"GOD'S PARTY IS THE ONLY PARTY" - Dyan Cannon
Talking with movie star Dyan Cannon about her high-energy, heavenly celebration -- on the CBS lot in Studio City, California
By Dan Wooding
STUDIO CITY, CA (ANS) -- Actress Dyan Cannon, with her blond, curly hair and mega-watt smile, is a celebrity fixture at the LA Laker's home games, sitting courtside between Magic Johnson and Jim Carrey. The multi-talented Cannon, who is also a singer/songwriter, found success behind the camera as well as in front of it. In 1976, she produced, directed, wrote, acted in and edited the short film NUMBER ONE, and became the first woman in the history of the Motion Picture Academy to be nominated for an Oscar for her work done both in front of the camera and behind it.
But
now Dyan Cannon, who was once married to screen legend Cary Grant and bore his
only child, Jennifer Grant, has become a high-energy evangelist to the Hollywood
crowd with her Saturday night "God's Party with Dyan Cannon &
You", a Christian outreach like no other. It takes place regularly at the
CBS Studio Center on Radford Avenue in Studio City, California.BALLOONS AND JOY
When I attended one, there were balloons all over the room in Building 8 at CBS, with coffee and donuts provided for the visitors that ranged from Hollywood insiders to people from all across the incredible diversity of the L.A. community. From the moment she arrives, the petite Dyan Cannon stamps her personality on this unique blend of southern revival meeting and Kathryn Kuhlman-like healing service. She literally dances around the platform, often suggesting the next worship chorus, and speaks for about an hour and then invites the sick and troubled to come forward for healing.
It is all summed up in a slogan placed to the left of the platform, which reads, "God's Party Is The Only Party."
When asked about her being involved in every aspect of the service, Dyan said, "I don't think that God has brought me through what He's brought me through by accident. I've sung in musicals, I've acted in movies and I've directed and produced movies. I know every facet of filmmaking and I know He is teaching me now how to be a leader and it doesn't matter what area it is in; it's a principle of faith across the board. You see, this is 'God's Party' and we go by what His leading is, and if there is something going on that's not anointed -- I've been patient with that in the past -- but I won't be from now on...because if it's not anointed, it means we are trying to do it instead of letting God do it, and it then puts people off."
HUGE COMMITMENT
She revealed that GPDC&U is a huge commitment for her. "I was filming in Canada last year and I had to fly back for the meetings, and even though I was shooting a five or six day week, I came to L.A. because but it is important to me."
I asked her which was most important to her -- "God's Party" or the Lakers?
"Let's just put it this way, when I am teaching on a Saturday night, I'm in prayer and fasting all day, so I can't even watch the game and that's tough. I fast all day. I'm not on the phone or watching TV. The only time I go out on a Friday before our 'God's Party' is if there is a Laker's game on that Friday night. Then from the time I get home, I am not on the phone or talking to anybody until I go there the next day. That's what I have to do to completely get the world out of it."
She then spoke about her good friend, former Laker's star and co-owner, Magic Johnson. "Magic Johnson loves the Lord. He's got a Bible study going too," she said.
What about Jim Carrey? "I do get to talk with him, but I haven't had a chance yet to talk to him about the Lord."
HOW IT BEGAN?
When asked how it all began, she stated, "About five years ago I started a Bible study group in my home. Somebody else led that one but it grew to such proportions that we had to move to a hotel and then when I wasn't attending that one anymore, God just put it on my heart to start another one." Dyan said that her first "God's Party" began in January of 1999.
Dyan said that God "spoke" to her and gave her the name for the event -- "God's Party with Dyan Cannon & You". Dyan said she then asked God why He wanted "party" in the title and she said He explained to her that "usually people don't think of partying and God." She added, "With a Christian event, they usually think of somberness and sobriety and seriousness, instead of a joyful, celebratory atmosphere."
She said that God
even told her to hold it at CBS and call the head of the CBS Studio Center, to
ask him if he would give a room for the "party" to take place. Surprisingly,
he agreed to her request. "He's a wonderful Christian man and I think he
also liked the idea of this kind of energy on the lot," she explained.Dyan then got Phil Upchurch, a well-known bass player, to assemble musicians for the first "party". She said, "I thought maybe five people would come, but we had standing room only! I taught on personal motives that night and gave a bit of witness about what my experience had been in the world before I really allowed God to lead me, and then the Holy Spirit started healing people."
I told Dyan that I saw something that reminded me of Kathryn Kuhlman in her presentation and asked her to comment on that.
"I don't think it is anything like what Kathryn did, except I did see her once at the Shrine Auditorium," she said. "I must say that I have never before or since in my lifetime experienced anything like when she walked onto the stage. At the end of the service, I was sitting in the highest balcony like a typical teenager with a bag of popcorn, as if I was watching the greatest movie in the world. I just wanted to know more and I said to my three friends that I was going to make my way back to see her, and they said, 'You'll never do it.' I said, "Yes, I will." I was told by security that I couldn't get in to see her, but I finally talked my way backstage and knocked on her door. She answered it and she asked me what I wanted and I said, "I would like you to lay your hands on me because I wanted to feel what all those people who you prayed for were experiencing." And she said, 'Come in.' There were a couple of other people in the room and I talked with her for about half an hour and then she laid hands on me and I fell down. That was about a couple of years before she passed away."
FROM A MIXED-UP HOME
Dyan said that she was brought up in a home with a mother who was Jewish and her father who was Gentile. "My dad agreed that we would be raised Jewish, but that was before Jesus found him," she said. "So, on the way to the synagogue, we would sing, 'Jesus Loves Me This I Know.' Then, at the synagogue, I would find out that Jesus was not the one that we worshipped. Then back into the car, and I'd sing 'Jesus Loves Me...' all the way home. So I was really torn because of my allegiance to my parents. So when my brother finally took his stand for Christ, I said, 'Well I can't leave mom alone when she went to the synagogue,' so I stayed with her. I sang in synagogue on Friday nights and I loved the Jewish faith and the Jewish people. However, spiritually, it just didn't seem to fulfill my hunger. The Bible says, 'Seek and you shall find.' It doesn't say that you have to keep on seeking, but trust you will find it."
Dyan also mentioned during the service that I attended, how she had later become so mentally ill that it took six men to hold her down when they came to take her to a psychiatric hospital. Was that the lowest point for her? "There have been several drops along the way, but that was probably the last deep descent," she admitted.
BLACK HOLE IN HER LIFE
Dyan said it was a long, tortuous road for her to commit her life to God, including disappointments and disillusionment with the morals of some Christian leaders she met along the way, and her battle with psychiatric illness. "It was in and out with my search for God and, ultimately, I couldn't find anything else to fill that black hole in my life," she said. "I tend to be an extremist. I don't do anything just a little bit. If I do it, I do it all the way. And I was in the wilderness. I made that journey that could have taken a minute and instead spent eleven or twelve years in it... when all my friends were removed, also the money and the career and the wealth and the fame.
"This time around though, it's all to the Glory of God! I made the commitment to God some 20 years ago."
WOULD CARY GRANT ATTEND "GOD'S PARTY?"
I then asked Dyan, who was married to Cary Grant from 1965 to 1968, if he were still alive, did she think that Cary would come to "God's Party?"
"Well you know, we used to read 'The Daily Word' devotional together before we got married. But after we got married that fell by the wayside," she said. "But I think that if I asked him, he would have come."
What would he have made of you doing this? "I don't think he would believe it. He would think that it was a movie," she laughed.
Dyan Cannon has appeared in many movies including BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE (1969), REVENGE OF THE PINK PANTHER (1978), and AUTHOR! AUTHOR! (1982). She has recently appeared on television, in ALLY McBEAL, as Judge Whipper Cone.
For more information write Dyan Cannon Outreaches, Inc., 8306 Wilshire Blvd. #1681, Beverly Hills, CA 90211, Phone: (310) 470-6404 or check out her website which is http://www.dyancannon.com/
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Dan Wooding is an award-winning journalist now living in Southern California with his wife, Norma. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times). Wooding, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, is also the author of some 39 books, (the latest of which is a second printing of "Blind Faith" with Anne Wooding, his 93-year-old mother, who was a pioneer missionary to the blind of Nigeria -- ASSIST Books and WinePress Publishing). He is also a syndicated columnist through ASSIST Communications and, for ten years was a commentator on the UPI radio network in washington, dc. the assist website can be found at www.assistnews.net where many of Dan Wooding's previous articles can also be found.
Note: A JPEG picture of Dyan Cannon is available on request from Dan Wooding at his e-mail address, which is assistcomm@cs.com.
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