We all know many people in Palm Beach — but we don’t always know that much about them. And we’re sometimes surprised to learn that they have a completely different side or interests that are unknown to us. Here are two stories about people you may know — and something about them you perhaps didn’t know. One is a well-known entertainer who has written a dog book (although he doesn’t have a dog), and the other a couple with a history of showing dogs.
Bill Boggs and his canine commentator
Can someone without a dog write a great dog book? Bill Boggs can. You may have already met him if you went to the Ben Hotel last month for the Cultural Council of Palm Beach program, where he was the host.
Or chances are you’ve met or seen him around someplace.A part-time Palm Beacher — he spends the rest of his time in New York and the Hamptons — Bill is an Emmy-winning entertainer, producer and lecturer. He has worked with such luminaries as Frank Sinatra, John Belushi, Martha Stewart, Sammy Davis Jr., Yul Brynner, Jerry Lewis and Howard Stern.
In Palm Beach, where so many locals originally lived in New York, many know him because he was the host of New York’s once-famous TV show, “Midday Live with Bill Boggs.” [Full disclosure, the show’s executive producer, Paul Noble, is my husband.]But even if you know him, or of him, you may not know that Boggs is the author of two award-winning dog books: “The Adventures of Spike the Wonder Dog,” and “Spike Unleashed.” They aren’t about a dog, but the satirical award-winning books “feature a canine commentator riffing about everything around him,” Bill said.
That allows Bill to comment about people, and events without angering anyone. Not an easy accomplishment in Palm Beach.
United by dogs
Dr. Earl Campazzi and Julie Del Deo Campazzi are well known in town mostly because of his successful concierge medical practice on Royal Palm Way. And his patients know his wife because she’s often at his office as his assistant.
But few know of the couple’s history with show dogs. “I was like dog-show royalty when I was growing up,” Julie said.
She inherited the royalty title rightly because her father, the 100-year-old Palm Beacher Ralph Del Deo, reached the highest pinnacle in the dog-show world. He was the judge seven times at the prestigious Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. “That’s like winning the All-Star seven times,” Earl proudly said of his father-in-law.
Earl and Julie chose to sponsor and show dogs — specifically Poodles — instead of judging them.
Indeed, Shadow, a black standard poodle, was “a poodle prodigy who was already a champion by 11 months,” Julie said.
But not all of their dogs have succeeded in the dog show world circuit. Buster, their powder-puff Chinese crested, was “a terrible show dog,” Julie admitted. “Instead of standing proudly on the table for the judges, he would crouch.”
Well, not everyone can be a show-off.
The couple’s love of dogs helped bring them together. “I met Julie’s dogs on our second date and immediately fell in love with them. I fell in love with her by the third date,” Earl said, with a smile.
Although their days showing dogs are over, having them in their lives is not.
“I’d really like to also have a golden retriever,” Earl said.
“Actually, he’d like eight of them,” his wife quipped.
Sounds like there could be more dogs, if not dog shows, coming up for couple.
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