:smack: I knew I forgot somebody. Saw him while we were both brunching at a hotel in Atlanta.
Great story **elelle **- thanks!
I’ve gotten onto planes with folks - Ludovic, I’ve had Hulk Hogan on the same plane and he was the same as your guy - obviously, well, Hulk Hogan, and open to all adoring fans. Oy. Also got on a plane with Neve Campbell - the actress, she was very nice and chit-chatty in line. Gosh - I hadn’t thought about planes. Sharon Stone was boarding first class past us and wouldn’t take her eyes off our baby, just really locked in (and I think she adopted within a year or so - no, I am not claiming due to our kid! ;)). Oh, Scott Hamilton the skater borrowed a couple of quarters (well, I gave them to him) so he could buy a paper from a machine - we were in some podunk airport and he had nothing to read for the puddle-jumper flight. Again very nice guy. Oh - waitaminnit! There’s some Russian couples skater - I think she married Elvis the Canadian skater or a hockey star or something - she sat next to me on a flight. Jeez, how could I forget that - she was wearing Daisy Dukes and had gorgeous legs! She liked the fact that I knew only enough about skating to be dangerous. We talked most of the flight…and now I can’t remember her freakin’ Russian, War and Peace, too-complicated-for-an-American-to-remember name :smack:
I once met Frank Vascellero, newcaster in Minneapolis on Channel 4 WCCO. Talk about being star struck…wowwy wow!
Hell, yeah, I forgot! I was actually on stage with P&T during their hilarious “Mofo the Psychic Gorilla” audience-participation skit. This was off-Broadway in NYC in 1992. Great guys and lots of fun.
Almost forgot.
Bobby Flay - We went out to eat at his restaurant Bar Americain a few weeks ago and he was there. Not really cooking so much as wandering around in his chef outfit talking to groupies.
Supposedly one of the cast members from Flight of the Conchords was in a bar with my friends and I about a year ago. I never saw the show so I wouldn’t know.
**David Bowie & Iman **(college graduation (mine, not his :D)…he nodded and returned my “hello”)
**Martina Navratilova **(walking her dog)
**Dick Van Dyke **(literally ran into him on the sidewalk :o)
**Jack Nicholson **(leaving the opera with his granddaughter)
**Henryk Górecki **(composer, honoree at a ceremony where I sang)
**Mstislav Rostropovich **(cellist, ditto)
**Marilyn Horne **(I sang in her masterclass)
Joe DiMaggio – I was about 11, eating dinner at Gallagher’s steakhouse, and our waiter (an elderly gentleman) excitedly pointed him out and basically forced me to go get his autograph when DiMaggio’s dinner companion stepped out for a moment (no doubt the staff was forbidden to bother him, so he was probably living vicariously through me). He was extremely polite, asked me if I played baseball, what position, etc.
Francis Ford Coppola – Right around the same time as the above. He was in the audience with us at a Blue Man Group show. My mom, a big fan, cajoled me into getting an autograph (again, living vicariously through me).
Bruce Willis – He tended bar at the pub my dad owned shortly before he got famous. Apparently I “played” the piano with him a couple of times, though I have virtually no recollection of him personally (I would’ve been about 4).
There are tons of others, living in New York as I do, but those are the only three that are more interesting than, “Hey look, there’s Malcolm McDowell!”
Not counting performers I’ve seen live:
My dad’s secretary used to date Willie Nelson, and when I was about 14 or 15 he came to town and I got to go on his tour bus and meet him. Even then I was significantly taller than him.
Right before I went to law school, I went to a State Bar luncheon with my dad and sat next to and talked with future U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, back when he was just a Texas Supreme Court Justice. He was really, really nice and friendly. Great suit, too. I saw him again later when he came and spoke at our school.
I hung out with Mike Watt of the Minutemen and fIREHOSE at a friend’s party after a street festival.
I’ve trained and talked with UFC fighters Chuck Liddell and Hermes Franca on multiple occasions.
Not me, but my wife: before we were married she lived in Chicago, and she saw Emeril Lagasse out with some friends. She introduced herself and told him how much she liked his show and his work, and he chatted her up for a couple of minutes. It came up in conversation that she worked in a cookware store, so the next day he came into her store and bought something like $600 worth of cookware from her on commission. Super nice guy.
I owe a pair of lavendar suede workshoes that are just bizarre. I was wearing them one day and I noticed a guy coming towards me was staring at them. Not an odd occurence. As we passed he looked up at my face.
I thought “Where have I seen him before?” A few steps later I stopped dead. It was Woody Allen. This was in the midst of the whole Mia-Soon-Yi brewhaha.
It took every bit of self-control I had not to run back and start cussing him out or even beating on him.
Could it have been Ekaterina Gordeeva? She is quite lovely. She was married to her skating partner, Sergei Grinkov, until his death in 1995 (massive heart attack at age 28).
You know that comedy movie Cabin Boy?
The guy who played the captain?
He played parts in many other things you’d recognize…
I go paddling with him for hours on end every month or so, though he never shares any of that gold he probably accumulated over all those years 
Very nice and down to earth guy.
Oh yeah, one of his best friends is an actor who finally hit it big. He’s the older guy in all those latest cranberry commercials.
Finally met Alice Cooper last September. Met his assistant, Brian Nelson too.
I can die happy. 
I don’t follow skating all that closely, but I had a crush on her back in the day.
She’s really beautiful, but it wasn’t her - but that name sounds close (says the clueless Yank who can’t tell Russian names apart). This woman had a more gamine-like, small-boned face - also very pretty but in a different way. I want to say she married a Canadian Hockey player. I tried to Google it down, but my fu was not strong - I am just not remember enough to go on (well, other than her legs…)
…gosh, I am wracking my brain here - she won something as a couples skater - maybe a bronze at the Worlds? This would’ve been in the 90’s I am pretty sure…
I envy you that memory!
Some Pre-Blues from me: I am also senior enuf to have seen the REAL Rolling Stones w/Brian Jones (dreamy!). From Row D (that’s the 4th row) at McCormick Place, Chicago. Pre-“Satisfaction”! Saw the Beatles from Row 26 at the Stockyards, and from some nosebleed seat at Wrigley Field a year later. Saw The Who, pre-“Tommy,” at the Kinetic Playground, Chicago. Saw Led Zep there as well (my assessment: “They’re TOO LOUD”). Also - dang, how can I remember this? … Joe Cocker ("sounds just like Ray Charles!) … if this thread keeps going, I may post more.
Eddy Clearwater! Eddie Shaw! Little Mack Simmons! Jimmy Johnson! And a host of others, as the Emcee used to say.
As someone who has also been lucky enough to have traveled far and wide to hear the musicians that I love, I am blown away with how much great stuff you were able to see…
Must be some wonderful memories for you!!!
My “famous people” tend to be a little more obscure, but still meet the Wikipedia page requirement. The list does not include concerts or huge functions (like seeing the Queen).
I don’t think the vast majority of this list could possibly be any more Canadian, given the names and the places I met/saw them:
Jean Chretien; Prime Minister (Alberta Liberal event)
David Suzuki; Environmental Activist/TV Presenter (airplane to Vancouver)
Tom Jackson; Actor/Singer (grocery store)
Brent Butt; Comedian/Actor (Stampede)
Lanny McDonald; NHL (couple different events at the Saddledome)
Carey Wilson; NHL (Canadian Tire)
Tim Hunter; NHL (Jr. High Graduation)
Mike Commodore; NHL (Tim Hortons)
**Michelle Cameron; **Olympic Gold Medalist (kids went to same school)
Non-Canadians
Ed Begley Jr.; Actor/Environmental Activist (Universal Studios LA)
Thaao Penghlis; Actor (Disneyland)
**John Rubinstein; ** Actor/Broadway (after Wicked in LA)
Erika Eleniak; Actress/Playboy Playmate (shopping at Micheal’s in Calgary)
I talked to Steve Perry at the Anchorage international airport in the 80s. I worked nightshift as an aircraft refueler, we used to go up into the terminal for snacks and such in between planes. Anyway, he was wandering around the airport in the wee hours of the morning. Totally mundane stuff I said “hi”. He said “hi”. I think we talked about being bored waiting for planes, and how he’d like playing in Anchorage, about a 3 sentence conversation, tops.
I also met the members of an 80s “hair” band called Warrant. Though I had no idea at the time who they were, a fellow waitress told me after I served them their sodas. Very sweet, quiet, and nice young men.
I also (as a fueler at the airport), met a team of pro basketball players, but I have NO idea who they were, I don’t follow basketball. They were all in first class and it was easy to see why, MAN were they tall! Poor things had to stick their legs way out in the aisle even in first class.
I don’t think this really qualifies as celebrities, but (also at the airport, as a fueler) I met a whole planeload of parents of Olympic athletes coming back into the US, IIRC this was '88, so that would have been Korea? Anyway, the plane had stopped to refuel in Anchorage, and since they had to be on the tarmac (not sure why), instead of at a terminal, the crew had opened the doors for them to get some fresh air.
That was my fave “celebrity” brush. They were just so very HAPPY, talk about on a high! Some of them were wearing their kids’ medals around their necks. That was so super cool. My fueling partner and I stood and talked with them practically until they closed up the plane.
Robert Duval (we peed next to each other)
Timothy Dalton
Mary Lou Retton
Tom Landry
Roger Staubach
Cliff Harris
Randy White
Because of front row baseball seats next to the visitor’s warmup circle, within a couple of feet of Bo Jackson, Cal Ripkin, Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, George Bell and dozens of others
Tex Schramm
Ross Perot
Billy Gibbons
Willie Nelson
B.J. Thomas
Ronald Reagan
George H. Bush
Bob Hope
Mr. T
Dave Winfield
Does getting a letter in the mail count? Here’s another true ATOMIC story
I have been an unpaid blues DJ for 25-?-some years. In 1977 or ’ 78, in Chicago, Paul & Linda McCartney were touring (Wings). Somehow they heard my show, which seems impossible, because I was only on one night a week, 3 hrs. max.
The Apple guy (I think) got hold of me, and said that they wanted airchecks! :eek::eek: So, I would tape the show & get the tape to the middleman, who would send it off to London or wherever.
I was kicked off the air (format change), and somehow Paul heard about it. He sent me a handwritten note (in brown china marker/grease pencil) urging me to keep the show going somehow. Linda also wrote something sweet. It was on that wonderful old-style Air Mail Onionskin paper.
Needless to say, I still have the letter. Talk about the kindness of strangers!