“They’re decomposing composers.
There’s nothing much anyone can do.
You can still hear Beethoven,
But Beethoven cannot hear you.”
I think being A list has more to do with how widely known someone is rather than how dedicated their most hardcore fans are. Mentioning the celebrity in question to a random person and having a reasonable expectation that person not only recognizes the name but what they are famous for is probably a good rule of thumb.
Dustin Hoffman has been on the “difficult actors” list for at least the past 20 years, maybe more. At least two other Hoffmans (Gaby and Philllip Seymour) were in higher demand for much of that time. I’m glad he’s on that Meet the Fokkers gravy train in his dotage (The line “Oh no, they make ribbons all the way to tenth place” cracks me up way more than it should, for which I credit Hoffman’s delivery), but he hasn’t been an A-lister since maybe Ishtar.
Is Mr T on that list too? With Ice T?