to fame" while living in Big D was winning more Golden Glove championships than anyone in history. Boxing was his stage. So when he was offered a co-starring role in Paper Moon (without any acting experience), he quickly accepted. As Floyd, the desk clerk, he received critical acclaim. Mel Brooks liked what he saw in Paper Moon and called Burton at the fire station and offered him a major role in Blazing Saddles. After two unsuccessful negotiations, Gilliam took the part, quit the fire department and moved to LA where he has lived and worked for 23 years. Other movies in which he has appeared include Honeymoon in Vegas, Back to the Future III, Gator, Fletch, The Getaway, Hearts of the West, Wild Bill and many others. His television credits include more than 100 shows, including The Dukes Of Hazzard, Sliders, Weird Science, The A-Team, Knight Rider. He has also appeared in over 125 TV commercials, most recently known as the Dancing Cowboy in the Rodeo Ford commercials - "We don't care how you get here folks, just get here!". They also include serving as national spokesperson for Pace Food, doing all their Picante Sauce commercials. "That stuff's made in New York City!" Because of his unique voice, Gilliam was asked by Xatrix and Interplay to star in 1997's highest grossing CD-Rom video game Redneck Rampage, a butt-kickin', gun totin' 3D romp through Hickston USA.

James Hampton:

Raised in Dallas, Texas, James Hampton attended John H. Reagan Elementary, N.R. Crozier Technical High School and the University of North Texas (Theatre Arts Major). He studied acting with Michael Howard in New York and Leonard Nimoy in Los Angeles. He worked with Baruch Lumet at Knox Street Theatre in Dallas and did summer stock at Casa Manana in Fort Worth (1961). He performed off-Broadway in "Easy Does It" with Tom Poston and Elizabeth Allen, and toured with Burt Reynolds in "Rainmaker". He starred in "Tender Trap" with Reynolds at Arlington Park Theatre in Chicago and played the title role in "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter" at the same theatre with Mamie Van Doren and Rick Jason. Onscreen he has played in films as diverse as The Longest Yard (1974), Sling Blade, Pump Up The Volume, Hangar 18, The Cat From Outer Space, and Teen Wolf (1985). He is probably best remembered as the eager but inept bugler Pvt. Hannibal Dobbs in the classic sitcom "F Troop" (1965), but also appeared in other TV shows including Melrose Place, Evening Shade, Full House, Superboy, Murder, She Wrote, The Dukes Of Hazzard, and The Rockford Files. He has also directed episodes of several popular TV show such as Sister, Sister, Grace Under Fire, and Evening Shade. He has even written episodes for Evening Shade.

Lar Park Lincoln:

From "Knots Landing" to "Beverly Hills 90210," starring roles in feature films, and television and currently a celebrity guest host on the QVC Shopping Channel, Lar is an actor, speaker, author, career coach and a mighty proud mother of two! Her deliciously titillating three-year role on "Knots Landing" offered her the opportunity to work with such luminaries as Michelle Lee and William Devane. Following her award winning role as a young prostitute on CBS's "Children of the Night," Lar played an Aryan terrorist in "Hunter" and the psychic and telekinetic girl who defeats Jason in "Friday the Thirteenth Part VII." The innocent girl opposite Eva Gabor in "Princess Academy" and a sexy vamp in "Fatal Charm" to name a few. She has been a featured guest on "Oprah," "60 Minutes," and "Entertainment Tonight" plus numerous local and syndicated talk and radio shows. For 15 years, over 90 million viewers (including the UK and Germany) have been watching her on QVC as the selling dynamo responsible for millions of dollars of on-air sales.
Website: www.larparklincoln.com

Ed Neal:

Born in Houston, Texas, Neal, after high school, studied at Lon Morris college in Jacksonville, Texas, before moving on to acting and directing studies at the University of Texas at Austin. While there, Neal auditioned for the role of the Hitchhiker in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and got it. He has said that when auditioning he acted as an eccentric relative of his. The movie went on to become a cult classic and Neal's career was launched.

Some of is most notable roles since The Texas Chain Saw Massacre were playing the Mercer interrogator in Oliver Stone's JFK, and Big Chuck's Henchman in the 1993 movie My Boyfriend's Back. He has also been in several Power Rangers films and television series, Knight Rider 2000, Future-Kill, and many more. The voice work he has done for computer games and cartoons include the Wii game Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Final Fantasy: Unlimited, Sonic The Hedgehog: The Movie, Gatchaman, and more. Neal also annually tours worldwide making many public appearances as "The Hitchhiker" at science fiction conventions and related gatherings.

Neal was inducted into the "Hollywood Horror Hall of Fame" in 1993, and owns one of the world's largest movie poster collections, from 1900 to the present day. He also owns Leatherface's apron, worn in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. He received a Bronze Star for Valor during his service in Vietnam in 1969.

Neal currently lives in Texas and has six children. He attended the Power Morphicon in Los Angeles in June 2007.

BigFanboy.com:

BIGFANBOY. com is a multimedia pop culture news and movie review website, started in 2004 by Dallas native Mark Walters. The site hosts the Bigfanboy Livecast every Thursday night - an interactive internet talk show that covers just about everything a fanboy could want to know. In addition to all of that, BIGFANBOY. com also hosts local movie screenings, and frequently holds contests where fans can win very cool prizes. They'll be bringing more cool INDY-related goodies, and even more passes for an advance screening of INDY 4, increasing your chances of seeing it early!
Website: www.bigfanboy.com

Kristofer Straub:

Kristofer Straub is the creator of webcomics Starslip Crisis, Checkerboard Nightmare, Time Friends, Origin Story, and co-founder of webcomics collective Black Label Comics. He also co-developed "Blamimation" animations for comic strip PvP, and is the voice of Brent Sienna therein. We are very proud to have him coming out for the event.
Website: www.starslipcrisis.com

Eddie Medina:

Eddie Medina from Atonement Studios is the artist and creator of Stick To The Shadows and Buford The Duckling, and Ruckus. He also did the art for The Monster Mash - Universal Monster Fest and the Star Wars 30th Anniversary Celebration. Eddie has become a regular at all the Scotoma Events and we're extremely happy to have him back again.
Website: www.eddiemedina.com

Bobby Blakey:

Bobby Blakey is the creator and artist for most of the comic projects as well as the Writer/Director for most of the film projects that BDG Entertainment produces. He has been drawing most of his life and is an avid comic book collector. Bobby's dream of creating his own comic finally came to fruition in 2005 when he created the kid's comic "The Keepers of Dawn". Since then, he has done artwork for two issues of the Dallas Comic Con mini comic, BOTS (a graphic novel), and made appearances at various conventions. He also does a series of critically-acclaimed drawings that are movie character parodies called Eggions.
Website: www.bdg-entertainment.com

Mike Hankins:

Creator of the webcomic 'Dorm Dorks,' which recently published it's first print collection: 'Primordial Soup.' Creator of other short-form comics work such as 'Five Iron Fashion,' 'Love Song: a Traditional Ghost Story Set to Music,' and 'Nina the Ninja.'
Website: www.dormdorkscomics.com

Aaron Wilson:

Aaron’s first comic character revolved around an insurance salesman by the name of Travis Travis. In High School, Aaron drew comics for the school paper. He changed Travis Travis to just Travis and now the main character was a snarky teenager with crazy hair and a cyclops happy face t-shirt. After killing the student council president and vice president in a particular comic. Aaron is a self taught cartoonist, and habitual Myspace/Blogger veteran.

Robert A. Steffenino:

Robert A. Steffenino considers himself a jack of all trades. Born in New York, Robert and his family moved to Texas at a very young age. When he was little, and he'd get asked the question "What do you want to be when you want to grow up?" His answer would be "Bill Cosby."

Robert has always had a passion for entertainment and the arts. He's branched out into many facets of the business.

Robert is an actor, who can be seen as the bartender alongside Hilary Swank in the Academy Award winning movie "Boys Don't Cry." He has also worked on films starring the likes of Elizabeth Hurley and Jean Claude Van Damme.

As a screenwriter, Robert's work can be seen in the film "Tales From The Grave 2-Happy Holidays." He contributed by writing the horror shorts, "Meat The Family," about a spooky family Thanksgiving in the Ozarks, and "Love Bites" about a Vampire Valentines day.

Robert is a co-executive producer of the Charles Band film "Petrified."

Robert is also an amateur stand up comic, and can occasionally be seen at open mike nights around the metroplex.

When he's not working on persuits such as these, Robert is writing and creating comedy cartoons for his own company called "Moron Productions."

Another area that Robert's passion for entertainment has moved into has been prop collecting.

He's the owner/curator of "THE MOVIE WARDROBE AND HORROR MUSEUM." This is his personal collection of movie wardrobe and props from an array of famous films. These include all four (to date) SAW films, Snakes On A Plane, 28 Weeks Later, XXX, and many others.

"I love collecting props," Robert says. "There's something awesome about being able to admire a piece of a flick when you're a fanboy, and I know there are a lot of people out there who feel as I do. That's why I put this museum review together."

Come and say hello to Robert at the show, and don't forget to tour the Museum.

***There is a seperate $5.00 admission fee to view THE MOVIE PROP AND HORROR MUSEUM. Part of the proceeds will be going to charity.***

The DFW Whip Enthusiasts:

The Whip Enthusiasts is a non-political, non-profit educational group for the furtherance of sport whip cracking and the development of whip handling skills. What began in August of 1998 in Dallas Texas with one person sharing an interest with a few friends at a city park, has grown to have over 2400 members all over the world and a number of affiliated practice groups. We are extremely excited that they will be performing demonstrations at our event.
Website: www.whipenthusiasts.org

***Autographs and Guest Appearances Explained***

Most actor guests charge a fee for autographs. Prices vary, usually starting at $20.

Guests are subject to cancellation based upon conflicting work or shooting schedules.