While in school I was a cocktail waitress at four different casinos in Vegas. I met a lot of them while working, some of them multiple times.
One of my best friends is a concierge at one of the casinos (one where I worked) and works with celebrities constantly. Through him I’ve gotten to meet more and go to a few parties.
Spotting someone (Oh look, it’s ________) isn’t rare in Vegas so I don’t count those. The ones below I’ve at least said “Cocktail?” to…
Nicholas Cage, Gwen Stefani, Sean Penn & Robin Wright Penn, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, George Clooney, Matt LeBlanc, Justin Timberlake, Cameron Diaz, Dennis Rodman (just TRY to avoid him in Vegas, just try!), Jerry Lewis, Ozzy & Sharon Osbourne, Tori Amos, Green Day (all 3), Henry Rollins, CarrotTop (God help me), Jamie Foxx, Celine Dion, Elton John, and Kevin Smith.
Geez, you’ve got a regular celebrity rolodex. I’ve been in LA for the last 6 years and all I’ve seen is Justin Berfield (Reese on Malcom in the Middle) at a restaurant in Malibu and Jay-Z driving around Culver City. I ended up 3ft behind Bob Saget and his mother while walking around Santa Monica this weekend which was pretty cool. Oh, and I met Don King on an elevator in Ecuador when I was 14. Guess Vegas really is the place to be.
Lots of Irish “celebs” and musicians you’ve probably never heard of but also:
Glen Hansard (of Once fame)
Peter Jurasik (Londo Mollari from Babylon 5)
Michael O’Hare (Sinclair from Babylon 5)
Josh Ritter (several times, very nice chap)
David Kelly (actor in Waking Ned and loads of other films)
Rupert Murdoch (not 100% on this but fairly sure he was in my store)
Brendan Gleeson
Stephen Rae
Out and about:
Mitchell and Webb (British comedians, stars of Peep Show)
Woody Harrelson (being hassled in Dublin, he looked like a homeless man)
Bill Cosby
Heaps, because of job I once had and living in Vegas, but the ones that I was interested in meeting were:
Alex Lifeson, from Rush - what a lovely guy, and very patient with me while I struggled not to ask him something stupid, which ended up with me saying very little at all. It was a work thing and I was used to dealing with talent, but not talent I’d been a fan of since about the age of 12…
All of Def Leppard’s late 90s line up (and I have a funny picture of my kid on Rick Allen’s lap banging on his drums, the boy was 2ish?)
Bruce Dickenson sang “Sweet Caroline” to me on the phone (it was hysterical.)
Rob Schneider told me I had a great laugh.
I miss that job.
Cheers,
G
(Um…I should mention Neil Peart, who I wasn’t expecting to meet, who stuck his head in the door and I squeaked, “Wow, you’re Neil Peart!” :smack: He fixed me to my chair with a look and said, “Yes I am.” and left…sigh I’m stupid. And Alex nearly hurt himself laughing while I tried to crawl into the floor. Alex told me not to worry, he’s always like that, but I wanted to die.)
Its a religion degree so that makes it either
A. cheating no matter where you get it, or
B. cheating at LU because its protestant/evangelical/conservative etc. or
C. perfectly fine degree because you are a protestant/evangelical/conservative.
On the other hand, I have heard Liberty Universities nursing program is actually very good and that they easily find jobs as nurses.
When I said “brief encounter” I really meant brief. I worked in a chain music store and he was a somewhat regular customer in Lakewood, California. I helped him find a few things and I seem to recall looking up some concert ticket information for him.
I treated him just like any other regular guy and he acted pretty much just like any other regular guy.
Kal Penn (of House, Harold and Kumar) twice. He’s an Obama surrogate. Incredibly well spoken and informed, he started doing the surrogacy thing during the writer’s strike and has kept it going ever since.
I’m fairly sure I’ve posted all of these before, but what the hey…
When she was governor of NJ, I waited on Christine Todd Whitman at a 7-11. She bought milk and bread, IIRC, and one of her bodyguards bought sunglasses.
I met Bob Feller and Brooks Robinson as parts of different Starr Tours bus rides to Cooperstown. Richie Ashburn too, I think.
Also at 7-11, I waited on Meg Ryan (filming the movie I.Q. in Princeton), Scott Weiland, and members of Slaughter.
I rented a porno movie to Bill Griffith, creator of Zippy the Pinhead.
I went to Georgia Tech with (didn’t meet, but had classes with) David Duval, Nomar Garciaparra, Jay Payton, and the kid who won the Jeopardy College Tourney that year.
Joe
ETA : I worked with Eric Del Carlo who co-wrote a couple of later Robert Asprin books. Good writer, unknown.
Living in SoCal all my life, there are plenty of spotted (Drew Barrymore) and handshakes (Armin van Buuren, Moby) that I mostly forget (I’m not a big celebrity hound). But I did get to hang out with Mike Nelson one night. His wife (also a former MST3K writer) works with my sister. Good people.
I’m surprised by some of you who’ve met so many recognizable names; I don’t even have any “seen from a distance” encounters to share. As far as I can tell, the only surface-scratchingly famous people I’ve met are academics (for me, fame is measured by having a sizable Wikipedia article).
ETA: Ooh, like wheresgeorge04, I’ve also met a kid who won the Jeopardy College Championship. I got dragged a couple times to a trivia club thing he played in. He trounced me and everyone else, naturally.
Most of these would only be known to Australians, and even then only to music fans…
Paul Kelly
Sarah Blasko
Kev Carmody
Paul Mac
Alex Lloyd
Kasey Chambers
Tex Perkins
Daniel Johns
Simon Day
Brendan Cowell
Kate Nash
Johnette Napolitano
I’ve got the numbers for 4 of them in my phone. Another 2 would know me well enough to say hello and have a friendly chat, the others I have only met once or twice. And on one of the happiest nights of my life, Johnette Napolitano and I bought each other beers, and she asked me to mind her purse while she went to the bathroom!
And I once got into an argument in a pub with Carlotta, a famous Australian drag queen, and star of the TV show “Beauty and the Beast”, as she got a friend of mine up on stage during her act and then made all these racist jokes about him. “But darling, it’s 2005, racism does’t exist any more!” It still makes me furious.
That list is excluding the people I “met” at Star Trek conventions. Even though Nana Visitor and I chatted for like 3 whole minutes, it doesn’t really count. Unfortunately.
Tom Clancy
Douglas Adams
Orson Scott Card Dave Arneson (co-creator of D&D) Anne McCaffrey
Steven Spielberg Timothy Oliphant (of Deadwood fame) Susan Egan (voice actress, broadway star)
Living in L.A. I’ve SEEN lots of celebrities. Probably the most impressive sighting was when my wife and I had dinner at a restaurant in Brentwood and Robert Redford was at the next table.
I toured the set of Star Wars: Episode III and spoke to George Lucas, Hayden Christensen, Anthony Daniels (Threepio) and Ahmed Best (Jar Jar), as well as crew members whose names only Star Wars fans would recognise. Everyone was lovely, and Lucas in particular is a really genuine, down-to-earth guy. Daniels is just a very smart, fun guy all 'round, and Best is a very interesting fellow, especially when you consider how reviled his character is. Christensen seemed to be having the time of his life.
I met and spoke with Marcia Hines at the Police reunion concert in Sydney and got a photo with her.
I went backstage and met-up with the guys from the band Toto earlier this year. Steve Lukather shared some of his beer with me and said we were “brothers”. I also ran into Tim Farriss (INXS) while I was there and said a quick hello.
I spoke to Bob Mothersbaugh (Bob 1) of DEVO after seeing them live last month. I said a quick hello to Mark Mothersbaugh at the same time.
Finally, I had a good chat to Rick Grossman (Hoodoo Gurus, Ghostwriters, ex-Divinyls and Matt Finish) after seeing the Hoodoo Gurus a couple of weeks ago. After I asked him “Which bands haven’t you been in?!” he said that was the best question he’d ever been asked.
Oh, I guess I met Ira Kaplan and the other Yo La Tengo members after a concert of theirs once. Some friends and I went up to them and started chatting just because they were there to chat with; then we slowly realized we had nothing to actually talk about. I can’t remember a word of our conversation, it was so unmemorably mundane.
Both at my local gym. One time I was on an exercise machine next to Les Ferdinand, then the following week, I came into the changing room and Amir Khan was getting changed.
Andy Farrell also lives in my village.
Also, my cousin is a former captain of the British Lions Rugby League team, Wigan RLFC (when they were at their peak), played for Sydney City Roosters, and now does “pitchside analysis” for Sky Sports in the UK.
