Hm. Well, I was working at a movie theater in New Mexico back when they were filming City Slickers in my neighborhood, and one afternoon Castle Rock, the production company, bought out one side of our twin theater so that the cast and crew could come in and watch Goodfellas for a break. I worked the door. Billy Crystal is very short.
Actually, he came back at least once after that, though I can’t remember what movie he was seeing that time. I spotted him at the front of the concession line as he was getting straws for he and his wife’s sodas. No one else appeared to notice him; he was extremely inconspicuous. I might not have noticed myself, if I hadn’t seen him before.
In my brief tenure as an online music journalist, I got face-to-face interviews with Marshall Crenshaw and John Doe. Doe is one of the coolest, smartest folks I’ve ever met—what a privilege to hang out and chat with the guy. (If anyone cares to read the results, go to nonsuchworks.com and poke around.)
I also got to meet Andy Partridge at an album signing. He had signed about 200 autographs by the time I got to him so he was pretty glazed over.
I’ve got photos and autographs with various Doctor Who actors, but didn’t really chat to the extent that I feel I’ve “met” them.
Hm. My list will overlap to some extent with Hamish’s: Mayor Tremblay, Messrs. Hendricks-Leboeuf, Mr. Robinson, His Excellency, most of whom I met on the same occasions as he did.
Ms. McDonough campaigned extensively with me in 2002. I was horrified when I heard her say that something ‘pissed her off’ (“You’re Alexa McDonough! Can you say ‘pissed off’??!!”)
I’ve testified on Jaggi Singh’s behalf twice.
My dad, obviously, through whom I’ve met a fair crop of CBC celebs. We went boating with Russ Germain on a few occasions.
Manitoba premier Gary Doer was one of my dad’s football buddies back when he was a mere opposition MP. He removed a leech from my foot on a fishing trip back when I was a wee sprat.
I met Tom Jackson at a performance of the Huron Carole once.
Heh. Everybody always wants to hear the rest of this story…
John Gacy went to high school with my mom. She was a bridesmaid in his sister’s wedding. After high school, she didn’t see him again for many years. She was working at a bar and he came in one night. They got to chatting, as bartenders and their customers do, and a little way into the conversation they discovered they’d gone to the same school - names were exchanged, and suddenly they remembered one another.
My mom was single at the time, with four kids, and every year she held what she always called “the orphans’ Thanksgiving”. Thanksgiving dinner on the Saturday after the actual holiday, for all her family-less friends at our house. Since the bar conversation was only a few weeks before this event, she invited him to join us, because several other people they both knew from high school were going to be there too. So he came, ate dinner, sat in the living room after and made small talk with everyone. He showed us kids a wallet-sized photo of himself shaking hands with First Lady Rosalyn Carter.
I’ve met Tool (fame was from Undertow CD then), RadioHead, Belly, Live, Marilyn Manson (just him and he moved me out of his way… I was blocking the door, talk about getting spooked!), Dan Marley (PHX Suns - worked in the porn store right next to his downtown sports bar/grill), Primus (at a barbeque contest/concert deal), Sunset Thomas (female porn star, I touched her fake BOOB!) and a British porn star guy who I can’t remember the name of right now (I will later, I bet… Mark something, did the Anabolic series? He caressed my BUTT during a photo-op, talk about another spook! But he was cute… ahem). I was friends with local DJ, Larry Mac but we haven’t talked in a long time and he’s not that famous.
Oh, also, back in the late 60s-early 70s, my uncle was in a series of reasonably successful local bands. In and among his jam session players were many Chicago musicians who later became famous or semi-famous, including Styx’s Tommy Shaw, Off Broadway USA’s Cliff Johnson and Pezband’s Mimi Bettinis. I met them all, but remembered none of them until my uncle pointed them out to me (“That’s the guy who tried to stuff the cueball in his mouth, remember?”)
My brother once worked a charity celebrity golf tournament. He tended bar with Harrison Ford that day. Said he was a really nice guy.
And my great-grandfather, who was alive well into my 20s, was famous himself in the early days of Chicago big bands - and his cousin, who I suppose would be my second cousin twice removed or something, was a major figure in the Chicago music scene, and also wrote commercial jingles. His most well-known jingle was, “Double your pleasure, double your fun…”
Michael Stipe once told me that England was probably his favourite place to tour because it was the only place he could get a decent curry.
I was also sitting in the passenger seat when Damon Hill (ex-F1 driver) nearly wrote off Phil Collins’ manager’s MacLaren F1. Nice guy, scary, scary driver. He wasn’t even showing off that much.
Life on Wry, I think you take the prize! If we were ever to meet, I would be two degrees removed from Gacy, two from Bundy, and two from Susan Smith. Creepy. How old were you?
BTW, your great-grandfather’s jingle has sentimental value for me. Back in the early 1960’s, some of my high school gang used to taunt these adorable twin guys in our class with that song – changing the lyrics only slightly.
A cousin that I never had the chance to meet was a fairly well-known adventurer-writer during the 1920’s and 1930’s. His name was Richard Halliburton. (Let’s not talk about the rest of the family.)
Elvis Presley was close by in a private waiting area at an airport for about thirty minutes once. I didn’t get to talk with him, but he did blow me a kiss when he left. That was about 1966 or 1968.
I once danced with a Danish knight! Peter Martins (head of the New York City Ballet Company).
Rose Kennedy
Robert Kennedy
Eunice Kennedy Shriver
Sargent Shriver
John Glenn
President Johnson
Mike Farrell
Marilyn Bergman
Alan Bergman
Mike Post
Patrick Williams
Johnny Cash (lived in same apartment building)
Porter Waggoner (lived in same apartment building)
Jan Howard
Larry Gatlin
Fess Parker
I ran into Minnie Pearl a couple of times. The last time was when I waited in line behind her at the Sarah Cannon Cancer Center. (Her real name was Sarah Cannon – I’m unsure of the exact spelling.)
I’ve lived in Burbank CA for ten years, so you would think I run into famous people all the time, but my record is pretty thin:
Jay Leno in traffic.
Shannen Dougherty at a 7-Eleven.
Paul Stanley of KISS crossing the street in front of me at a red light.
Leslie Neilson in traffic.
I did a scene in a TV show with J-celebrity Kaori Momoi. Very friendly to everyone, even though they had working until 1am.
One of the first times I got together with Cerowyn, we went to a live house that happened to be featuring an old comedian/rocker named O-sama (“The King”), who had been one of my favorites back when I first came to Japan, but had pretty much disappeared since. Between sets I talked with him a bit, and my computer wallpaper is now a photo of the two of us together.
Shared a subway car with several sumo wrestlers, once, and I’m pretty sure it was Akinoshima that I saw ambling around Kabukicho late one night.
Another story: This happened to a friend of my mother. She was waiting in line at Bruster’s, an chain of ice cream stands in Atlanta.
After she got her ice cream, she turned around, and standing in line right behind her has Paul Newman. She was completely flustered, stammered something, and got into her car.
At that point, she realized she no longer had her ice cream. She got out of her car, went back to the window, and told the clerk she did not receive her ice cream.
The clerk was protesting that she had givin my mom’s friend her ice cream when Paul Newman spoke up.
LifeonWry, I wonder if your mother also grew up with Robert Reissler, who founded and headed the FBI unit on serial killers. Reissler grew up in the same neighborhood with Gacy, and while he didn’t remember him, Gacy remembered Reissler and recalled some childhood incidents at their first meeting.
I’ve met a few famous folk through my job and a few theatre folk through my biggest passion. The most famous would be Alicia Keyes, who I met before she was famous.
Ooh, thanks for the reminders. I once dated a guy whose family owned the Chicago Bears, and his oldest brother, Mike McCaskey, was something of a Chicago fixture for a while, as president of the Bears. Major asshole.
Anyway, they lived a block away from Gacy. This was a couple years after the trial. So I never met him, BUT, and this is cooler, right? I dated a guy who had a been a teenage boy living in Gacy’s neighborhood. Way cute; Gacy probly left himm alone because his parents were rich and powerful.
And, I met Danny Bonaduce several times. I made a bunch of hats for his wife and daughter.
And how did I forget this? I am personally responsible for the creation of Oprah’s book club.
Thank you for posting this! You’ve posted it once before, I think, and I’ve repeated it to people because I thought it was the one of the cutest stories, but for the longest time now I’ve been trying to remember WHERE I’d heard it. Someone else posted something about running into Alec Baldwin while getting a prescription filled, too. I love these random encounter things.
lissener - we must have grown up not far from one another. While I never met any of the McCaskeys, the neighborhood wasn’t far from mine. D’you remember the Axle Roller Rink right over there?
My ex-SO used to hang out with Madonna, before and after she got famous, until they both got really busy with kids (their sons were born about 4 months apart). Now she only sees her about once a year.
In addition to running into most of the people Hamish and the other doper from Montreal named (John Kastner, every week for a few years at the Miami, John Cummins, every 2nd week), I’ve run into:
Bryan Adams (at the 4 Seasons in TO) - not very tall
Paul Stanley (standing behind him at Starbucks right around the corner from the 4 Seasons and about 20 min. after the Bryan Adams encounter. I actually noticed the super cheesy Indian motorcycle jacket he was wearing.
William H Macy in a hotel elevator in San Fran
Mitsou
Mitsou’s sister
Veronique Cloutier’s sister
Played softball with Vladmir Guerrero’s brothers and cousins (not as talented).
Ran into Vladmir at the airport as he was heading for Miami, but managed to be back in Mtl that same night to play a home game. Very curious.
Countless number of Montreal Canadiens
Michael McKean in front of sushi restaurant in Old Mtl
I’ve met a gajillion of them, as I wrote for Movieline for ten years (back in the days before it sucked) and have written five books on show-biz topics. To keep it short, the only ones who actually became friends of mine are:
(the late) Lillian Gish
John Waters
Anita Page
Oliva De Havilland
When Mrs. Chastain and I were to be married, we found we had some extra invitations in the box after we’d invited our principle guests. Taking this as a sign, I mailed two of the invites to the View Askew offices in the care of Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith. (Jay & Silent Bob respectively.)
Two years or so pass, and I ran into Kevin Smith at a convention. I introduced myself by my first name, shook his hand, and offhandedly asked him if he remembered receiving a wedding invitation some years prior.
Without prodding, he goes, “***** Chastain, right?” with this huge grin. Apparently the wedding invitation struck his as odd and cool, and he always remembered it.
