Sean, that's amazing! You should get him to sign a copy of a TV album - the same way I got Neil Postman to sign my copy of Roger Waters' AMUSED TO DEATH (named for a Postman book). Postman DID know who Waters was, and was very excited about it, so perhaps Widmark has heard of Tom, too. - --Philip
This reminds me (slightly) of the time Aaron Copland came to talk at Yale while I was there. My friend David, a big Emerson, Lake, and Palmer fan at the time, went to see him, and asked him what he thought of ELP's version of "Hoedown" (or possibly "Fanfare for the Common Man," though that might not have been out yet, or at least not for long). Copland said something superficially polite but implicitly dismissive of it, but added that he certainly appreciated the royalty checks!
I'm also reminded that I used to have a practice of getting people to sign the "wrong" thing: hence my copy of Faulker's "Absalom, Absalom" signed by the members of R.E.M. (Southern novelist, Southern band - get it? I think they actually enjoyed it) and an ornithology textbook signed by Terry Gilliam. Gilliam was giving a preview showing of "Jabberwocky" in New Haven, and I went to see it. After the show, I saw him surrounded by earnest student journalists, and I thought it might give him an amusing break if I asked him to sign my textbook, which I was carrying in preparation for a midterm the next day. He generously did, writing, "Thanks for buying my book - Olin Sewall Petingill" (for that was indeed the author's name!) and then scrawling his real name illegibly underneath. More recently, Richard Thompson autographed the page of Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity" on which he is mentioned.
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