Famous people you've met.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

What famous people have you met? My list is embarrassingly short.

I met Harvey Fierstein on the street in NYC two years ago. We exchanged pleasantries. Little did he know it was the highlight of my trip.

I met Jai Rodriguez (from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy) at a Home and Garden show a few months ago. We chatted briefly. Nice guy.

I met Tom Wopat at a concert he was part of. I shook his hand and we chatted about the Dukes of Hazzard for a few minutes.

All of my (all three) celebrity meetings have been pleasant. I’m wondering if anyone has any not so pleasant celebrity meeting stories to share?

Eric

2

All of mine have been pleasent. The list, as I can remember them:
Governor of Oregon Ted K. - Very nice guy. Vote him in again if you can Oregonians. Talked to him for quite awhile.

Collin Edwards - Really Nice. Good stories. His folks are nice too, as is his wife.

Doug Polen - Nice guy.

The Cardigans - waited on them when they were in Houston awhile ago. Nice enough bunch. Liked beer, and spoke heavily accented English.

Robert Rodriguez - Very nice.

That’s all I can think of at the moment.

3

I met the 98degrees guys (they sang to me and my friends), and a couple of the Backstreet Boys.

Hey, at the time, I thought that was the coolest thing EVER and I wrote pages and pages about it in my diary. So there. :stuck_out_tongue:

4

Bill Clinton

All of R.E.M.

The Psychedelic Furs

Those are the ones I’ve actually had conversations with. There are countless others that I just met.

5

Lesseee…

I’ve met Bill Bradley and Tom Kean at NJ political events.
I shook hands with Christopher Reeve, back when he was alive & walking and in a Broadway play. Got his autograph on my Playbill.
Met Peter, Paul and Mary in a diner.
We bought Joan Baez and 3 of her friends a drink at a restaurant in NY. She later called us to offer us admission to her concert, and we saved the answering machine tape.
I’ve danced with Richard Lederer and own several autographed copies of his books.
I own books autographed by Isaac Asimov and Buzz Aldrin.

6

I’ve not ‘met’ any, but I’ve seen them at close quarters.

Johnny Vegas (twice)

Jasan Stratham (Turkish from Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels)

Magnus Magnuson.

I’ve spoken on the phone with VIPs in the American Horseracing industry.

I’ used to live on the same street (IRL) as a Coronation Street actress.

7

I’ve had numerous discussions over Persian lunches with Steve Engle of Engle vs Vitalae.

Brilliant guy, and associated with global politics and American security in enough ways that he can’t talk about it.

8

I’ve met the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard. It was one morning a few years ago when he was out doing his early morning walk around Lavender Bay, just near where I live.

9

I’ve met the guy in the Kit-Kat commercial and I came thisclose to meeting Alfred Molina.

That’s about it.

10

I ran into Val Kilmer once. He was as scuzzy and abusive as you’d think he’d be. (Not to me…he was yelling at a production assistant.) Later I figured out that he was filming “Wonderland” (playing John Holmes in the movie about the Wonderland murders), so maybe it was just some of that Method Actor stuff, but…

And Drew Barrymore? Loud, crude, and obnoxious as hell. I saw her at a showing of “Donnie Darko” at the Arclight. I’m told she doesn’t drink and drug anymore, but she sure acted pretty wacked out.

Charlie Kaufman (the screenwriter who just won a AA) is a quietly self-depricating guy. I’ve seen him at a couple of Q&As at the afformentioned Arclight Cinema, and I see him occasionally at the grocery store. He doesn’t look much like his character in “Adaptation” (he’s short, slight, and has a full head of hair) but I can imagine him thinking those monologues.

I don’t know about famous, but there are several has-beens I’ve run into in Pasadena, including Wil Wheaton (the kid who played Wesley Crusher) who has a smashing girlfriend/wife, and that dude from “The Pretender”, who hasn’t worked on anything since. Actually I keep seeing him (4-5 times) at a gas station near my house, so I think he might be stalking me. :smiley:

And then there was the night when I was running through one of the ritzier parts of Pasadena; I ran past a walled mansion when the driveway gate opened and this guy wheeled out his trashcan. I thought to myself, “He, that guy looks like David Lee Roth, only his hair is shorte…”

Yep. I saw Dave, taking out his garbage. I’m not a Van Halel or Roth fan, but it’s nice to know that the rock stars are mere mortals just like the rest of us.

My Hollywood experience just won’t be complete, though, until I see Jack Nickelson beating the crap out of someone with a golf club on the side of the road.

Stranger

11

I just wanted to mention that my ex-girlfriend had books/posters signed by Douglas Adams, Clyde Tombaugh, Issac Asimov, and Richard Feynman.

I think her list was far more impressive than mine.

Stranger

12

I got to shake hands with Harry Truman when I received a Girl Scout award at the Truman Library in the 1950’s.

I corresponded with Isaac Asimov for several years.

Among the members of my graduating class in college were the character actors Gailard Sartain and Mary Kay Place.

My great-aunt wrote the book and play A Child Is Born, later made into a movie of the same name.

My first cousin (once removed) was the Art Director on Return of the Living Dead Part II.

I once performed a brief scene from Richard III for Dame Judith Anderson, with whom I shared a birthday (February 10).

13

Oops, left out a biggie.

Keir Dullea hugged me in 2001 (the year, not the movie).

14

I shook hands with Ornette Coleman in NYC 4 years ago and said words to the effect of “I’m not worthy…”. It was at a concert where some of his works were being performed.

15

I’ve conversed with/ spent time or whole days 5 feet away from…hmm…

Bill Clinton ( thrice )

Notorious B.I.G.

Mary J. Blige

Tina Turner

Phil Collins

Daniel Patrick Moynahan ( and his elegant wife )

Dan Rather

Peter Jennings

Diane Sawyer

Robin Roberts ( A saint. A gem. A real lady. )

Billy Joel

Charlie Pride

Jon Anderson ( and his charming wife Janie )

Christie Brinkley. I was her bodyguard for 5 hours once. On Billy Joel’s “Tell Her About
It” video shoot. Sweah to gawd. Man, was I young then. Man, was she stunning… :smiley:

Denzel Washington

Barara Walters

The B-52’s

Barry Manilow

Carly Simon

Tim Roth

The leading ladies of Sex & The City

David MacCallum

Anne Meara ( she’s like Gramma. Wants to share her dessert with you, and kisses your
cheeks a lot. )

Jerrry Stiller

Ben Stiller

Queen Latifah. This woman is beyond. Smart, warm, sexysexysexysexyooohgodsexy.
Funny, too.

Ricki Lake

Rosie O’Donnel

Randolph Mantooth

Matthew Broderick ( with Sarah Jessica Parker, same show. )

Yo-Yo Ma ( friend of my wife’s )

George Stephanapoulous

Evander Holyfield

Shiela E.

B.B. King

John Saunders

Chris Berman

Tony Randall ( who was so utterly foulmouthed that he ruined The Odd Couple for me
forever )

Limp Bizkit
That’s all I can remember off the top of my head. :slight_smile:

Cartooniverse

Did I forget to mention just how sexy Queen Latifah was? I did? Oh gosh, I’m sorry. That woman is sexy. :wink:

16

Remembered another -
I run into Fmr Secretary of State James A Baker about once a month. Nice enough guy. Even talk with him for a few minutes every now and then.

17

Maybe not big names, but …

When walking down a quiet street as a kid in Wisconsin, then-Senator William Proxmire was walking alone, introduced himself to me and shook my hand.

My mom and sister met actor John Rielly, best known as Sean Donnelly on “General Hospital” back in the '80s – very nice guy.

My dad met actor Hector Elizondo back in the '80s. Again, a very, very nice guy.

18

Rob Lowe

Interestingly enough, I met him on the beach at the Atlantis Hotel in Paradise Island. He was acting in a scene for a movie, but I guess it never hit theaters. I saw him while he was sitting in a beach chair, between scenes I guess, and my mom and I asked this guy sitting next to Rob if we could have his autograph. The man said no, and apparently Rob overheard him, because he said it was fine. :slight_smile: How nice! We went over and got to take individual pictures with him. Pleasant man, he even touched my hair (that was almost down to my but at the time) and commented on how pretty it was.

19

Right before I started law school, my dad was on the IOLTA board for the State Bar, and they held a small luncheon and invited all the Texas Supreme Court Justices. Only one could make it, newly appointed Justice Alberto Gonzales, not the U.S. Attorney General. He ate with my dad and I and chatted me up about what I could expect in law school and after graduation. I met a couple of times after that, too. He has the most immaculately pressed suits I’ve ever seen. Super nice guy.

On the other end of the spectrum, I’ve met all of the Butthole Surfers, and I’m fairly friendly with their ex-bass player. Not that he’s the first guy I’d call to bail me out of jail or anything, mind you. Who else…Mike Watt, Al Jorgenson, that guy from the Meat Puppets…oh, and at a street festival I was volunteering backstage at, one of the guys from Built to Spill was an unbelievable dick to me, saying “can’t you see I’m eating?” when I tried to talk to him. I was trying to tell him that I was the guy who had been watching their food for them and fending off various backstage drunks while waiting for the band to arrive for the last two hours, and if it was all right with him I was going to go. Ass.

20

Argh! That should be newly appointed Justice Alberto Gonzales, who is now the U.S. Attorney General. Not not. Now. Same guy.