10/22-23: Arizona's Ultimate Women's Expo in Phoenix - AZCentral.com

by Jessica Testa - Oct. 18, 2011 11:43 AM
Special for The Republic

The Arizona's Ultimate Women's Expo isn't just a girls' day out - it's a girls' day out on steroids.

The two-day expo will swarm the Phoenix Convention Center this weekend, bringing with it more than 500 booths of clothes, candy, pedicures and manicures, self-help workshops on weight loss and career building, and kooky seminars on lap dancing and online dating. Makeovers and cooking demonstrations abound, and Home Depot will offer "Do It Herself" lessons.

"The expo is about living your best life and making the most of where you are now," spokeswoman Jane Sands said.

The Ultimate Women's Expo also has stops in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Dallas, but Phoenix was the pamper-friendly convention's first city when it launched four years ago.

"Phoenix has always been our favorite," Sands said. "The women are more welcoming, more energetic, more appreciative. It's a market like no other."

The exposition's goal is to offer women a chance to do something for themselves, Sands said, in an environment where they also can bring their daughters, mothers and grandmothers.

Phoenix is the only city where the Ultimate Women's Expo holds two events a year - one in fall and one in spring. Last spring's two keynote speakers were Patricia Heaton and Ricki Lake. This year, the speakers are pop singer and "The X Factor" judge Paula Abdul and Dyan Cannon, an actress, producer, screenwriter and director with more than 50 years of Tinseltown experience, including an Academy Award-nominated supporting-actress role in 1969's "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice."

Cannon's book, "Dear Cary," was released Sept. 20, and chronicles her tumultuous three-year marriage to legendary actor Cary Grant.

The Republic spoke with Cannon, 72, about her uplifting message to women.

Question: What do you talk about at the Ultimate Women's Expo?

Answer: I'm really on this tour for my book, and my book is about love going south. I talk about relationships, the journey of the heart, what love is, where do you get it, what happens when you lose it, how you get it back, how you make it stay. ... The reaction is really quite remarkable. I did the expo in Los Angeles, and one woman came up front and asked, "Is it possible to be happy without a man in your life?" She said the question wasn't for her, but her sister. So I asked her sister to come forward, and her sister dragged herself up to the front, and I said to her, "Would you do me a favor, and ask me the question again?" So she did, and I said, "The answer to that is not as important as the step you just took. You just stepped out of your comfort zone, and took the first step to improving your life. You'll never be the same."

I can't tell anyone what to do, but I can tell you the principle behind love. If you do something that's intrinsically against what you believe to make someone else happy, it's death to everything.

Q: Why did you decide to write your book now, more than 40 years after your divorce from Cary Grant?

A: I wanted it to be hopeful, inspiring book. It's not pie-in-the-sky or theoretical. I lived it. I came out of a deep, dark pit after the greatest love a woman can have ended. Now people are reading my story and being uplifted and moved and changing their lives because of the book. There are so many people walking around who are afraid to love again. They've been hurt, and they don't know how to open up again. I had a woman on one of my radio tours say her life had been healed by the book.

Q: Your book is No. 17 on the New York Times best-seller list. After years out of the spotlight, how does that feel?

A: I'm so thrilled. I didn't know what to expect. The main thing I wanted to do was make people love him more after this book, but that was a challenge because there was a lot of terrible stuff that happened between the two of us. But I want people to understand him, to have compassion for what he suffered as a child. The book isn't really about us - it's about surviving love. It's starring Cary Grant and Dyan Cannon, but I think the reason the book is doing so well is because it's relatable.

Q: What did you learn about yourself from writing the book?

A: I had my name above the titles of films for a long time, but after a while I learned that doesn't matter. What matters is the love you carry and the compassion you have for others. I really thought my healing was complete, which is why I could write the book. But when you really sit down and are facing an empty page, you have to go deeper. I can tell you that I'm experiencing a freedom I've never felt. Writing has freed me in a way I've never known.

Q: Why was it important for you to share your story?

A: There's something about being in-person with people. When I talk to these women, they say they felt like they were with me on every page. But there's something about being in a room with someone that changes something. You see them, touch them, feel them, talk to them. I have people who tell me their whole life story, and I love it.

A: You've reinvented your career many times during your decades in show business. What's your secret to keeping things new?

A: Prayer - big-time prayer. Spiritual life continues to renew and invigorate and inspire me.

Q: What's your ultimate message to women?

A: Always be true to your highest sense of right. You know, I've been offered several reality shows, but they don't seem all that real to me. I don't know how they make peoples' lives better. That's my goal, absolutely - to make a difference. Wealth and fame offer a lot, but they don't offer anything to the thing inside you that wants to feel love.