Well, you should have given him the free pass…
I’ve met Paloma Picasso, Michael Learned and Peter Donat.
I’ve also met Diana Paxson, and gamed with her kids, who are not so famous.
I train periodically with Chuck Liddell’s trainer, so I see him for a few days every couple of months. I doubt he knows my name, but he might remember me as “the lawyer guy that John said was really good at karaoke.”
I used to play in a band in Denton/DFW in the 1990’s and knew/played shows with/drank beer with a lot of pre-famous musicians when they were still small timers, like Reverend Horton Heat, the Toadies, Deep Blue Something, Bowling for Soup, Drowning Pool, etc. I also met the Pantera guys a couple of times, Mike Watt, the Butthole Surfers, one of the guys from the Meat Puppets, etc. I didn’t meet Frank Black, but I stood near him. He looked incredibly pissed off and not in the mood for handshaking.
I once ate lunch with former U.S. Attorney general Alberto Gonzales back when he was a mere Texas Supreme Court Justice. He was very, very nice and friendly. He came and spoke at my law school some time later and I started to go say hi, but decided not to. My dad told me “heck, you should have, he’s a politician! Those guys remember every hand they shake and every conversation they have!” 
My dad also met Harriet Miers when she was the Texas Bar Association president, but I never did.
A friend of mine from high school played a girl who stalked Kelly on several episodes of “Beverly Hills 90210,” and a werewolf love interest of Seth Green on an episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
When my wife lived in Chicago back before we were married, my wife went up to Emeril Lagasse and told him how much she liked his show, and he chatted her up and was super nice. The next day he came in to the store she worked at and bought several hundred dollars of cookware from her and got her a very nice commission. She also met Bobby Flay. Oh, and Indianapolis Colts running back Dominic Rhodes had a crush on her in high school and wanted to date her. In your face, Super Bowl winning multi-millionaire NFL starter!
My buddy in law school had to interview Angel Maturino Resindez, the Railway Killer, as part of an externship with the Mexican Consulate. They spoke for several hours.
ETA: I met Willie Nelson, too.
Due to job circumstances, I’ve had the opportunity to meet lots of famous folks from politicians to NASCAR drivers (and mostly people from these two groups).
most NASCAR drivers since 1996
Elie Wiesel
Al Gore
Barak Obama
Mike Huckabee
Chuck Norris - several times
Mike Badnaric
Orrin Hatch- I used to TP his house when I was in high school!
Jesse Jackson
The Undertaker- WWE wrestler -he’s freaking huge
and lots more I can’t remember
Was visiting a friend of mine in DC and it was late in the afternoon on a weekday.
We wanted to tour the Ford theatre but it had closed for the day and had to settle with a tour of the house that Lincoln died in (across the street). The lady giving the tour said my friend and I would be the last tour of the day and it would just be the 3 of us. That is until John Fogerty and his wife came in.
So we took the tour with them and got our pictures taken with him afterward.
I did.
I was the manager of the theatre at that point. Our policy was to lock the doors 15 minutes after the last show started. That is, if the last 3 movies of the day started at, say 9:30, 9:45, and 10:00, we’d lock the doors at 10:15. On the night in question, the last movie started at 9:30, so I locked the doors at 9:45.
At about 10:10, I got an angry call. “This is David Brudnoy, and I need to review (movie name), and you’re not supposed to lock your doors until ten o’clock. Let me in!”
I had no idea who he was, but I was pretty intimidated by strong personalities back in those days, so I let him in. As we had closed the box office already, I couldn’t charge him if I wanted to. After letting him in for free, he told me he was going to call my boss’s boss the next day and get me fired.
The funny thing was, the movie he was there to review started at 9:15.
To his credit, he called the next day to apologize. And years later, he interviewed my then-girlfriend on the radio, and she said he was a decent guy.
Meet & greets after concerts:
Arlo Guthrie
The Smothers Brothers
Don McLean
Probably a bunch more I can’t think of right now
Jeff Daniels invited Mr. S and me (and few of our compadres in the front row) to come up on stage and dance during one of the songs he was performing. Shook his hand afterward.
Talked to Ronny Cox for a bit when he met us at the door before one of his folkie performances. He’s very charming. “Hi, folks, thanks very much for coming. I’m Ronny.” :: extends hand ::
Peggy Seeger’s daughter, Kitty, and a friend spent about 30 minutes shopping in my jewelry booth at a folk festival (and raving about how much they liked my stuff). I was the end of the day and they boosted my sales total by a fair amount. 
Hackleman? Doesn’t he live in SLO? Certainly explains why you’re so defensive of Chuck :D.
On that note, I met and talked to Matt Hughes for a good little while once. Nice guy in person but I’m not buying it, especially after reading his book.
Bart Starr visited the Boys and Girls club where I spent many summer days. I only got to talk to him for a few minutes but he was very nice. I was 12 or so at the time and asked him if he remembered my dad who’d worked at one of his car dealerships in the late 70s / early 80s. He humored me and said he did.
My wife is a huge fan of professional wrestling and I’ve stood in line with her to get autographs from several people whom I don’t know. The Undertaker is gigantic. Raven is surprisingly short. (I’m only 5’6’’ and we were close in height.) He’s also very well spoken.
I met Joey Cora, when he was the Seattle Mariners second baseman, when he came to my town as part of a promotional event. Got his autograph and shook his hand.
I met and shook hands with former NFL star Manu Tuiasasopo (that guy is freakin’ huge) at a dinner.
in 1990 or so, I cooked porterhouse steaks for most of the Seattle Seahawks defensive line when they were in town for some other promotional event. Afterward I got to meet them all, got my picture taken with them, and all their autographs. I’m not sure how “famous” any of them were, and can’t recall exactly which players were there. I’ve still got the photo and autographs, but they’re tucked away someplace.
Does Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer count as “famous”? He came into the kitchen at the convention center where I work, introduced himself, shook everybody’s hand and slapped us on the back and told us what a great job we were doing. (Note: this was in Washington state, where we weren’t even his constituents. He was in town for some kind of Democratic fund-raiser).
Most of the famous people I’ve met were met the traditional way - they were actors or musicians and I hung around the stage door after a show, for an autograph or a question. The only famous person I can recall randomly running into was Matthew Broderick, who was in the audience for a play I was seeing. I asked him for an autograph, because I always used to do that and it was stupid. I could see he was wondering why I was bothering him and asking for an autograph of a program from a play he was just watching. He signed a perfume ad.
The most famous person I’ve interviewed has to be Hillary Clinton, during her Senate re-election campaign. I’ve blabbed on the board a few times about having a sitdown with Stephen Colbert, which was a lot of fun. I’ve interviewed Derek Trucks twice and his bandmates once each and those were tremendous experiences.
Yeah, Hack. One of his guys has an affiliate school is SLO, but John’s a little south of SLO proper, down in Arroyo Grande. I freely confess that’s why I’m so defensive of Chuck, he’s one of the “Pit family.” 
Here’s a pic of me and John, and another of me and Chuck (I’m on the right in both).
Actually KNOW - met on multiple occasions, exchanged phone calls, had meetings with 'em, they would have recognized me on the street
Glenn Close
Matt Lauer
Estelle Getty
Harvey Fierstein
Matthew Broderick
Met in passing, in a handshaking & brief conversation sort of way or met at a party or met them while working on their houses.
Ron Howard
Brooke Shields
Edie Adams
Jackie Collins
John Lithgow
Chevy Chase
David Bowie
Iman
Robin Williams
I’ll probably think of more 6 minutes after I post this and I’m not going to even try to list the ones “spotted in the wild”.
That is awesome. The reason I asked is I was wondering if you fly all the way out to CA to train or if they have satellite schools in TX or something. At least one Gracie and Ken Shamrock have schools here in Phoenix now but I don’t think they’re really based here.
I worked with Tommy Smothers a few years back; he did the narration for a documentary I worked on, and for which I wrote the narration. Very, very nice man! (I think I’ve told this on the board before.)
Through work, I’ve met, just to say hello, a few people: Cheryl Ladd (I took her picture as well), Ashley Judd, Rosie Perez, Bob Edwards. That’s all I can think of at the moment. Edwards’ daughter was with him, and I told her I’ve listened to his voice every morning for YEARS. “Me too!” she grinned.
Authors are like rock stars to me. I’ve been rendered inarticulate before Barbara Kingsolver and others who probably paid little attention to the fact that they’d struck me dumb. 
I have met a ton of musicians, the ones that stand out are:
Michael Stipe - I lived in Athens for several years, so I talked to him a couple of times. He is not very social, but is nice. The first time I met him I asked if he remembered a friend of mine that he hung out with in high school, and he did and seemed genuinely happy to hear about her.
Chris Isaak - He is very pretty, and somewhat reminded me of a Ken doll.
Bonnie Raitt - I was working catering one summer at the amphitheater in St. Louis and she was there as part of Lilith Fair. She was SO nice, I was stunned. She got her lunch and was smiley and talkative. Then after eating she came back up to the serving line to say “thank you” and tell us how much she liked the food. No one else even spoke to us usually, so it was nice to be appreciated for once.
The Tragically Hip - I went with a couple friends to talk to them after a show in Athens at the 40watt. The guys were great, offered us genuine Canadian beers from their cooler, and sat and talked with us for a bit. Gordon Downie was really flirty and funny.
Pat Benatar
Wynona Judd
Tanya Tucker
Isaiah Washington
Gary Sandy
Dennis Kucinich
Doug Aldrich from Whitesnake, who thinks we might be cousins
I’ve met him (briefly) too. I went to one of his speeches during the most recent Iowa caucus. He’s really quite a hypnotic speaker, and I can still remember a lot of it. I shook his hand, and I also got a wicked picture of my sister with her head right next to his head. He’s making an (accidental) dopey face, and my sister is grinning from ear to ear. I love that pic.
This was at a pretty small venue - the local 9th grade school. Poor guy had 4 or 5 more engagements after that. There was a pretty decent crowd, but not a lot of undecided Democrats (which I considered myself at the time) - mostly just the rah-rah Hillary bunch. Everyone around us seemed surprised that we turned up at 7:30am on a Saturday just to hear Mr. Clinton speak.
I felt kinda bad when I caucused for Obama anyway.
Met several times, and used to recognize me on sight:
- Alan Parsons
- Ian Bairnson (from the Alan Parsons Project)
(I was in the AP fan club, and we got backstage passes to any shows in our area)
Met once, a very long time ago:
- Richard Hatch (the one from the old Battlestar Galactica, not the naked Survivor guy)
- Larry Hagman
Spotted in the wild:
- Lee Majors (he’s very short)
- Various members of the British Royal Family during Princess Diana’s funeral procession (at very long distance as they went by, of course–binoculars weren’t exactly appropriate)
My mother has seen/met a lot more celebrities than I have–my home town (Ojai, CA) is full of them, and she often used to tell me about who she spotted at the store that week.
Um…was (until about three months ago) a tenant and roommate of BF Skinner’s grandaughter and great-grandaughter (who is now around 18 months old).
Stuart from that Scottish band Mogwai was one of those annoying little kids in my area when I was about 16. I had a Tascam Portastudio and helped him and some other buddies record some (awful) music when he was about 12. Last met him in Camden Town 10 years ago, after he got sorta famous, and we chatted for a bit. Not sure how famous that band are, though.
At college, debated with the daughter of John Smith (former Labour leader and likely UK Prime Minister, if it weren’t for his sad premature death) and she routinely kicked my ass.
Can’t think of any international megastars, though.
I fought a Spice Girl in a pub garden.
I won.