Something I probably shouldn’t mention because she was such an American icon and played such a vital role in history and because I’m white and she’s a black icon, but as she’s dead and as I don’t dispute her legacy at all, I will say it now just to be iconoclastic:
Rosa Parks was a rude old bitch.
This has nothing to do with her past and her significance in the Civil Rights movement: I don’t belittle that in the slightest and I’ve always and still get irked when others do. (Something you hear a lot down here: “You know that whole bus boycott was a set-up”- yeah, true, MLK and Parks and Abernathy and E.D. Nixon and the crew got together and actually set up the Jim Crow segregation laws [somehow doing this before many of them were born] then put a gun to the driver’s head to force him to enforce them when he really wanted to put Rosa and other black passengers in comfy chairs up front and have his wife rub their feet- gimme a break, the bus boycott may have been planned and above all effective, but it was not a “set-up” and Rosa Parks really did have to leave town due to the death threats over it.)
However, that said, I worked in various upscale hotels in Montgomery for a number of years and many celebrities came through during that time for various charity golf tournaments and concerts and movies filmed nearby and speaking engagements. Most really weren’t that memorable, a few were memorably polite or nice or neat (Sissy Spacek [most down to Earth Oscar winner you can imagine], Walter Matthau, James Earl Jones, Baroness Jane Goodall [funny story there about her roses…], Dwight Murdock [A Team’s Murdock, not a big star but very funny and very nice], Danny Devito [SUPER nice and an unbelievable tipper], Tony Randall [like Matthau not at all what you’d expect in person], Maya Angelou [funny story about her and dinner plates but I’ll save it], Jesse Jackson [super nice and charismatic in person], etc.) and some were memorably rude or obnoxious (Gallagher, Mary Steenburgen, Mrs. Jack Lemmon [he was okay but she was a horror and I think “Mrs. Jack Lemmon” was the name on her driver’s license if not her birth certificate], Edward Furlong and his horrible then Svengalia girlfriend, Evel Knieval, Reba McEntire) and some were just memorable (Whoopi Goldberg [funny as hell but either coked up or else just naturally wired at the time], Roy “Hee Haw” Clark [you wouldn’t think to look at him but that old man entered partying, partied while he was here, and left partying], Leslie Nielsen [very weird man], Roddy McDowell [distant but fascinating guy] etc.).
With all celebrities I treated them as I would any other guests, never did the whole “I"m a huge fan” or “I think you’re wonderful and want to bear your children” thing, just “sir” “ma’am” “How can I help you?” respectful courtesy stuff, even when I’m thinking “I AM SO STANDING NEXT TO DARTH VADER’S VOICE!”
Okay, so Rosa Parks came several times for various speaking engagements and to see friends and family here. She was haughty, arrogant, would not speak to me (I was her bellman once and her desk clerk a couple of times), was rude as hell on the phone (“I need ice in my room. Now!”) and usually spoke to staff through one of her escorts. I at first wondered if it was because I’m white (I try not to be obvious about it, but sometimes it seeps through), but nope, the black bellmen and housekeepers also didn’t like her even though they wanted to; she was so bad that one of her traveling companions, a youngish lady that was introduced as her granddaughter (which isn’t possible biologically as Ms. Parks had no children, though her husband did by a previous marriage so perhaps it was step or perhaps it was adoption) actually went behind her apologizing on one trip and giving tips to the bellmen.
Anyway, as I said, this wasn’t once but at least three times. She was in fact somewhat legendary locally for not being a sweet old lady. The last time I saw her she was very old and in ill health and so that probably added, but the first couple of times she was mobile and coherent et al. It’s one of those “I wish I could say she was sweet and it was a wonderful experience meeting her”, but nope.