# Famous friends
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-friends/672248
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [October 25, 2013, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-friends/672248 "2013-10-25T21:54:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Longshanks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Longshanks)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2013, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-friends/672248/1 "2013-10-25T21:54:50Z")
Do any of you lot have friends that you went to school with, who went on to become famous in some field; sports, movies, art, science etc.
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### Author:  [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2013, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-friends/672248/2 "2013-10-25T21:58:00Z")
Nope.
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### Author:  [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2013, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-friends/672248/3 "2013-10-25T22:00:38Z")
Yes
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2013, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-friends/672248/4 "2013-10-25T22:26:02Z")
The only one who comes close is Phil Alden Robinson, who directed **Field of Dreams.** We worked at the radio station together, but we weren’t exactly close.
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### Author:  [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2013, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-friends/672248/5 "2013-10-25T22:49:18Z")
Maybe.
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### Author:  [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2013, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-friends/672248/6 "2013-10-25T22:52:06Z")
**Moderator Action**
This is more of a poll than a factual question.
Moving thread from General Questions to In My Humble Opinion.
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### Author:  [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2013, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-friends/672248/7 "2013-10-26T00:00:57Z")
Nobody noteworthy. One person was famous before she went to my high school, she had a bit role in Karate Kid 2. The next most famous person was a victim of the Xerox shooter.
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### Author:  [@FrillyNettles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FrillyNettles)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2013, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-friends/672248/8 "2013-10-26T00:28:52Z")
Kind of. I mean, I graduated with these guys, but I wouldn’t call us friends. Of course, the first one is “related” to me only because his dog bred my dog and they had puppies. 😛
Person One is a late 1990s Indy car season champion and Person Two played pro B-ball for the Kings until he suicided.
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### Author:  [@Marion\_Wormer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marion_Wormer)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2013, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-friends/672248/9 "2013-10-26T00:43:09Z")
I went to high school with an Olympic gold and bronze medal winner. Also with a kid who was later secretary of the Army.
Did they know me? Only as the geeky kid in the school library who checked books out to them.
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### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2013, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-friends/672248/10 "2013-10-26T00:54:42Z")
If I really thought about I could probably think of a few people that I sort of maybe know or that I’ve met along the way or that my parents or relatives have met or know (ie my aunt used to babysit for Heather Graham, my parents went to school with the Zuckers but didn’t know them) but I don’t think any of that counts.
Off the top of my head the most famous person I know is a friend of mine that took home first place on Sweet Genius. If you watch the show, she was the one covered in tattoos on last year’s Halloween episode.
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### Author:  [@moejoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moejoe)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2013, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-friends/672248/11 "2013-10-26T01:06:50Z")
People who are famous now went to my high school, but I wasn’t actually friends with any of them back then.
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### Author:  [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2013, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-friends/672248/12 "2013-10-26T01:09:36Z")
A friend I grew up with is a Grammy winning composer, arranger and conductor who has contributed to music for movies like\* The Incredibles.\*. His jazz orchestra plays at the Monterey Jazz Festival, among others.
[Gordon Goodwin](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0329464/filmoyear?ref_=nm_ql_5)
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### Author:  [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2013, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-friends/672248/13 "2013-10-26T01:53:08Z")
Probably the closest to being famous is author Michelle Richmond. We worked together on the yearbook staff in college.
> **[Michelle Richmond](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Richmond)**
>
> Michelle Richmond is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. She wrote The Year of Fog, which was a New York Times bestseller,The Marriage Pact, which was a Sunday Times bestseller, and six other books of fiction.
> Richmond grew up in Mobile, Alabama, the second of three sisters. She obtained her BA from the University of Alabama and Master of Fine Arts from the University of Miami, where she was a James Michener Fellow. She has taught at the University of San Francisco, the Calif...
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### Author:  [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2013, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-friends/672248/14 "2013-10-26T01:53:54Z")
I used to walk home from school with now-federal judge [Kim McClaine Wardlaw](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_McLane_Wardlaw).
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### Author:  [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2013, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-friends/672248/15 "2013-10-26T02:02:51Z")
Mostly via sports - a few NHL players and a bunch of folks in the Olympics.
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### Author:  [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2013, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-friends/672248/16 "2013-10-26T02:17:31Z")
Two members of my immediate family I never speak about on this board because y’all are freaking smart!
Way too many writers and IT people. They are each at the top of their field, both have wiki pages describing their career arcs and I am never surprised should I stumble across and article about either.
On the one hand I long to gush about a couple of fabulous achievers to an audience who could truly appreciate it. On the other, well, I just cannot.
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### Author:  [@GESancMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GESancMan)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2013, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-friends/672248/17 "2013-10-26T02:40:19Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#):
>
> If I really thought about I could probably think of a few people that I sort of maybe know or that I’ve met along the way or that my parents or relatives have met or know (ie my aunt used to babysit for Heather Graham, my parents went to school with the Zuckers but didn’t know them) but I don’t think any of that counts.
I’ve got a stretch like that. My cousin grew up across the street from Michael Anthony. She was friends with him, and the Van Halen brothers as well. I’m not sure about David Lee Roth.
I really wish I had some childhood memory of my aunt complaining about “that loud garage band across the street” or something…
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2013, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-friends/672248/18 "2013-10-26T03:23:17Z")
A classmate of mine became a renowned neurologist and public speaker. And nobody would be surprised. Everything he did, he did superlatively.
Not actually friends though.
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### Author:  [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2013, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-friends/672248/19 "2013-10-26T03:39:06Z")
I hung out in college with Rex Reed.
I played high school baseball against Johnny Demerit, who hit a home run in the World Series.
When I was 20, I worked and hung out with Kentucky Congressman Hal Rogers, who has had the Daniel Boone Parkway re-named for him.
Just yesterday, I had lunch and went shopping with Paul Julian, the discoverer of the Madden-Julain Oscillation, an unexplained meteorological phenomenon in the Indian Ocean.
My father in law has a Wikipedia page, author Russell Trainer.
Silver medal olympian Tanith Belbin is my niece.
Long-time Congressional Chaplain Lloyd Ogilvie once dated my sister.
I worked with Rush Limbaugh, I relieved him when I came in for my shift.
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### Author:  [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2013, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-friends/672248/20 "2013-10-26T19:41:37Z")
The kid sitting next to me in my first grade picture went on to become a sporting goods tycoon. Used his money to force his way into positions of prominence he really didn’t have the background or skill set for.
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