Posted by chicagomedia.org on January 04, 2008 at 22:05:48:
Cochran misses own show
BY DAVE GATHMAN Staff Writer
ELGIN -- For three years, family-oriented fans have packed the Hemmens Cultural Center early the evening of Dec. 31 for "Steve Cochran's New Year's Eve Show for People Who Can't Stay Awake Until Midnight." But when a near-capacity crowd showed up for the fourth such show Monday, the star was missing.
Cochran, a stand-up comedian who hosts the evening drive show on Chicago's WGN Radio, canceled his appearance after learning his 20-year-old daughter had been injured in a car accident in central Illinois. But the show went on without him. The three entertainers who had been expected all along to co-star -- comedian Tim Clue, comedienne Patti Vasquez and singer Megon McDonough (formerly of the Four B!tchin' Babes) -- went on as expected. And Clue called in two more comedians, Spike Manton and John DeCosse, to fill in for him, according to Hemmens spokesman Bill Folk.
Cochran said his daughter Amy, who attends Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, had been driving to a New Year's Eve party when her car spun out of control in Monday's heavy snowstorm and another car struck it.
"Just to prove she's good with God, the first three people to stop were a cop, a nurse and an Army medic, all in separate cars."
Cochran said one of these good Samaritans had opened the door and was checking Amy's neck, and she was talking to Cochran on her cell phone, when another car went out of control and slammed into the parked car. With horror, "I heard a second crash and the phone went dead," he said.
That second crash threw Amy through the open car door to the pavement, he said, and injured the good Samaritan standing next to the car.
Cochran said he went to join his daughter in a Bloomington hospital, but she turned out to have only cuts, bumps and bruises. He said the trip from his Naperville-area home to Bloomington should have been drivable in two hours. But because of the slick pavement, the journey took him and his teenage son, Ross, (who also had been supposed to perform in the Elgin show) 12 hours. "Ross counted 26 cars off the road in one 30-mile stretch."
"The ironic thing is that Amy is always the one who puts on the seat belt right away when we get into the car and tells me to buckle up," Cochran said.
Reflecting on the car crash and on the death last week of 46-year-old Chicago Tribune writer Terry Armour, Cochran said, "The beer commercials are right. You don't (necessarily) get tomorrow, so live it up today."
Cochran himself had hosted the WGN morning drive show on Monday and repeatedly had used the time to promote that evening's Hemmens appearance. He joked that the predicted Monday blizzard was going to hit every corner of the Chicago area except Elgin.
The Hemmens' Folk said the show was not an official Hemmens event. Rather, Cochran and Clue rent the theater and organize the New Year's Eve shows themselves.
Cochran said only about 30 people asked for their money back and that he plans to return to the Hemmens next New Year's Eve.