I first met Ms. Dadigan in January 2020, when I was covering a VIP event at the Hollywood Museum as a red-carpet interviewer for a digital magazine. The magazine was planning to feature Ms.
Dadigan in an upcoming issue, and I was very excited about the prospect of interviewing her inside the museum. However, we all know what would happen two months later, postponing any thought of an in-person interview. I ran into her by chance at Mel’s Drive-In two years later when I was covering the Turner Classic Movies Film Festival.
We had a pleasant chat, and she was excited about the prospect of being interviewed for The Epoch Times. Nevertheless, busy schedules prevented an immediate appointment from being made, and my focus turned to San Diego County because of my opera career soon after. She explained, “My mother and I started this museum, and it was about giving back to the community.
I grew up in Los Angeles, and I ended up working with so many different celebrities that were in front of the camera and behind the camera in the real estate business, and I really got to know them through our work together. If I had only known at that time I was going to open a museum, I would have asked each and every one of them for something for the museum. But the museum didn’t come on until later.
We decided to start this, and it’s a love letter back to the community. Both my mom and I were schoolteachers, and so it was about being able to, in this love letter, educate and entertain eve.