The thread is supposed to be about surprisingly nice celebs. Well, this one has got to be the biggest surprise yet, since Harlan Ellison has a carefully honed repuation for utter sonofabitch meanness.
I caught him at Mile High Comics in Boulder, Colorado, authographing his book Chasing the Nightmare. He was in a cheery, sunny mood. I told him I was from Cleveland, too; he grinned as if commiserating, and wisecracked “Yeah, Cleveland’s a place to be from.” He kindly autographed the book to my then-wife (bad move on my part; when we split up I had to give it over to her). A mousy middle-aged woman was in the line to see Ellison; after a brief exchange with him, she walked away hugging the book with her face in absolute dreamy ecstatic rapture. He was such a decent, sweet guy on that occasion. I’m glad I didn’t see his notorious evil side.
Since the emphasis is on surprisingly nice celebs, I’ve met Chris Evans (a DJ in the UK) a number of times and have always found him to be warm, generous, and funny.
My Mom agrees with you. Back when she was working the front desk of a Holiday Inn in the '70s the whole Osmond family (or most of it) showed up. They wanted adjoining rooms all on the same floor, and she told them that they didn’t have any available, some were occupied and some were reserved, but they did have room for them, it would just be scattered around the hotel. They demanded that she move the guests to other rooms to make room for them, and when she refused they asked ‘Do you know who we are?’
She says she met many celebrities while working there, but the Osmonds were the absolute rudest.
My aunt does some charity work. In the couse of her charity work she wanted to collect some sports memorablia to action off. Well, she placed a call to Micheal Jordan’s “people” to ask if he could donate anything, they said they would get back to her. Well, about an hour later her son came into her room and he was almost hyperventalating. All he could get out was, “Mom, phone.” Well, needless to say, Micheal Jordan called her himself to see what he could do. He sent her an autographed ball, a pair of shoes, photos, etc, etc. And yeah, they raised HEAPS of $$$.
What a cool guy. You gotta love that.
Ok, OK, I know. we all know that MJ is a nice guy. I just realized that I posted about one of the most loved sports stars ever, so I thought I’d share another one.
I saw David Beckham aka “Becks” on TV the other day. He was so cool. Very soft spoken, so in love with his wife (who apparently is pretty nice too) and loves being a dad. I guess I just saw all that money that those two throw around and assumed that they were jerks. hm, go figure.
I mentioned this once some months ago in another thread – I was in the same theatre troupe as Brooke Shields her freshman year at Princeton, my senior year. Although we didn’t really hang out together, my impression of her was that she was an utterly sweet kid – no attitude, no celebrity selfishness. (We got all that from her mother… I can tell you such horror stories…) Brooke was also very aware of her limitations as a performer – she knew she couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket and took mostly chorus roles for three years without a fuss. (She was rewarded with a solo number in her senior year, especially tailored to her vocal limitations.) My specific “nice celebrity” memory of Brooke is walking into McCarter Theater for a rehearsal in early 1984 to find her smiling and handing me a piece of carrot cake.
I attended a taping of The Nanny. They ran through each scene several times, and in between scenes, Fran Drescher and Charles Shaughnessy would come over to the audience area and talk to us. They personally thanked people for coming out and having patience and laughing at the jokes a second time. Fran was quite the hottie and I talked to Charles about the cool places to eat around the LA area. Very nice people.
Nearly everyone I’ve ever talked to about it has described author John Ralston Saul as a vicious, tyrannical curmudgeon, but all I can say is he was very nice to me.
When I was in Quebec City, I and three friends from the US stopped in on an NDP function, where I introduced them to party leader Alexa McDonough. I was expecting her to smile, shake hands, and blow us off, but she really got engaged in the conversation, particularly when I told her that friend Steve had worked for the Nader campaign. That was a pleasant surprise.
When I was a small child and he was still Leader of the Opposition, Gary Doer, now premier of Manitoba, removed a leech from my foot.
The same week that Russell Crowe got in the press for flipping a Princeton student the bird, my friend met him. My friend works in the Princeton Athletic department and apparently one of Crowe’s “handlers” called to see if there was any Tigers gear he might be able to get. Happy to oblige, he gathered up the requisite insignia crap and took it over there. Said Crowe was nice, chatted with him a bit, seemed every bit the regular guy. I guess I have read, elsewhere, that Crowe really does think of himself as a normal person, but I figured he’d be a dick for some reason.
I once glared at Michael Stipe (of REM) in a hotel lobby, and he glared back at me, but unfortunately I haven’t had any other brushes with celebrity either positive or negative.
But I keep checking this thread because I’m curious if anyone has met Robert Blake in person . . .
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Bill H. * Raul Julia. The best word I can think of to describe him was “dignity.” He was very gracious and kind.
QUOTE]
Oh wow. Hey, MiSTies, remember that horrible old movie, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank with Julia? I have to say, he was QUITE sexy when he was younger…sigh
I had occasion to serve Robert Walker, Jr. (Charlie X) last year. He has been out of acting for years, but was delighted when I recognized him, told me to call him Bob, told me a great story about the show, and was overall a very gracious man. I got the impression that he stays away from all the Cons and stuff.
Re: Robert Blake - we’ll just SEE, won’t we? I thought his work on the Little Rascals was forced and juvenile.
Wow, talk about being turned off by an early performance. Actually, I’ve never seen any of the Little Rascals episodes that he played in–not knowingly, at least.
He was Tommy, I think, the kid with the overprotective mother who turned out NOT to be sickly, after all. He just struck me as a kid who would grow up to marry a grifter and then have her bumped off.
This is third-hand info, but a FOAF works at a private school in Brentwood and taught some of the Schwartzenegger children. Apparantly the Schwartzeneggers are really good parents who spend a lot of time with their kids, which kind of surprised me given they’re a mega-career couple.
Someone mentioned Michael Stipe, and it reminded me of this incident:
A few years ago, some comedian friends of mine were booked to play in a town called Athens, GA. The home town of REM. Amanda, who is a big REM fan, was practically salivating at this. So she and some other friends are in Athens, when Amanda runs into Stipe. Excited, she asks him for an autograph. He tells her no. Because if she gets one, then other people will want one, too, and he doesn’t feel like signing a bunch of autographs. Troy, one of the other friends who was there, gets mad, and tells Stipe off because this is Michael Stipe’s homeotwn, and anyone else who would have wanted his fucking autograph would already have one. I found this profoundly funny when this story was relayed to me.