:eek: May I touch the hem of your garment?
Know on first-name basis–mostly historians:
Niall Ferguson, one of the “100 most influential people in the world” and someone who’s been involved in just about everything from counterfactual history to advising world governments on the economy. He was my college advisor.
Felicity Heal, Christopher Haigh, Diarmaid McCulloch: Some of my professors at Oxford.
Alec Ryrie: An up-and-coming historian who was a friend of mine Over There.
Met and talked to:
James Ellroy: Actually told me he wanted to be a historian. I told him I’d trade places with him.
Penn and Teller: Penn isn’t as tall as I thought he’d be. Super cool guys, as you could imagine.
Calvin Murphy: Through work here. Even shorter than you’d think (he’s the shortest player to make it to the NBA Hall of Fame, I believe).
Daniel Vettori: Accent as thick as a good steak.
Seen in person: I’ll only mention one. Nelson Mandela.
I met Davey Jones and Mickey Dolenz when they did a reunion tour in I think 85’. I was 7 and loved the monkees. Mickey was a dismissive dick and Davey Jones was incredibly nice and gracious.
As a postman for over 15 years I had the pleasure of meeting:
- Teddy Sherringham plus his absolutely gorgeous girlfriends
- Ruud van Nistlerooy
- Gary McAllister
- Paul Dickov
- Dennis Irwin
- Denis Law
- Roy Keane
- Lee Sharpe
All of the above were or still are pro footballers. Sherringham has to be one of the nicest guys I ever met, Nistlerooy was such a miserable twat and Roy Keane scared the shit outta me…mind you he was good for £20 at Xmas.
Sally Whittaker and her husband Tim
Sarah Lancashire
Michael Le Velle
These being actors in a British soap series,Coronation Street
Over the years I’ve met and had lunch with:
Joe Mercer …ex footballer
Sir Stanley Mathews…ex footballer
Brian Blessed…actor
Peter Kay…comedian
I’ve also been in contact with:
Burt Reynolds
Roger Moore
Pat Phoenix
Prince Philip…I was only 14 at the time
There are others but I don’t wanna show off;)
Did you remember to make the “whoosh” noise when you opened the door?
Lessee…I went to high school with Rebecca Romijn. My friends’ wedding rehearsal dinner was at Bruce Jenner’s house, got to meet him and his wife. Both very nice, Bruce was a lot of fun to talk to.
Just last week I was at a talk by Dean Karnazes (probably one of the better-known runners outside of the running community). Nice guy. First thing I noticed was he’s relatively short, maybe 5’ 7" or so? Made sense when I thought about it for a minute.
Bobby McFerrin was my high school graduation speaker.
If you’re a skydiver you’ll recognize the name Guy Manos. He told me and my little group of newbies to be quiet on jump run at Quincy one year, we were chattering while he was trying to coordinate a multi-plane load.
Met:
Jonathan Richman (Modern Lovers)
Adrian Belew (King Crimson, et al.)
Pete Shelley (Buzzcocks)
Interviewed: Dan McCafferty and the rest of Nazareth
Took private guitar lessons from: Scott Henderson (Chick Corea, Tribal Tech)
Spotted in the wild:
William Shatner
King Hussein of Jordan
Well, true, but I would hope he wouldn’t couch her during a coaching.
Met (mostly while working in hotels and mostly when they were filming movies nearby or appearing at a charity golf tournament then held in town):
Whoopi Goldberg (nice but aloof, constantly stoned or something like it)
Sissy Spacek (the sweetest and most down to earth millionaire Oscar winner you can imagine)
James Earl Jones (super nice guy, really does stutter in person)
Dwight Schulz (bka Murdock from A-Team- very nice and hilarious in person)
Gallagher (Watermelon comedian- total A-Hole)
Tony Randall (very charming, was a newlywed at the time)
Nell Carter (what you saw on screen usually was Nell)
Walter Matthau (surprisingly friendly, very funny- I’d have thought he’d be a jerk)
Jack Lemmon (nice but p-whipped to hell and back by Mrs. Jack Lemmon)
Edward Furlong (druggie, smelled bad, totally p-whipped by much older then concubine)
Roddy McDowell (very very very cool- would have given a testicle to spent more time with him)
Mary Steenburgen (prima donna)
Piper Laurie (very sweet but in a lot of back pain so reclusive)
Angela Bassett (nice but weird)
Sonny “Enos” Shroyer- just one of the guys
Jesse Jackson (extremely charismatic)
Al Sharpton (disappointingly nice)
Fred McMurray & wife June (he was nice but senile)
Evil Knievel- prick
Leslie Nielsen- prick
Frank “Herb Tarlek” Bonner (super nice)
George “Goober” Lindsey (drunk)
Roy Clark (major partier)
Jim “Hey Vern” Varney (reaked of cigarettes [and I’m a smoker], would have sworn he was gay)
Andy Griffith (very “leave me alone”, but not in a rude way so much)
Seen in the Wild
Dick Cheney (well, his motorcade)
Jerry Springer (at Mardi Gras- seemed nice, mobbed and signing autographs)
Gary “Radar” Burghoff (a total dick- a woman recognized him and he yelled at her)
The Rock (I saw him in a mall, but a friend who met him with her special needs son said he is one of the nicest people she’s ever met)
Yakov Smirnov (literally bumped into him at Mardi Gras, we both said “xcuse me”, that was it)
Chris Rock (big entourage)
George Clooney (in Virginia during his “Facts of Life” days)
Patty Duke & John Astin (during the Bicentennial)
William Holden (had no idea who he was then but my parents said he was a big deal)
Ronald & Nancy Reagan (1980 campaign speech)
Received emails from:
Allison “Nellie Oleson” Arngrim (very funny woman- it began when I asked someone who knew her (via email) if it was true she would be coming back to TV as a time travelling heroin addicted nun called SISTER TRAX and she wrote me with a more fleshed out version of the series [not all of it reprintable, but it involved Melissa Gilbert as a methodone counsellor]. Cool- we traded emails a few times after that [she even told me which LHotP star I used to have a crush on was gay!
[swore me to secrecy though])
Bob Denver- funny guy- I ordered an autographed shirt for my cousin Colin for his birthday from Denver’s website that got misdelivered and I sent an email to the site. When it turned out that they’d sent it to a hybrid of my address and my cousin’s address I made some type of comment about being Alabamian even the addresses got inbred. I got a funny email back from ‘Bob’ about West Virginians. The guy also told me he had a son named Colin and that he loved the fact I had the shirt signed “Happy Life Day” (and got the reference). I assumed it was just another guy named Bob until I learned Denver lived in WV and had a son named Colin, so it was apparently him. (Very intelligent and witty emails.)
The wife/widow of Leon Askin, bka General Burkhalter from HOGAN’S HEROES. (Fascinating old man- even though he was morbidly obese in the 1960s he lived until just a couple of years ago, finally dying in his late 90s, and his last two decades were his most active personally and professionally.)
I can’t believe I forgot this one:
Met Quincy Jones last spring when he got an honorary doctorate at commencement and I sang America the Beautiful. Shook my hand and said “Nice job, man.” Did not offer me a contract. I also saw (but didn’t really talk to) Chris Matthews and Phyllis Schlafly, who, whatever their politics (Schlafly) or media reputation (Matthews), both seemed very nice.
In '03, when I sang the Alma Mater at commencement (same University, got my Master’s in '03, now faculty), Ozzie Smith got an honorary degree. I didn’t recognize him in the robing/staging area and kept wondering who this guy was that everyone kept calling “Oswald”.
Oh, and I forgot:
Kevin Bacon
I “met” Bill Gates at a press event rolling out Video for Windows. He saw what I was demoing before the event, asked a couple of questions. I was soon treated to his calling his underlings stupid in front of a bunch non-MS people. Not much polish on ol’ Bill.
I’ve sat in a meeting with Steve Jobs. He’s quite the prick.
MET:
Reb Beach & Kip Winger [Winger]
Dan Quinn [ex-Pittsburgh Penguin]
Mario Lemeuix [several times, a friend of mine lived near his place and he shopped at the same grocery store we did]
Richard Simmons
Philip Glass
Joan Bayez
John Taylor & Warren Cucorullo [Duran Duran]
All of Def Leppard [very, very nice guys]
SEEN IN THE WILD:
Chuck Yeager
Brad Paisley [went to college with a cousin of his]
Bush Sr and Jr [campaigning in WV]
Clinton [campaigning]
WOULD LIKE TO MEET:
Sidney Crosby [Pittsburgh Penguins]
Garth Brooks
Brad Paisley
Ricky Warwick [EXCELLENT singer-songwriter]
Geddy Lee
Mercedes Lackey
This reminds me… I saw Drew Carey on a balcony in the French Quarter at Mardi Gras in 1998
My first brush with celebrity: as a young child I met David McCallum (Ilya Kuryakin on The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) who, at the time, I thought was the coolest person in the world.
Later I worked at the world’s most popular museum for 12 years and was fortunate enough to meet quite a few famous people in that time, including:
Astronauts/aviators:
Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins, on the 20th anniversary of the moon landing. (Got their autographs on a book they wrote.)
Alan Shepard (first American in space)
Jim Lovell (Apollo 13 astronaut)
Chuck Yeager (he spoke at NASM every year. He’s a jerk.)
Scott Crossfield (first man to reach Mach 2: very nice guy)
Patty Wagstaff(World Aerobatic Champion)
Hans von Ohain (inventor of the first German jet engine)
Actors/entertainers:
Jack Nicholson
John Denver
Ron Silver
Craig Sheffer
James “Scotty” Doohan
Majel (Mrs. Gene Roddenberry) Barrett, who had with her the canister with Roddenberry’s remains that was later launched into space.
Others:
Walter Cronkite. I gave him an impromtu tour of the Enola Gay exhibit.
Al Gore, before he was nominated for the VP. I gave him a close up tour of the Spirit of St. Louis, which at the time had been taken down for repair work.
Larry King. Gave him a tour of the museum.
Philip Morrison (Manhattan project physicist and author)
Carl Sagan
Kurt Vonnegut
Since leaving the museum about 11 years ago, I’ve had the opportunity to meet a number of other interesting people:
James Cameron
Harrison Ford: I attended a recording session for an IMAX film he narrated. Very nice, unassuming, and shy.
Director Brett Leonard (The Lawnmower Man, Virtuosity)
Producer Frank Marshall (Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, and dozens of other extremely popular films): I interviewed him about an IMAX film he produced.
Writer/Director Steve Oedekerk (Ace Ventura)
Leonard Maltin
Penn and Teller
James Randi (I applied for a job as director of JREF. Didn’t get it.)
I interviewed Paul Shaffer (David Letterman’s bandleader) on the phone for about half an hour.
I’ve also met the directors and producers of virtually every IMAX film ever made, and I’m good friends with many of them.
Met briefly at book signings over the years:
Mario Andretti
Isaac Asimov
Daniel Dennett
Murray Gell-Mann
Milton Glaser
Thor Heyerdahl
Garrison Keillor
Mark Okrand (inventor of Klingon language)
Phil Plait (Bad Astronomer)
Richard Rhodes
In Las Vegas in early 2006, I had drinks for couple of hourse with Skeptic magazine publisher Michael Shermer and Mythbusters’ Adam Savage and Kari Byron*. (I met Jamie Hyneman the next day.)
Just last week I met Dava Sobel, author of Galileo’s Daughter and* Longtitude*. And frankly I was more excited about meeting her than any famous actor I’ve met or can imagine meeting. Those books rock! When she found out how disappointed I was that I hadn’t brought one of her books to sign, she gave me a copy of the latest paperback edition of Longitude and signed it for me! (Complete with the longitude and latitude of her home on Long Island.) Very nice lady.
There are probably a few I’ve forgotten.
*It’s been months since I had a chance to show off that picture!
I went to Wake Forest and helped out during the 2000 Presidential Debate, where I got to meet the following:
Molly Ivins (sadly, I didn’t know who she was at the time)
Tom Ridge (then governor of PA; we chatted about archeology)
Colin Powell (well, at least I touched him!)
plus a few other various political folks whose names I don’t recall at the moment.
At Wake, I also took Maya Angelou’s “Poetry in Performance” class. Quite an experience!
I also ran into Hillary Clinton doing a meet-and-greet on one of the major shopping streets in Dublin, Ireland.
Just recently, at a function here in Bangkok, I had the chance to meet Somtow Sucharitkul (aka S. P. Somtow), a prolific sci-fi/horror writer (self-dubbed the “Terrifying Thai” :D), renowned composer, and artistic director of the Bangkok Opera. Really nice guy-- there’s a chance I might end up playing recorder for some of the early music stuff he’s doing.
I frequently read things like this but there’s never much detail. Would you be able to describe what went on? It seems odd to me that this guy can be such a jerk yet still have people work for him for a long time and produce great products.
Anna Torv and I were friends for a while.
She’s much less pale and blond and American than she appears in Fringe.
I thought I didn’t have anything to add to this, but I just remembered that Billy Boyd has a flat just around the corner from my office and I see him out and about in the park quite often.
And I once met the members of Sepultura in the London Dungeons many years ago. It was scarily appropriate :eek:
I’ve told the story before, but I met Mel Gibson in 1989 when he was filming Air America in Mae Hong Son province, up in northern Thailand. Trouble is, I didn’t know it was him at the time!
I was living in the provincial capital at the time and had just settled into my favorite restaurant, The Good Luck, to look over my mail. Floor-cushion seating, no chairs. A group of movie people came in, five or six guys. The town was full of them at that time, so I paid them no mind. I was engrossed in my mail when one of them asked me what was good. I recommended the moussaka. Lak, the owner, made a killer moussaka.
The next morning, I’m heading out of town, and I stop off to grab some breakfast. Lak is all excited. “Mel Gibson was in here last night!” she said. “Oh, that’s nice,” I said. “Yeah, you talked to him!” “I talked to him??” “Yeah, you told him the moussaka was good.” So that was Mel Gibson, I thought.