Fight the Powers

Fight the Powers
Stop the Presses
Chris Graham
chris@augustafreepress.com

One thing you don't want to do if you're a columnist: peeve off those in the frighteningly loyal Stefanie Powers fan base.

I'm not joshing there, either.

About how loyal Stefanie Powers' fans are, that is.

Or about how frightening they can be when they get peeved.

"Mr. Rostron's comments about Stefanie Powers and the fact that she 'has not aged well' are totally out of line," reader Betty Leyser wrote of From the Left Coast columnist Brian Rostron's recent missive on the California elections (The Cal ballot maze, Nov. 17 AFP).

"Ms. Powers is an extremely beautiful, intelligent woman, and her political opinions should not draw comments about her looks," Leyser weighed in.

"Mr. Rostron should have done investigating before making such a cruel, sarcastic comment, and he would have seen that he was totally wrong about the appearance of Ms. Powers."

M'kay.

This, incidentally, ended up being just the first of a torrent of letters from Powers fans aimed at Rostron, prompting me to reexamine the piece in question just for my own sake.

I mean, I honestly didn't remember there even being a reference to Stefanie Powers in the column.

Upon further review, of course, Rostron did indeed make a throwaway comment about the actress in a paragraph about movie stars making political pitches this past election season.

"Stefanie Powers," he wrote, "told me that I should vote for the Indian casinos. I think that she used to be on 'Hart to Hart' and hasn’t aged well. Actually, I'm positive she hasn't aged well."

"I bet that your job status makes you feel very free to write all and anything without taking care that maybe you're hurting people," wrote a Carol Guillen from Paris.

As in France.

Apologizing in advance for her admittedly limited grasp of the English language, Guillen suggested that Rostron had set as his goal "to attack with pencil-shot."

"And for what? It's absolutely wrong. It's to be blind not noticing that she looks well for her age," Guillen wrote.

A reader named Dayna Ferro, for her part, wants Rostron to know that she has met Powers "several times, and so have about 100-plus fans at the StefaniePowers@yahoogroups.com."

"And we all can't believe how beautiful she is in person," Ferro wrote.

"She looks better now than ever! How dare you say she hasn't aged well. I believe you are mistaking her for Jill St. John!"

(Great. Now the Jill St. John fans are going to get riled up. This is never going to end.)

Chris Graham is the co-publisher of The Augusta Free Press. Nobody ever talks, to hear him tell it, about how well Victoria Principal has aged.