Actors Cassel, Guillaume Honored at Fifth Annual Palisades Film Festival

‘What the hell ever possessed you to give me this honor?’ actor Robert Guillaume facetiously asked Pacific Palisades Film Festival founder Bob Sharka last Thursday, following a highlight reel from Guillaume’s esteemed entertainment career, including scenes from ‘Soap’ and ‘Benson.’ After the Festival’s opening-night screening of ‘Fields of Fuel’ at Pierson Playhouse, a VIP party was held at the Huntington Palisades home of Carol and Mario Smolinisky. Here, Guillaume and fellow actor Seymour Cassel (who has appeared in more than 180 movies) received Lifetime Achievement Awards from Sharka and various Friends of Film folk. Marla Gibbs, best known as Florence on ‘The Jeffersons,’ attended to support Guillaume, with whom she worked on Robert Townsend’s ‘The Meteor Man.’ Guillaume is ‘pure class,’ Gibbs told the Palisadian-Post. ‘He has a wonderful sense of humor.’ Producer David L. Bushell (‘The Wendell Baker Story’) worked with Cassel on several of his films. ‘He’s timeless,’ said Bushell, recalling that, on the 1994 movie ‘Hand Gun,’ ‘my job was to pick him up at Steve Buscemi’s house. That’s when I first met Seymour. He’s now like a brother, father, and son to me, all at the same time.’ Film editor Matt Cassel said that growing up around his actor father and his frequent collaborator, legendary auteur filmmaker John Cassavetes, was better than attending any film school. ‘He’s always done what he wanted to do and not what they wanted him to do,’ said Matt, whose childhood friend was Slash of Guns ‘n’ Roses. (For more on Seymour Cassel’s Hollywood adventures”and how Cassel gave the Guns ‘n Roses guitarist his famous nickname”visit the February 28 Lifestyle section at palisadespost.com). ‘Palisadians are up to big things in life,’ said director Josh Tickell, whose ‘Fields of Fuel’ opened the three-day event, ‘but they can still take the time out on a Thursday to see an important movie.’ Sheila Laffey, who made the documentary ‘South Central Farm: An Oasis in a Concrete Desert’ with producer Geoffrey Pepos, had a film on the Ballona Wetlands at last year’s Festival. Laffey said that she was ‘impressed by how many films are dealing with the environment.’ Added Pepos, ‘My passion is to make movies that matter.’ Also spotted at the function: Palisades actor Eric Braeden of the long-running “The Young and the Restless,” which last week set a television industry record by achieving its 1,000th time at the top of the Nielsen ratings.