Next time, try, “Lady Haden-Guest, I presume?”
I met Tom Poston on a plane to LA, once. Kind of. I got a free upgrade to first class and shared a cabin with him. He was sort of a dick.
On the same trip, I met an LA Laker in the hotel I was staying at in LA, like half a mile from the airport. He was a rookie and I don’t think he made the team, but we met in the hotel bar and tried to go out to some strip clubs together. I think it was a Thursday night, so absolutely nothing was happening. He called me “Buffalo” all night, cause that’s where I’m from. It was kind of funny and annoying at the same time, but he was a cool guy.
I don’t remember his name. Tom Poston was sort of a dick, though.
I have dropped these names on the boards so many times, they are starting to crack - but off the top of my head:
Charlton Heston - didn’t like his politics but a really nice guy and a gentleman.
Van Johnson - funny guy.
Sandra Dee - shy.
Whoopi Goldberg - very quiet and shy off stage.
Blair Underwood - very talented and professional.
Christopher Reeves (Superman) - asshole jerk times 1000
Delta Burke - very sweet and down to earth and her husband,
Gerald McCraney - nice guy
Richard Thomas (John-Boy) - met him in LA and once in East Berlin!
Brooke Shields - more beautiful in person and really very sweet and nice, unlike her bitch mother.
Roseanne Barr - quiet in one-on-one conversations, but quite funny too.
Tim Curry - as bizarre as he appears to be on screen.
Barry Bostwick - down to earth, easy to talk with.
Bea Arthur - elegant lady who hated wearing shoes and would go barefoot whenever possible (and she and Betty White loathed each other in real life).
Rue Mcclanahan - very much the southern Daddy’s girl - she was with her father that night and she was acting like a school girl, but in a good way.
Estelle Getty - very tiny person, usually in jogging suit.
Betty White - somewhat cool, but nice to fans who approached her.
Lucille Ball - very demanding woman, but I met her on a very, very stressful day.
Sly Stallone - major asshole
Carol Burnett - really wonderful woman, what you see on TV is real.
Jane Fonda - very nice and quite elegant.
Barbara Bilingsley (Beaver’s mom) - just sent chills down my back as I heard her voice first and knew who she was before looking at her, and it was like she was bringing me milk and cookies - I felt all warm and fuzzy just listening to her talk.
Vincent Price - another voice I, and everyone in line at Mayfair grocery store, hear first before turning to see him in the next aisle - his voice sent a different chill down my spine, but cool creepy!
Brad Pitt - met him “on the way up” in the elevator when he was going for a reading of Thelma and Louise - his first break-out film. We exchanged a few words but sadly not phone numbers.
Christopher Walken - really is that bizarre in real life.
There are lots, lots more, but this comes from working at a film studio and at a theater in LA plus travels and living in Berlin. It makes it more likely to meet these people if you live where they live.
I will say that 99% were mostly decent, nice people one-on-one and will give you one final example:
Jack Nicholson - I was reviewing films at the Berlin Film Fest and got to a late screening (midnight) a bit early and Jack was sitting in the lobby by himself. I showed him a copy of the Hollywood Reporter where he was mentioned and he read it and then we talked for about 10 minutes or so. I have a great photo of the two of us from my photographer at the time. So all was normal, he was really funny and great to talk with, and then the screening was over and suddenly he puts his sunglasses on and goes off into the corner as if I had never met him before - “Jack” was back.
I failed to recognize Ben Wicks in an elevator once. That’s about it for me, unless you count a couple of brief email contacts with Joumana Medlej. (I donated to her Kickstarter campaign and later bought her people-drawing book–which is very good, by the way, and I use it frequently as a reference.)
I served Ann Richards a veggie burger once. She was very small and her hair was very high.
You met Whoopi Goldberg?Did you meet her brother Cushion?
Seriously,that’s a very impressive list.Thanks for sharing it.
I’ve met Ray and Dave Davies on various occasions; at a recent conference I met George Takei, and also Mark Volman of the Turtles attended my paper and told me afterwards that he really liked it. I had a nice conversation with Derek Jacobi once.
Not a person, but I got to play/play around with Mike Nesmith’s white Gretsch guitar when I was about 16 or 17 years old.
I forgot to mention that I met a few authors at book signing events. I don’t know if they count for this thread but anyway they are:
Ray Bradbury
Ken Follett
P.D James
James Randi
I met Michael Learned, Peter Donat and David Dukes when they were performing in a play my father wrote, which was produced by the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.
I also met Paloma Picasso when I was playing with my brass quintet at the annual meeting for L’Oreal, where they announced her designer fragrance was going to be produced by them.
I don’t know for sure obviously but I’m pretty sure I chatted with a young Tom Cruise in Ottawa. I believe he and his family lived there for awhile. I remember this kid a little older than me but short whoI was in line with to see a movie. He was alone. I just remember the kid being good looking, short, charismatic and talk a lot about how he liked movies. I’m pretty sure it was him.
Cushion Goldberg?
Well,I thought it was pretty funny.Hey,Cushion sounds more believable than Whoopi doesn’t it?
No, Cushion is her middle name, not her brother.
Over the 12 years I drove cab(I drove a Town Car) I met;
Drew Barrymore - Didn’t say much.
Ryan Phillipe - Ditto
Maria Bello - Super nice. We ended up chatting for about 10 minutes outside her hotel.
Michael Bolton - I drove him around for parts of two days. I would rather gouge my eyes out than do that again.
Blind Boys of Alabama - Very cool guys. I played lookout for them while they bitched about their road manager.
INXS - Very arrogant. Especially the lead singer whom they found on the reality show.
Tanya Tucker - Best celebrity encounter I ever had. We talked like we were old friends. She even hooked me up backstage.
Charlie Pride - He talked with his friend most the time, seemed decent enough.
Probably quite a few more who I never recognized, or forgot about over the years.
My mom used to sell World Book Encyclopedias, and for selling a certain number, she won two tickets to a banquet with Hillary as the speaker. My father didn’t want to go, so she took me. Hillary narrated a great slide show about Everest, and afterwards we got to meet him. He chatted with me for several minutes.
I shook hands with Stephen Colbert after a taping of his show. He said, “Thank you for coming.” I don’t think I replied with anything coherent.
I traded sets with Hulk Hogan when he was working out at a gym I was at. Very nice guy AFAICT - he was very polite and positive to the owner’s son, who interrupted him during his workout. I bought Norman Spinrad a cup of coffee and a brownie when he came to my university to lecture a sci-fi lit course I was taking. He autographed my copy of The Iron Dream. I shook hands with Rod Grams, who was Senator from my state a few years back.
I’ve met some martial artists as well - Allen Coage, Olympic medalist, Pan-Am champion, who wrestled professionally as Bad News Brown, threw me around like a basketball during a training session. I lost badly to Steve Cohen in the 1972 Junior Nationals, who was US national judo champion, and Steve Seck, also US champion, in the 1974 High School Nationals, and sparred with Steve’s brother Irwin, also national champion and Olympian. And I was uke to Mr. Byung Lee, one of the ten living ninth-degree black belts at the time (about forty years ago).
Regards,
Shodan
I thought of another one: I once spent an afternoon at Nash the Slash’s apartment thanks to a guy I used to work with, who knew him. He was a remarkable ordinary-looking guy. But we don’t pick musicians for their looks…
And I suppose some of the people I went to screenwriting meetings with at LIFT became famous, but since I have no idea who they were anymore, that doesn’t help. (There was this cute brunette there who I might have become interested in… but she smoked. sigh)
Very interesting.Thanks for the reply.
Even funnier!I wish I’d thought of that one.:smack: