I bought Doug Wilson (Trading Spaces) a coffee at O’Hare.
I went to school with Dave Chappelle. I didn’t know him very well, but it was well enough to cheer when I saw him doing stand up bits on Comedy Central years ago.
Sorta broke into Cyndi Lauper’s hotel room in ‘84. (A group of us were staying in a hotel in Universal City, when we got back to our room later the bellman had mistakenly opened the door between our room and hers. We of course had to look in to see if anyone was there. She walked in, "Hey, whadda you kids doin’, huh?)
Paul Newman
Bob Keeshan (Captain Kangaroo)
Paul Westerburg
Roger Miller and Martin Swope (of Mission of Burma)
President Bush #1 (I grew up in Texas, he was running for Congress at the time, campaigning at a Fourth of July celebration. I narrowly missed barfing on his shoes. Too many hot dogs in my 9 year old stomach.)
Ben Kingsley
I waited on Roger Daltry once.
Lady Bird Johnson
John Tower
Dar Williams (in a bathroom, then later she gave me a very nice bear hug)
Oscar Peterson (I went to his house, it was very nice. He has lots of statuary from the Far East and a lovely solarium)
Margaret Atwood (Less standoffish than I thought she would be)
Dave Broadfoot (Not very likeable)
Like other posters, my ex-gf has a better list than me. If I’d stayed with her, I would have had the chance to meet Madonna.
Not me, but still interesting: My buddy and next door neighbor in law school had an internship though the school with the Mexican Consulate in Houston, and went with the local consul in to interview Angel Maturino Resendez, the Railroad Killer, in jail for three or four hours.
Being in an ancillary/support area of showbiz and being in the NYC area, I have a fairly long list of “sightings” and even “bump-ins,” but I’ll limit it to those I’ve actually met socially.
Leslie Caron – She and my mom still trade Xmas cards after mom brought her to NY for a one-woman show about 10 years ago. Very mellow and worldly-wise woman, 100% class, spends most of her time these days running her country inn in Burgundy. Her voice is much deeper than you remember from her gorgeous-little-dancer days.
Edward Herrmann – If there was one celebrity on the planet you’d want to spend an evening drinking with, take my advice: pick Ed Herrmann. About 7 of us hung out with him one night in the Essex House bar after some gala do we’d all been at. Yes, he had a tendency to hold court a bit, but hey, the man’s an actor, and he did it very well. He was entertaining as hell, and actively curious about everyone and everything. I’ll always remember the good time we all had with him.
James (Dano) MacArthur – A PR friend and I were privileged to visit Jim at his mother’s (Helen Hayes’) house, a grand and mostly empty place that he had just put on the market in about 1995. (Rosie O’Donnell bought it.) It was a nice summer afternoon and we splashed around in the pool, got a narrated tour from Jim, and then we sat down to a nice lunch with plenty of cold brew. A real regular fella.
I don’t have too many ugly celeb stories, actually. Guess I’ve been lucky.
Peirce Brosnan, while waiting in the lobby of the Four Seasons Beverly Hills. (smoker, cough cough)
Halle Berry, while waiting in the lobby of the Pantages (and she is absolutely flawless in person – every bit as beautiful IRL as she is on magazine covers).
John Cameron Mitchell, at a special Hedwig Christmas fundraiser, while in a cast and on crutches. I got to be one of the first to gush incoherently before him, because I couldn’t go up and down the stairs that formed the line!
Greg Proops, the comedian largely known from “Whose Line is It Anyway,” at the same event, since he was sitting directly behind me.
Waiting in the same lobby of a Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas (for nearly a half hour) as Angelina Jolie. My best friend had just married, and we were waiting for our limo to take us back to our hotel. Turns out our limo was late because of the party Angelina was with – they had driven directly to the chapel, when they were supposed to wait for the limo to pick them up. For some reason, none of us got up the nerve to talk to her. Then again, perhaps she welcomed that no one bothered her while she was obviously trying to enjoy the moment of the two people she was with getting married. (My friend said that the bride she was there with looked like some actress from “Judging Amy” – I’ve never seen the show, so I don’t remember the name)
I’ve seen Robin Williams a couple of time and waved, he’s waved back each time.
When I was in the Navy, stationed in San Diego in 1975, my non-duty hours were spent at the flying club. One evening, Cliff Robertson was going to be landing there for a TV show the next day, so I hung around - he was flying his biplane and I wanted to see it. Since I worked in the club office, I helped him and his peeps fuel his plane and check the oil. His peeps said the TV show would pay for the gas and oil - they didn’t. I got my picture taken with him - he was really snippy till the camera was aimed at him. Maybe he was tired after a long flight, but I remember him as a jerk.
Well, Lobsang, it looks as if we have both met Magnus Magnuson!
I was in a pub in York after visiting the reconstruction of a Viking village nearby. This pleasant fellow heard me mention the visit and came over and we chatted about the reconstruction…he was very interested in my opinions regarding possible improvements, as I was an educational professional. I believe he may have even stood for a beer.
He had given me his name, but it didn’t mean anything to me until I returned to the USA and started looking up material on Vikings…and discovered that Magnus Magnuson is probably the world’s leading expert on Vikings.
Very cool.
I just met Paul Auster, the novelist, an hour ago.
In a previous post I mentioned Magnus Magnuson, but forgot to mention Chuck Conners, who played the lead role in the TV Western series “The Rifleman”
My two young sons and I were at the ski lodge on the top of Mt San Jacinto or Mt San Grigorio (I forget which)…it was during the summer…and we were getting a hamburger when Chuck Conners came in. We were the only people in the resturant, and as we passed each other, I said “How are you doing, Mr Conners?”
He smiled and said “Fine”
My two sons were in complete awe of me for several minutes…like I actually knew The Rifleman…until I told them I didn’t know him at all.
Well, I’ve had semi-long conversations with Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. I’ve gotten drunk and sung with Spider Robinson. Harlan Ellison has personally insulted and mocked me. 
Musician-wise, I have met/conversed with Dave Brubeck (and his wife, who is charming), Tim Weisberg, Gordon Lightfoot, several Beach Boys, and I once produced a show headlining Buffy Saint-Marie.
Autograph lines don’t count, because the list would take pages.
[spelling corrected]
Mt. San Jacinto, because there ain’t squat atop San Gorgonio.
I went to Thanksgiving dinner at a friend of the family’s and Robert Englund was there. Cool guy.
Photographed the president of Bulgaria and the Prince of Denmark back in college. Some guys in my dorm had the Prince over for parties and apparently the dude could drink a Scottish longshoreman under the table.
Met Umberto Eco once, also to take his picture. I got a call late one night from the news editor (college paper) that “X is doing an interview over in Currier House and the photographer can’t make it. Can you get there right now?” I said sure, grabbed my stuff and headed over with no clue of who would be there. When I got there, it was a student reporter chatting in a dorm room (the school usually had visiting scholars stay in student dorms. Whether this means we had luxury accomodations or the school treated visitors really shabbily, I don’t know) with some guy with a beard just telling stories about college life in Italy. I shot my photos and listened in for a while (he was really interesting to listen to, but nothing clued me in that he wasn’t just a random professor), then left. It wasn’t until the issue ran a few days later that I discovered who he was. :smack: Nice guy, though.
Got Kenzaburo Oe’s autograph after a lecture once.
I was an extra in a TV show starring Kaori Momoi (she’s going to be in the film adaptation of Memoirs of a Geisha) a few years back. Even though the shooting was going until late at night, she was still very energetic and friendly to everyone. She came over between takes and chatted with a few of us about French recipes.
The background image on my computer at home is a photo Cerowyn took of me with O-sama, an rocker/comedian who got big for a while in the 90’s performing 70’s rock songs translated directly, word-for-word into Japanese.
Monday Michiru is a jazz singer who’s not too famous, but my wife was nuts over her. We went to see her at a club one night, and she agreed to pose with my wife for a photo. To be honest, my wife’s gratitude afterwards was far more memorable than anything in Michiru’s show.
I saw him shooting a film on the street in New York. He was between takes and posing for photos with people, cracking gags and generally being a really nice guy.
I’ve attended more than one rally with Svend Robinson, spent a fair amount of campaign time with Alexa McDonough, gladhanded with Jack Layton, and had a leech removed from my foot by Gary Doer. And that’s just the New Democrats :eek:
I’ve also shaken hands with John Ralston Saul, harangued Jacques Parizeau, informed Naomi Klein of something she didn’t know, discussed capitalism with Linda McQuaig, testified in defence of Jaggi Singh, and humiliated myself in front of Tom Jackson.
I got backstage at an Ozzy concert back in 94 or 95. I started playing guitar due to Blizzard of Oz so that was really cool. He was very nice though kinda shaky. The band was really nice as well.
I met Newt Gingrich in the airport in DC. Very nice, warm man.
I met Stephen Hawkings once way before he became famous. Don’t remember very well as I was kinda young at the time.
I met Megadeth/Sanctuary/Satch/King Diamond. My band opened for all of them except for Diamond. I know I am missing someone in this list. They were all really nice.
A NY Times food critic, I don’t remember her name, told me I made the best caeser salad she ever had once. She wrote a note for the owner of the place. The owner freaked out. I had no clue who the lady was until the owner told me. The funny things is I HATE caesar salads and wouldn’t know a good one if it bit me on the butt.
I fixed Peter Jennings software with him on the phone.
Slee
I met Anne McCaffrey (Dragonriders of Pern ) in January, when I visited Ireland. She actually drove to the DART station and picked me and another girl up and drove us to her house, Dragonhold Underhill. She was great to visit with. She introduced us to her cats, dog and horses, and gave us a tour of her place.
I’ll try to remember as many as I can…
Phyliss Diller- she was stuck in a snow-bank and I took her home to use the phone
Doug Henning, Bob Newhart, Darrin McGavin, “John-Boy”- got autographs from them
Terry Gilliam, Grahm Chapman- again, autographs. Terry actually struck up a conversation with me. I was floored!
Ronny Schott (I think thats his name), Wayne Newton- served them food
Eric Sardinas, 3/4 of Veruca Salt, the guys in Bush.
Thats all I can remember right now (that anyone would have heard of). Phyliss Diller was the best! Rolls Royce stuck in a snowbank, her getting out in full length mink coat, skindiver hat and Converse HiTops!