He did seem to be a nice guy, but he also did that wretched The Da Vinci Code movie. That knocked my estimation of him down a notch.
Mind you, this has nothing to do with the quality of the movie. Rather, I was disappointed that he threw his weight behind a movie that further promoted Dan Brown’s twisted notions of history (and before anyone says “It’s just fiction,” I want to emphasize that Brown himself insists that these claims are factual).
So is Tom Hanks truly a nice guy? Probably so, but I do think that he falls short of being among the classiest.
Right. I understand that Penn and Teller are nice to their fans, but I don’t think that’s enough to count them among the celebrities with the most class.
A lot of the nominations here seem to lump “classy” with “nice”; as a way to finagle posting more names I’ll break 'em out in distinct categories:
Classiest: Fred Astaire
Nicest: Jimmie Dodd, Shari Lewis, or Fred Rogers, hard to choose between them
Meanest: Leaving aside those accused of criminal acts and the heads of movie studios, I’d say Ray Bolger
Least classy: The competition is ferocious, but the nod goes to Andy Dick
Bob Costas had his own story about Bob Gibson. It seems that Gibson periodically shows up at baseball “fantasy camps” where middle-aged guys get to play (for hefty fees) games against old-time baseball stars. Costas got to bat against Gibson in such a game, and managed to get a hit.
Years later, he ran into Gibson, and jokingly brought up that hit. You’d THINK Gibson could just share a laugh over it, or give a menacing stare and joke, “I’ll get you NEXT time, sucka!”
Instead, Gibson was genuinely angry, and got threatening!
Now, that mean streak may well have been part of what made Gibson a winner… but you’d think an old man would have mellowed out just a BIT, especially when it comes to mere recreational play.
Among the seemingly classy celebs I haven’t seen mentioned… what about James Cagney? A very dignified man who stayed married to the same woman for 60+ years.
Richard Petty took a calligraphy class to learn to have a nice signature and after races he would sign autographs for several hours until the last person had left.
I used to wait tables in a very classy restaurant in Clayton Mo (St Louis county). I had the pleasure of waiting on Stan and his wife on numerous occasions. He could not have been more pleasant and kind. He ALWAYS took time with the patrons that approached him and he also always had his harmonica with him, yes he played it fairly well.
I also waited on MANY other St Louis celebs and sports figures. Stan is among the kindest.
Kansas City sportswriter Joe Posnanski told a story once about seeing Stan Musial sneaking a puff of a cigarette before meeting a bunch of fans for an autograph session. Caught, Musial looked embarrassed, and asked Joe not to say anything! Stan knew how wholesome many of his fans thought he was, and he HATED the idea of disappointing them by letting them find out he smoked!
And, apparently, that really IS the worst thing anyone could ever find to say about him. He isn’t perfect, but he really wants to be and has always tried very hard to be.
My in-laws knew Dylan when he was Bobby Zimmerman at the University of Minnesota - he was an acquaintance of my father-in-law who used to come over and drink their coffee. Neither of them (and they are divorced and have agreed on very little in the past 30 years) have ever said anything good about him BEFORE he was famous - and I can’t imagine fame has helped.
In the same “small world” of University of Minnesota hippies who found fame, Garrisson Keillor has known one of my girlfriends since she was a toddler (she’s forty now), she used to date his son, Jason, and he won’t say hello to her if they run into each other.
Confirmed.
I work in production (tv/film), and last week I was chatting with a friend of mine who I’ve worked with on a few shows; he’s a hair stylist who’s worked in Hollywood for 25 years. The vanities (hair/make up dept’s) get to work more closely with the talent than any other. I asked him who the nicest person that he’s ever worked with, and without missing a beat named Mr. Peck. Interestingly, the second person that he named was Nicolas Cage.
I have had the opportunity to work with hundreds of celebrities.
Off the top of my head at this very moment:
The classiest was Charleton Heston - despite the fact that I loathed his politics, he was a class act, through and through. Jimmy Stewart and Jack Lemmon were also memorable “class acts”.
Shelly Winters was a bitch on wheels and treated everybody like shit, but Christopher Reeves (aka Superman) was an insufferable asshole, the likes of which nobody should ever have to meet or work with again.
I once was an extra in a TV drama with Kaori Momoi (lots of leading TV and movie roles, but her only film that’s well known in the west is probably Memoirs of a Geisha), and even though shooting had fallen behind schedule to the point where our scene was being done after midnight, she was extremely nice to everyone, going from table to table (it was a restaurant scene) and chatting everyone up.
I think Gere gets a shout-out for being named both most and least classy in this thread. That’s quite an accomplishment!
Most (OK, maybe not the most, but surprisingly) classy: AC/DC. Apparently they are still genuinely sincerely appreciative of every fan and will hang around the venue for hours after each concert signing autographs, taking pictures, and chatting with the fans as if they were sitting in a pub with a bunch of friends.
Least: Tony Orlando. I worked some shows that he did in Atlantic City a few years back, and he was the most abusive, obnoxious jackass to the entire backing band, insulting their musical abilities, calling them names, etc. Not to mention he was a complete douchebag toward the stage crew and house staff.
Maybe not the most famous guy in the world, but I don’t recall ever hearing a bad word about Chris Moneymaker, winner of the 2003 World Series of Poker.
An accountant who won his entry into the WSOP by winning an online tournament for $39, he doesn’t seem to have let the money ($2.5 million) go to his head.
At this year’s WSOP, he paid the $10,000 entry fee for a fan who was badly injured in an automobile accident.
Odd thread seeing as most of us do not know any of these people. A chance encounter coupled with a knowledge of their work hardly entitles any of us to comment on whether or not they are good/classy people are not (with some obvious exceptions of course).
Gregory Peck, Jimmy Stewart, and Harpo Marx having already been mentioned, one other Hollywood legend about whom very few were ever inclined to speak ill was Jimmy Durante.
Thank you. I was thinking there was something in Chuck’s past I wasn’t aware of for it to get to page two without him mentioned. By all accounts, though he was very active in gun politics, that he was also a consummate professional and accepting of everyone regardless of their background or political views.
