Second hand famous people know me, not the other way around.
I have a bunch, but some of the coolest are through my uncle, who for many years was a bandleader in the L.A. area - Latin music, Salsa, marimba, etc… Among the names he’s played with and counted as friends were people like Xavier Cugat, Desi Arnaz, Tito Puente…
I have one of his band’s promotional flyers, it says his band played at Rod Stewart and Alana Hamilton’s wedding too. Also some recordings from his band playing at the Hollywood Bowl.
Cool! In a situation like that, I imagine I would prepare ahead by reading about their area of work and reviewing my chemistry in general. Did you prepare?
A friend of mine was Neil Young’s girlfriend in the Woodstock era.
Another friend was local security liaison for Elvis twice.
Al Gore spoke at my ex’s high school graduation. He was a Congressman at the time.
I took guitar lessons from Carl Filipiak. He has opened for and met some big names, including Eric Johnson and Roberta Flack, has played with Dennis Chambers and Victor Wooten, and has met lots of famous people at clinics and trade shows, including James Burton.
I worked in the same field they did, it was during an ACS annual meeting. Checking their work was a basic part of preparing the bibliographies for our own papers. This was back in '96 if I’m not mistaken; my graduate advisor had done his postdoc with one of them.
Best man at my wedding was Leontyne Price’s goddaughter.
Buddy of mine was working as a caterer and catered flights for Martha Stewart. Apparently she’s a little picky, but she knows her stuff.
A play written by my father was produced by the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, starring Michael Learned (Waltons), Peter Donat (Cyrano de Bergerac), and David Dukes (many, many TV shows).
My wife has met Al Franken numerous times as a result of her political activism & campaign efforts.
My sensei has met Jesse Ventura (he visited the dojo when he was Governor).
Composer Benjamin Britten had a crush on my father. He dedicated a song to him. Here’s some video and the song.
My father also dated Anne Meara (before she met Jerry Stiller). She was in town doing summer stock; others in the company included Walter Matthau, Jack Warden, and Dan Frazier. My grandfather was involved, so he probably met them all.
I know many science fiction writers and fans, so most authors active in the past 60 years or so would fit the criteria (if I haven’t met them myself).
I have a friend who “gets around” a lot with many many musicians. I always see pics on her Facebook page of her with these folks, now and in the past (I mean old pics). She did the hair metal thing for a short while but then came down through The Wallflowers and landed in whatever was going on in the late 90s in Chapel Hill, NC and related. I actually got to meet a lot of musicians through her, and got to be good at maneuvering my own way backstage.
My brother manages a marginally famous band who were more famous in the 70s, and this occasionally gets him friendly with some famous names. There’s a lot of musicians I know second-hand through this whole network (don’t be jealous, Twickster, but I “know” Derek Trucks). My brother also now does booking for a music venue in Cleveland so he knows more musicians through that.
My business partner is also related to this network of bands and people I know through the band my brother manages. Before we were in business together he was in a band full-time so he knows people from that, and still gigs so occasionally runs into famous folks that way.
He just randomly found out that his neighbor/daughter’s friend’s dad is this musician that I happened to see last summer when my now-ex-friend dragged me to his show. It’s hilarious because this girl who I went with is absolutely obsessed with the musician (I thought he was talented but not my cup of tea) but since I am not friends with her anymore, I’m totally not going to tell her that I “know” him now. bwahaha
My brother’s ex-wife was the cousin of Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top. The closest I got was attending her wedding shower at Gibbons’ mother’s house (she had all their platinum and gold records hanging in the hallway, which was cool to see). My brother got to go backstage at several concerts, plus attend the post-concert parties.
Going way back, when I was a child one of our neighbors was Allen Ludden’s (*Password *host) brother. Several times we saw Allen Ludden and his wife Betty White arrive for visits.
While they did not technically meet Howard Hughes, my father worked on the Texas portion of his estate taxes and years later lived across the street from Howard Hughes Gano, a cousin and one of the 22 direct descendants. My mother was best friends with Gano’s wife, so I got to hear first-hand some of the stories of the whole fiasco surrounding Hughes’ lack of a will.
My mother-in-law is a fairly successful author, but unless you read her genre (romantic suspense) you’re unlikely to have heard of her. Best-selling romance author Karen Hawkins went to my high school; I think I had one class with her. My wife’s cousin is a producer for “Once Upon a Time.”
My brother works at the Motion Picture Academy and interacts with various people in the business such as Werner Herzog and Murray Lerner. He recently had dinner with Edward James Olmos.
I have a friend who works for a country-music radio station so she’s met a ton of CM stars.
Another friend ducked into a “quiet room” at a science fiction convention to catch his breath and met Isaac Asimov, who he claims happily chatted with him for several hours.
This same friend also got to meet Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward when they were filming Mr. and Mrs. Bridge in Kansas City because he and his brother had their old 1950s/60s Boy Scout uniforms that ended up being used for costuming in the movie.
