David Cassidy on the Web
Michael Douglas, David Cassidy help bring Hollywood feel to 2012 N.J. Hall of Fame induction ceremony
Saturday, June 09, 2012
By David Giambusso
The Star-Ledger
www.nj.com
NEWARK — Buzz Aldrin weaves his way through the crowd with a glass of wine, brushing the elbow of Joyce Carol Oates at the hors d'oeuvres table.
Pop legend David Cassidy poses with female fans who still swoon, though decades out of their teens.
Olympic gold medalist Milt Campbell holds court between trays of shrimp and canapes.
This is not a presidential ball, or an elite Hollywood party. This is Newark and the fifth annual New Jersey Hall of Fame induction. "This is really capping off this chapter in my journey," said Campbell, a Plainfield native honored tonight, who in 1956 became the first African-American Olympian to win the decathlon gold.
Campbell was one of 10 inductees tonight to receive the accolades of a grateful state and to spread the word that when it comes to athletics, music, science, art and literature, New Jersey's got some serious game.
Actor Michael Douglas and legendary high school basketball coach Bob Hurley were among the living luminaries honored. Hurley, who has coached at St. Anthony High School in Jersey City for 40 years, got the first standing ovation of the night.
"I've learned more from the kids I've coached than I think I've been able to give them," Hurley told a cheering crowd of 1,000. In a night full of music, humor and Jersey pride, notables from today and centuries past were honored for their work in the state and around the world.
"A lot of my stories are more and more set in New Jersey," said Oates, an inductee and Jersey resident since 1978. "It's a very beautiful state, people have the wrong idea who think it's just turnpikes and cities."
Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band was elected to the hall this year, but band members opted to delay their induction because they are on tour with the Boss in Europe.
Among the Jersey legends who were honored posthumously were Giants owner Wellington Mara; Campbell's condensed soup inventor John Dorrance; sharpshooter Annie Oakley; publishing tycoon Samuel I. Newhouse Sr. (raised in Bayonne, his family's company owns The Star-Ledger); Newark jazz singer Sarah Vaughan; and actor and disability rights activist Christopher Reeve, who grew up in Princeton. "It's exhilarating," said Barbara Johnson, Reeve's mother. She said her son, who died in 2004, would have been honored to be remembered in the entertainment category. "Acting meant so much to him from the time he was quite young."
Actor and musician David Cassidy poses on the red carpet at the 2012 New Jersey Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark on Saturday, June 9, 2012.
Johnson, too, is a Jersey booster.
"I moved to Princeton when Christopher and his brother, Benjamin, were quite small, and I think it's one of the best decisions I ever made," she said.
Paris Vaughan accepted the award for her mother, Sarah Vaughan, for whom the street in front of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, where the honors were held, is named.
"What helped ground her as a mom, as a mentor and as an icon always circle back to her New Jersey Roots," Vaughan said. "My mom was always a Jersey girl."
Samuel Newhouse III accepted for his grandfather, whose media empire began in the newsrooms of North Jersey.
"New Jersey was always special for him," Newhouse said. "He loved all of his newspapers, but he was especially proud of The Star-Ledger."
The hall was first created in 2005 by a vote of the state Legislature. Then-governor and current State Sen. Richard Codey (D-Essex) signed the legislation and the hall was born.
Each year, the hall compiles nominations from the public into a master list, which is reviewed by a team of experts and submitted to a voting academy. The academy then chooses the names to submit to the public for a final online vote.
As of yet, the hall exists only on the internet. Hall leaders have been trying to raise money since 2008 for a physical home. A mobile museum will begin touring the state this year, organizers said.
Douglas, the two-time Oscar winner who was born in New Brunswick, said the night's honor would give him bragging rights in Hollywood.
"Two of my dearest friends, Danny Devito and Jack Nicholson, will not have anything up on me anymore," Douglas said.
