Are you related to or have you met anyone famous

In My Humble Opinion
81

I think the most famous person I ever met was Arnold Vosloo. He was a customer at my workplace. He was a nice guy, for the 30 seconds we interacted.

When I was in college, the SciFi club hosted presentations by Roger Zelazny and Fred Saberhagen. I took part in the Q&A sessions.

My most famous relatives are two cousins: Wayne Brazel, who killed Pat Garret, and Mack Brazel, who found the wreckage of the alleged flying saucer at Roswell. (For the record, he always told my relatives that it was a weather balloon.)

Most people with my surname are related, so there are a couple of actresses who are probably distant relatives. (The pornstar uses her married name, so I am probably related to her husband.)

82

No one notable on my side of the family. My wife’s mother is a fairly successful romance writer, and her first cousin in a tv producer. She also went to high school with Edward Norton. I’ve met several children’s authors, pro wrestler Angelo Poffo (best know as Randy “Macho Man” Savage’s dad), Mike Farrell, and Dave Van Ronk.

83

Met Argo Guthrie and Pete Seger , had lunch with them in Chicago, Ohare.

Went to HS with Eric Heiden( speed skater).
Talked to Ron Paul, Angela Davis, Tom Waits, Xene, ( from X)

84

That reminds me. Though I didn’t strike up a conversation with him, a couple times I’ve sat in an adjacent table from Jim Jordan at a local restaurant.

85

Many years ago, I saw Rondell Sheridan on an airplane. He had been on the Comedy Channel in some standup skits but he wasn’t “famous” when he got on the plane. He kind of looked around, a bit fearful that someone would recognize him. I think he hoped someone would, actually. He was flying coach however…

I think I could have met him on my way to the restroom, acted like “Haven’t I seen you somewhere?”

86

My mother and Clark Gable were cousins. I went to HS a guy named Danny Roundfield who ended up playing pro basketball for the Pistons and the Hawks. Also, knew a guy when I was a kid who played the sax and did a gig with the Stones. (Dave MacMurray).

87

Ron Paul spoke at UW Madison, back when they weren’t fragile, there were about 100 people in the lecture , he stuck around for a bit of conversation with us.

88

I went to a party at Noah Wyle’s house once – but he wasn’t there and we were both tweens. (Our moms worked together at the Kaiser Permanente hospital in Hollywood.)

I’m Gerald Ford’s sixth cousin thrice removed.

89

I’ve been reading the thread, being envious of these connections with fame, then I remembered I went to high school with Brent Mydland, who ended up playing keyboard for the Grateful Dead. I took a music appreciation course with him.

Also, now that I think of it:

Nobel Laureates (Physics) I have met:

Emilio Segrè (1959)
Owen Chamberlain (1959)
Luis Alvarez (1968)
Phil Anderson (1977)
Karl Müller (1987)
Tony Leggett (2003)
Dave Wineland (2012)

Owen Chamberlain even wrote one of my letters of recommendation for grad school.

Plus, I once briefed Edward Teller on my research (he was a consultant for the company I was working for). He was extremely old and I remember that at the start of the meeting he pulled out a pile of pills, which he slowly consumed over the course of my briefing, I don’t actually remember what opinion or advice he gave me.

90

One of my cousins is a very accomplished journalist, who has spent significant time with Indira Gandhi, Billy Graham, the Dalai Lama, and all major members of British Royalty. He wrote the official announcement of Diana’s death.

91

My wife and I met actor Billy Campbell on a jetty in Lunenburg NS, where he had his own sailboat berthed at the time.

92

My 8x great-grandfather was a cousin of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Oliver Cromwell is back there someplace too.

93

Poor Barry, never got to use his “tactical nuclear weapons”.

94

My father said I met Mark Felt (Deep Throat) when I was about 6 or 7 years old. That was about 40 years before he became famous.

95

Sonny and Cher once invited me into their home and treated me
like an old friend.

96

I went to that same high school some years later. Really the member of the family I remember is their mother Nancy.

97

When I was in grad school, I spent a semester as TA for Wolfgang Haken’s Calculus class. (Haken is famous for solving the Four-Color Problem with Kenneth Appel, with whom I also had some, very minimal, interaction.)

98

I spent four years (1964-68) at UI and knew both Haken and Appel. Ken I knew very well. His son became a computer scientist and taught CS to my son. I had a long talk with his wife after he died. Haken I knew less well but I recall quite clearly the day at coffee hour when he started musing about a mathematician in Germany who had been working away by himself for 30 years on the four color problem. Haken said that someone should spend a summer there and find out what the guy was doing else it would be lost forever when the guy (obviously Heinrich Heesch) died. Clearly Haken did exactly that.

99

I forgot to mention a small smattering of other minor brushes with greatness and near-greatness that I’ve had:

There was Peter Stafford, the author of The Psychedelics Encyclopedia, who I had a whole stoned conversation with before I twigged to who he was.

I’ve seen Mr. Wavy Gravy often enough at events like the Saint Stupid’s Day Parade and the Rainbow Gathering that we’ve got a nod-and-wave acquaintance, and the last time I walked in the Stupid Parade he complimented my Lycra Spandex one-piece tuxedo. Aaron Kaye, the notorious Yippie Pie Assassin, was someone else I met at a few gatherings.

Paul Krassner’s daughter was a featured artist at Poetry Above Paradise one night (I was a regular) and I exchanged hellos with the man himself at the bar.

Fritz Leiber was also a featured reader at Poetry Above Paradise once; I got to hear him read, but didn’t actually meet him.

I walked up and introduced myself to Chris Desjardins between sets at a Flesh Eaters show, but I was somewhat shitfaced at the time and failed to make a good impression.

S. Clay Wilson did the cover art on a book written by a good friend of mine (since deceased), and the two of them were confabbing over drinks when I came into the same bar they were in. Mike (my bud) saw me, hailed me over, and introduced us–so I got to tell S. Clay Wilson that I’d enjoyed his work since i was a teenager.

Kim Addonizio was my poetry teacher for a semester.

I smoked a joint with Z. Budapest!

100

Met…yeah hundreds as I went to film school in L.A. and I’m a comic-con regular, so sort of a non-issue with me. Most famous? Dunno…Sandra Bullock? Michelangelo Antonioni? Seven of the actors who’ve played The Doctor?

Related…not sure and it’s not confirmed, but based on a relatively uncommon last name, I may be a distant relative of Jello Biafra, real name Eric Boucher. More than a hundred years ago there was a split in my family tree between the Bouchers (pronounced “Bow-churr”) the English Protestant side, and the Bouchers (pronounced “Boo-shay”) the French Catholic side. No idea if any of them landed in Colorado, though, which is where the former Dead Kennedys singer is from.