# Are you related to or have you met anyone famous **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 6, 2022, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-related-to-or-have-you-met-anyone-famous/960544 "2022-03-06T01:12:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2022, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-related-to-or-have-you-met-anyone-famous/960544/41 "2022-03-06T18:42:32Z")
Yes, I met him just as he started his NFL career. I lived behind his parents house in Pittsburgh and let him use my parking spot a few times. Really nice friendly guy, he always knocked and asked when he used the spot. I didnt know who he was until a neighbor told me I must feel special. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2022, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-related-to-or-have-you-met-anyone-famous/960544/42 "2022-03-06T18:49:37Z")
I and my college roommates hosted Milton Eisenhower’s 80th birthday party in our student ghetto apartment. In addition to being Dwight’s brother, he was also President Emeritus of my alma mater, and was once on the cover of Time Magazine for his accomplishments. I and my friends got invited to his place a few times also to drink and play backgammon and quiz him about his adventures. I and my roommates can even be found on his Facebook page. I don’t know why someone who’s been dead since the 1980’s has a Facebook page, but Dr. E. (or uncle Miltie, as we called him) does. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2022, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-related-to-or-have-you-met-anyone-famous/960544/43 "2022-03-06T19:12:19Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > It was so much fun playing Scrabble with her; she could play it in four languages. Did you play in four languages at the same time or four games in one language each? Playing in several languages at the same time could be interesting, specially when one player is better at one language and another at a different one, but I wonder how you count the points, a W for instance is worth much more in Spanish than in German, a Ñ does not even exist in German, but I guess this could be overcome. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2022, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-related-to-or-have-you-met-anyone-famous/960544/44 "2022-03-06T20:54:06Z")
And if the other player doesn’t know one of your languages, you can insist, “Yes, QYZJXYK really is a word in Hungarian. That’s 49 points for me!” ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2022, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-related-to-or-have-you-met-anyone-famous/960544/45 "2022-03-06T21:02:28Z")
Related to Taft. Pretty much people believe you when he is the Prez you are related to. Met JFK when very young. Was personally blessed by the Pope. Or at least I was told so- he didn’t speak much English. Talked with Raquel Welch for quite some time about whales and dolphins. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2022, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-related-to-or-have-you-met-anyone-famous/960544/46 "2022-03-06T21:07:31Z")
Went on the MITSFS picnic with Isaac Asimov and Harry Stubbs (Hal Clement) the last Asimov attended before he fled to NY. Gave two presentations to Arno Penzias when I was at Bell Labs and running a research project. Met Adam West on a shoot. My wife met Iggy Pop - a much nicer guy. Had dinner with a very young Michelle Trachtenberg and her very nice mother several times on the set. (Yay, craft services.) She and my daughter played together when not needed on set. Amazing amounts of charisma. ---
**Author:** ![KRC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@KRC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KRC)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2022, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-related-to-or-have-you-met-anyone-famous/960544/47 "2022-03-06T21:24:58Z")
If you trace your ancestry back 5 or 6 generations you may find you are related somehow to just about everyone. I’m supposedly related to both Robert E Lee and Abe Lincoln and a few other civil war generals and US presidents. As for famous people, I met Karen Graslee (sp ?) at an appliance store once. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2022, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-related-to-or-have-you-met-anyone-famous/960544/48 "2022-03-06T21:28:00Z")
> [@KRC](#): > > If you trace your ancestry back 5 or 6 generations you may find you are related somehow to just about everyone. I’m supposedly related to both Robert E Lee and Abe Lincoln and a few other civil war generals and US presidents. Good point- like anyone whose family goes back a good number of generations in England is bound to be related to some King. ---
**Author:** ![RickG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rickg/32/5174_2.png) [@RickG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickG)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2022, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-related-to-or-have-you-met-anyone-famous/960544/49 "2022-03-06T21:43:52Z")
Courteney Cox was a year behind me in high school, though I didn’t know her. My yearbook does have her (small, black-and-white) junior year head shot in it. Family legend has it that my mother’s maternal grandmother was first cousin to Edward G. Robinson. The only evidence for this that I know for sure is that they were both from Romania, and her maiden name, Goldenberg, is the same as his birth name (the G in his stage name). My aunt isn’t famous, but she’s worked at Disney Animation for many years, so has been photographed with the Oscar statues won by movies she worked on. Frank Shorter works out at the same gym as my wife and I (at least in the before times), and she’s chatted with him, although she didn’t realize who he was until later. We are friends with a Nobel Prize winning physicist. Not super close, but we’ve had dinner at each other’s homes, so not merely acquaintances. I’ve been to a couple of Yom Kippur break fasts at our next door neighbor’s where Jared Polis was present. That was definitely before he was Governor, but he might’ve been our Congressman at the time. My son was his kids’ day camp counselor for a couple of summers, but never met Polis personally. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2022, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-related-to-or-have-you-met-anyone-famous/960544/50 "2022-03-07T00:11:15Z")
The most famous person I have ever been around was Kid Rock. He was a guest at a relative’s wedding. (The relative’s spouse worked for Rock.) It was a backyard wedding/reception and Rock stayed pretty late with the wedding party drinking the night away. I didn’t actually talk to him but he was fairly personable. One of my relatives was really annoying about though–he kept coming up to me saying, “That’s Kid Rock!! You really should get your picture taking with him.” But I had no desire. Aside from that I really have not met anyone famous. Not even local politicians. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2022, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-related-to-or-have-you-met-anyone-famous/960544/51 "2022-03-07T00:42:26Z")
I met **Barry Goldwater**. This was around 1988 or so. He paid a visit to a lab (Comsat) I was working in. I think he sat on the executive board for the lab. He was in a wheelchair, and some guy was pushing him. The only people in the lab were me, my boss, Barry, and the person that was pushing him. ---
**Author:** ![SoToasty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sotoasty/32/2803_2.png) [@SoToasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SoToasty)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2022, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-related-to-or-have-you-met-anyone-famous/960544/52 "2022-03-07T02:30:00Z")
Met Bill And Hillary Clinton when he was governor. As an aside, my mother and father taught him when he was in junior high school. I work for Behn Wilson (former hockey fighter) for many years at a startup he founded. My daughter presented Dale Earnhardt Jr, with a plaque as a thank you from her elementary school. ---
**Author:** ![Galactus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/galactus/32/3581_2.png) [@Galactus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Galactus)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2022, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-related-to-or-have-you-met-anyone-famous/960544/53 "2022-03-07T02:34:17Z")
My wife and I have been to many Comicons in Chicago and gotten many autographs from celebrities Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn from Terminator. got a poster signed. Both very friendly. William Shatner signed photo John Cusack signed the one-sheet from Gross Point Blank. Very nice guy. David Prowse Darth Vader signed photo Author Max Brooks signed World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide. Author Richard Kadrey signed the first two books in the Sandman Slim Series Author Peter David signed the Star Trek book Imzadi Comic Book Artist Neal Adams signed The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told. Very friendly guy. Lou Ferrigno signed photo and Golds Gym weight belt. Super cool dude. One year we got our room upgraded to a suite for free and ended up across the hall from Stan Lee. Nicest guy ever. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2022, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-related-to-or-have-you-met-anyone-famous/960544/54 "2022-03-07T02:41:31Z")
My 3x great grandfather’s sister married the brother of Mormon prophet Joseph Smith. ---
**Author:** ![saje](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saje/32/3631_2.png) [@saje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saje)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2022, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-related-to-or-have-you-met-anyone-famous/960544/55 "2022-03-07T02:45:42Z")
Screenplay writer and co-creator of the Batman tv show(among many other things) Lorenzo Semple Jr was my uncle. So of course his daughter Maria Semple (Where’d Ya Go, Bernadette) is my cousin. Thanks to my uncle I had a nice phone chat with Dino DeLaurentis once. Playwright Philip Barry (The Philadelphia Story) was a great uncle. I went to school with Steve Young the NFL player. John John Kennedy spent a weekend as a kid at the same summer place we belonged to in NYS. He swam and fished and boated with my friends and me, and we terrified his SS detail by jumping off cliffs into small but deep pools of river water. Jane Semple, she who was beheaded, is a distant ancestress on my mother’s side. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2022, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-related-to-or-have-you-met-anyone-famous/960544/56 "2022-03-07T02:52:56Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I’ve met many famous people over the years, but the most noteworthy was my 18-month friendship with Ayn Rand, until she denounced me for being “hopefully irrational”. It was so much fun playing Scrabble with her; she could play it in four languages. > > Among many others: > > Keith Haring was my bf for about a month. A really funny guy. These are both amazing and wonderful. What a life! (And still going). ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2022, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-related-to-or-have-you-met-anyone-famous/960544/57 "2022-03-07T03:56:26Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > Did you play in four languages at the same time or four games in one language each? Playing in several languages at the same time could be interesting, specially when one player is better at one language and another at a different one, but I wonder how you count the points, a W for instance is worth much more in Spanish than in German, a Ñ does not even exist in German, but I guess this could be overcome. Rand had scrabble sets in English, Russian, German and French. I don’t speak German, and speak very little Russian. We tried combining English and French. It worked for her, but was a disaster for me. Though she was fluent in all four, I remember her saying that a wider variety of things could be expressed in English than in the others. It was interesting to hear her speak French with her Russian accent. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2022, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-related-to-or-have-you-met-anyone-famous/960544/58 "2022-03-07T14:34:25Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Good point- like anyone whose family goes back a good number of generations in England is bound to be related to some King. Or, in my case, Denmark. Mom’s side of the family has been traced back to the bastard child of some Danish prince, circa 1250. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2022, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-related-to-or-have-you-met-anyone-famous/960544/59 "2022-03-07T15:39:43Z")
I keep forgetting that I met John Glenn, the US senator and astronaut. He went to school with my first boss and he came over to our office a couple of times to present my boss an award for Best Small Business in the state of Ohio twice. ---
**Author:** ![El\_DeLuxo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_deluxo/32/9043_2.png) [@El\_DeLuxo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_DeLuxo)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2022, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-related-to-or-have-you-met-anyone-famous/960544/60 "2022-03-07T19:26:23Z")
I’ve met Abbie Hoffman (who was a jerk and treated me like shit for no reason) and Joyce Carol Oates (who was very polite and affable) at book signings. Met Genesis P-Orridge, and then had him pat my ass years later. Have a say-hello-on-the-street acquaintance with Gary Floyd, and have spoken to William S. Burroughs and Roky Erickson on the phone! Used to know Dennis Peron, Harry Hay and James Broughton, who are all dead now. As are all but two of the other people I just mentioned. My 'rents told me we were related to Seargent Alvin York and Nathan Hale, but I don’t know for sure, or give a shit about either one, really. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-related-to-or-have-you-met-anyone-famous/960544.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-related-to-or-have-you-met-anyone-famous/960544.md?page=4)