Richard Harris in Atlanta for Camelot. I was lucky enough to get to attend a cast party with my then-wife who wrote for Creative Loafing and a now-defunct magazine who’s name escapes me.
I presented him with an Atlanta Braves jersey, and he was very cordial, but very withdrawn the entire time. He had a bag with him that contained a bottle of Perrier and this may have been one of his many “dry” periods.
Tried to engage him in conversation about T H White’sThe Once and Future King, but he was very mono-syllabic, so I let it go. Still one of my favorite actors, may he rest in peace.
Although I didn’t speak with her I stood next to Princess Diana at a garden party at Buck House as she spoke to a girl next to me. Photos don’t do her justice - she was far more beautiful in real life and I was smitten.
I played table football in a pub in Battersea with Will Carling (ex-England rugby captain) who was fun, although Julia (his fiancee at the time) wasn’t with him and he was leching rather obviously over my girlfriend, which I found a bit irritating.
My father, who is an artist has met (and painted) countless celebrities but IMHO the coolest one was that he dated Jackie Collins when they were in their teens/20s.
Bill Clinton. Once, he called my house looking for my dad, who was Medical Director Of the Dept. Of Health on Ark. at the time. The second time, he was at the Mt. Nebo Chicken Fry walking around gladhanding, when he saw my dad and came over, said hi, and my dad intoduced my wife and I. The third time was when he was campaigning for President and he had a “Race to the White House”. I was shown on the lead-in on the CBS Evening News shaking hands with him.
I partied with The Psychedelic Furs at a Holiday Inn bar in Dallas in 1981. They were nice guys.
I’ve talked to all the members of R.E.M. at the Antenna Club in Memphis, where they were hanging out after a show in 1987.
I met Patricia Schroeder in the grocery store, as well as Tom Foley and Leon Panetta.
I met Dee Dee Ramone at a record signing at a Dallas record store in 1981.
I kissed Mariel Hemmingway at Myrtle Beach one time. Unfortunately, I was 6 and she was 8, so nothing came of it.
I met Anita Hill at a book signing. She’s very pretty, and I think she was checking me out. Wishful thinking, I know. Funny that my anecdote with her was of that nature…
I’ve met countless musicians backstage after shows, as I am not shy about talking to them.
Working in D.C. as I do I’ve seen a number of political figures but I wouldn’t say they count unless I actually talk to them, so the list isn’t much:
Susan Dey – at the banquet before the premiere of the film “Miss Evers’ Boys,” we had dinner at the same table; she was there as the girlfriend of the director (or something). I told her I enjoyed her work and we chatted for a few seconds before she was distracted by some photographers.
Justice Antonin Scalia – chatted with him a bit while we waited for our bags at National Airport in D.C. Very funny in person, which isn’t surprising.
Author James Lee Burke, at a book signing. I was almost the last guy in line so he felt he didn’t have to hurry me along and we talked for a minute about Guatemala. The book was “Burning Angel” which deals with some events in Central America and the passage he’d read had to do with that.
Carl Sagan – I had a seminar class with him my senior year of college which he had to leave about 2/3 of the way through the semester to go to New York for medical treatment (which was ultimately unsuccessful). He was a very funny, intelligent guy, with an impressive personal magnetism, and not at all a dick about his celebrity (as had been the rumor about him). I was floored when he died about a year and a half later, even though I knew it was coming.
Finally, I’ll break my no-conversation rule for Morton Kondracke, who would be dead right now if I weren’t a good driver – he was jaywalking across 14th Street when he stepped right in front of my car and I just barely had enough time to swerve around him.
I’m kinda cheating, as I’ve worked as a show-biz writer for almost 20 years . . . I’ve met/interviewed (just the ones I can remember offhand!):
Shirley MacLaine • Adam Sandler • Ann Miller • Margaret O’Brien • Alfre Woodard • Sharon Stone • Spike Lee • John Landis • Esther Ralston • Bette Davis • Christina Ricci • Lili Taylor • Judge Reinhold • Jill Clayburgh • Robert Vaughn • Tony Franciosa • Nicolas Cage • Gilbert Roland • Erte • Sean Young • Eddie Murphy
I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot . . . The only ones who have become friends are Lillian Gish, Olivia De Havilland, Anita Page and John Waters.
Me and my boyfriend met bear pornstar Joe Greene (his real last name starts with an S but I won’t mention it here since the above is the one he uses in porn). He was hot until he opened his mouth and started smoking. He was missing one of his top front teeth so he rested his cigarette in the gap and sucked away on it. He also changed his outfit like 4 times and went prancing around the bar. It ruined a fantasy. I figured he would be a tough, macho type of guy until he opened his mouth and the purse fell out.
That’s an odd duo. Out of curiosity, is Waters as macabre and odd when the camera’s not running? And does Olivia De Havilland have any relationship with her sister?
Remembered another – in the dim past, I was at a house party with Fairuza Balk. (Still just “that girl who was in Return to Oz.”) Primarily underage drinkers. Gasp!
I was wandering around MidAmeriCon (the annual World Science Fiction Convention or WorldCon) in Kansas City in 1976. Not much of interest was happening, but the schedule said something about a preview of an upcoming sf film. They’d been promoting the film with less-than-life-size cardboard cutouts of some guy in goofy black armor spotted around the hotel so it didn’t look like much, but as I said - not much else was happening.
I got there late and a good-sized crowd had gathered. I stood toward the back and fell into conversation with some young guy about my age in jeans and a shirt, just like most everybody else at the con. Now, to say that this guy was handsome is to understate it. Without being effeminate, he was the single prettiest male human being I have ever seen in person.*
Of course, the film was Star Wars, the guy was Mark Hamill, and movie stars really are a different species from the rest of us.
*And I once got to meet the self-proclaimed prettiest of them all, Muhammad Ali, backstage when he came to speak at my high school. Man, was he big.
Oh–Al Lewis! He played Grampa Munster, and he owns (Owned? Is he still alive?) a restaurant in Manhattan, where he made the rounds and chatted it up with all the customers.
Peter Shilton, ex-England goalkeeper, at a B&B in Coventry of all places. Unusually for such a high-profile sportsman he is, or was, kinda cash-strapped.
The late John Entwhistle, who was almost family inasmuch as his first wife was (and still is) my mother-in-law’s sister. And he, unlike Shilts, was not at all cash-strapped and hosted a very generous wedding reception for his son, which was the only time I met him (though not to speak to).
Working at my local big-orange-home-improvement-center-with-the-stupid-looking-cartoon-mascot (but I don’t want to identify it), I’ve run into two thirds of TLC. Helped Lisa Lopes pick out flooring for a studio, and got down some marble tile for Rolonda Thomas. Being the clueless middle-aged white guy that I am, I didn’t recognize either of them, and only found out that I’d served celebrities when more au courant co-workers told me who they were. They were both *very, very * small.
Lesse, who else? Encountered John whats-'is-name, the actor who played Martin Frazier on Frazier in a public park in Oak Park, Illinois. I met the then-governor of Georgia (and now offically Democratic, actually Republican senator from Georgia) Zell Miller at work. Oh yeah, last week a friend of mine and I were eating at a Mexican restaurant when Mr. and Mrs. Dan Reeves sat at the table behind us. Fortunately, I had by then stopped talking to my friend about the way my beloved Cleveland Browns had stomped the Falcons three days before.
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First of all, that’s the meanest putdown I’ve heard in 2 1/2 months.
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Thank you, I try. (Where is that devil smiley?) He really was hot until he opened his mouth and started sucking on a cigarette through his missing tooth gap. Walloon has the description right.
