Good luck finding someone who loves Willie Brown more than I love Willie Brown. The former Mayor is dapper, cocky, bizarre. And his Sunday column in the San Francisco Chronicle is the highlight of my Tuesday, when I read it for free on SFGate.
Brown’s most recent column detailed one of my favorite things about him: his delight at making cameo appearances in movies. According to Willie:
He also shines in Sister Act.
But here’s the thing. I know The Princess Bride backwards and forwards. And I spent much of Tuesday racking my brain. Where in The Princess Bride was the Honorable Willie Brown?
Was he in the scenes at the beginning and end with Fred Savage and Colombo? No.
Sporting tights and a sword battling it out with Prince Humperdink and the Florin army? Nope.
Emerging from behind a tree trunk in the Fire Swamp? Please.
Never happened.
Willie Brown, I am 100% positive, never appeared in the Princess Bride.
You know what movie he did appear in? The Princess Diaries.
Those of you that regard The Princess Bride as a cinematic treasure and The Princess Diaries as the beginning of the apocalypse might be offended at this innocent error. And I do believe this error was innocent. It’s not like Da Mayor was trying to slip one over on us. I mean, he copped to George of the Jungle.
I think this unfortunate mistake is merely a symptom of Willie’s refusal to hang out with me at classy restaurants. Were Brown to run these things by me, I’d be able to say, “Wait a sec, Wills. You’re thinking of The Princess Diaries, not The Princess Bride. Let’s watch both of them in George Schultz’s media room while discussing your distinguished career.”
No harm, no foul. But I just want to be clear. Willie Brown was not in The Princess Bride. Though he would have been fucking fantastic in it.
