I was on a flight to LA from Chicago, back in the 70’s, sitting in Coach just behind the curtain shielding 1st class from the hoi polloi like me.
Halfway thru the flight, the curtain separating coach and 1st class is flung back, and there’s Bob Hope, a few feet away, looking at me. He looked around for maybe 10 seconds, and went back to his seat.
My dad met me at the airport, and while we’re walking down the corridor, Mr. Hope cruises by on a luggage cart. My dad spots him, says “hi, Mr. Hope” and waves. Hope waves back. My dad turns to me and says “that was Bob Hope!”. I said “I know, I met him on the plane”.
This started as a ‘bad celeb reactions’ thread, I thought, but… I’ve posted this recently, but I spent a couple of hours at a small reception with Tom Waits, John Prine, Elvis Costello, Diana Krall, Kathleen Brennan, Sturgiss Simpson, Jim Jarmusch and others, and just missed getting to chat with Roseanne Cash, Salman Rushdie and John Mellencamp. It was a day.
At a DC-area nightclub, long after his career ended and he became borderline homeless, I had to step over Root Boy Slim to get into a men’s room. The next time I saw him–shirtless, out of shape, and living in an acquaintance’s basement–was even worse.
I have seen a number of famous people at AA meetings and I actually shook hands with a VERY famous musician/singer, one of my idols (he is still going strong today) and I didn’t recognize him, I thought he was a newcomer and wanted to make him feel welcome (I’ll respect his anonymity, and he is still sober to this day) VERY famous, he didn’t look anything like he did on TV, and I never talked to him again at other meetings because I was too intimidated.
My wife and I used to live in West Hollywood in the 80’s and one day I was heading west on Sunset Blvd. and out of one of the Beverly Hills side streets came a Cadillac Seville.
I was watching it carefully as it didn’t slow down and made the left turn right into my lane ahead of me, just as I thought it would. I couldn’t see the back of the head of the driver because he was very short, and as I passed him on the right all I saw was a huge stogie sticking up from his mouth like a periscope. It was George Burns, and he must have been in his late 80’s at the time.
One day in the 1980’s I was standing on a corner in Beverly Hills waiting for the light to change and a couple walked up next to me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw long blonde hair so I looked over quickly and it WAS a beautiful blonde. Standing right next to me was her partner, the one and only O.J. Simpson. I looked back at him to say something but he kept looking straight ahead so I didn’t want to bother him. Yes, Nicole WAS very beautiful.
Wow, that reminds me of one, which I’d completely forgotten about. Not bad, but surprising. About 10 years ago, I was doing a restaurant food delivery job while working on my master’s. One afternoon I had a delivery to a local club, and the name on the order was Janis. I got to the club, and the marquee said “Playing Tonight - Janis Ian”. Naw, no way, I thought.
I went in, was directed backstage, and talked to someone: “I have a delivery, for, um… Janis?” “Oh yeah, let me get her.” And out came Janis Ian. I was thinking “sheesh, I thought celebrities had people to take care of mundane shit like signing for food?”
I don’t remember what I said to her, something like it was a pleasure, but I was thrown off by the whole thing, and chickened out on trying to make conversation. I also remember being stuck by what a tiny person she is!
Una Stubbs, most recently known as Mrs Hudson. She’s a very fine and versatile actress who suffered a bit of a career eclipse for a while. She has said herself that she thought people would think she was a lightweight after her roles in Summer Holiday, Till Death Us Do Part and Worzel Gummidge. In 1998 her fortunes revived when she began working with veteran theatre director Michael Grandage at Sheffield’s Crucible theatre. I saw her in Schiller’s Don Carlos there in 2004. It remains one of the best productions I have ever seen and Una was very good in a supporting role as a stern lady in waiting.
A few days later I went to a matinee at the Crucible Studio. The play was about to begin, hurrying out of the loos I bumped into Una Stubbs coming in. We both did the English sorry dance. She was smiling and quite lovely. I regret not complimenting her on her work in Don Carlos but stopping her on the way to the loo was just not on. After I took my seat for the play it turned out that she and the rest of the Don Carlos cast had come to see it so it really was a good thing i didn’t delay her.
I have exactly the same attitude. When I see a celebrity in public, I scrupulously ignore them. Unless a third party introduces us, we’re not going to have a conversation.
This has led to some awkwardness. Once I was eating breakfast in a hotel restaurant in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The only other person in the restaurant was Philip Glass, who was a couple of tables away, drinking orange juice from a goblet. I noticed him looking at me but I said nothing. Another time I was in a Crabtree & Evelyn store in Boston, and the only other customer was Stephen King. I carefully avoided eye contact until one of the employees starting fawning over him, and he quickly made a purchase and got the hell out of there.
The only time I broke my rule was when I was at an awards banquet in Los Angeles, and I stopped John Williams when he was on his way to the restroom and got his autograph. He was very nice about it, but I always cringe when I think about it.
On a talk show (I forgot which one), Courtney Love told a story about Al Gore coming up to her at some event and saying, “I’m a big fan!” Love’s response was, “Oh, yeah? Name one song.” That’s an object lesson on why you shouldn’t go up to celebrities and say stupid stuff.
It’s not my most recent celebrity encounter - even on the Tube - but there was the striking run-in with Peter Capaldi on the Northern Line the other month.
Now I’ve done the “yes, you’re a celebrity, but I’m going to pretend you’re just another passenger” thing on the Tube before - most notably while literally jammed up against Simon Pegg - but this encounter was notable for the fact that everybody in the carriage played it that way. Nobody even dared ask for a selfie.
There are times - “bloody hell, that’s Dr Who!” - when British social reserve is really quite heroic.
I used to go to the same meeting as James Hetfield and Robin Williams. Robin was incredibly nice and would give his phone numbers to newcomers. After Robin’s death, his chair was left empty as a tribute.
My college was in Boston, but they had a program out here in Los Angeles, and I took it one semester. In addition to classes, everyone got a work-study position in the industry. I was interning at a small production company, in a building in West L.A. with a number of other production companies.
One day, early on in the job, I had partied a bit too much the night before, and came into work… not well. I went to the bathroom and vomited profusely in the stall. When I eventually left the stall and went to wash my hands, I discovered another person had entered the bathroom and was finishing up as well, and had obviously heard me. He nodded at me with concern. I nodded back, silently letting him know I was okay. And when early-90s Sean Penn is looking at you with concern, you know it’s probably time to clean up your act. No more coming into work hungover for me.
Jodie Foster also was working in that building, and I used to see her all the time. She was extremely friendly, and I always got a smile and a “hello” from her, which never failed to make my day.
Rodney Dangerfield exchanged mock insults with a bunch of us girls in the 80’s outside a Deli on Sheridan St in Hollywood Fla. My friend who’s from NY saw him in the parking lot and it was game on, Hey Rodney this Hey Rodney that, he shot back with hey I don’t get no respect. Then we kinda calmed down and went over and surrounded him for a few minutes. Ran out of things to say, we left him alone and climbed back in MOm’s Fleetwood caddie with a few of us still hanging out the window yelling Rdoneyisms, he laughed at us and waved.
I have a friend who is a DJ for an alternative radio station and he told me to come and see this band called “Phantogram” (Great, BTW). The lead was engaged to Shaun White, the snowboarder. They had been travelling the Midwest and nobody recognized him, but in Denver he was the star. He left the studio to avoid taking the spotlight. I ended up smoking a doobie and shooting the shit with him ib the alley behind the station. Cool guy.
Many years ago, when I owned pugs, I went to a specialty all-pug dog show in southern California. I brought a pet pug, and I arrived a little late and was having trouble locating the table selling program guides. I must have looked a little discombobulated, because a very nice man stepped up and showed me the way to the table and complimented me on my pug (though she wasn’t a show dog).
Afterwards, I found out that the man was Paul Winfield, who showed pugs under his kennel’s name of “Shakespeare Pugs”. His main famous pug was a champion black pug named “Othello”. Whenever I see Paul Winfield in a movie or television episode nowadays, I remember how kind he was that day.
Twenty years ago, I was shopping for records in the Saturn in Cologne, Germany, which was then one of the biggest record stores in Europe. As I was browsing the CD racks, I noticed in the corner of my eye a small (even smaller than me, and I’m only 5“8), but compact guy with a crew cut. I thought well, he’s the Henry Rollins phenotype, but when I passed him to get to another rack, I saw his neck tattoo and realised that it was indeed him. Now I would never approach a celebrity, so I only thought “cool, I’m buying records next to Henry Rollins“, and after a while one of us went to another department, and I lost sight of him.
An hour later, I had found everything I wanted and approached the register, and there he was again standing two spots ahead of me with a stack of about 50 CDs. When he got to pay, he handed the cashier his American Express card, only to be told in her thick Kölsch (the regional accent): “American Express nehme mie nit, nur Visa.“ “We don’t take American Express, only Visa“. The cashier obviously didn’t speak a word of English and didn’t have the faintest clue who her customer was, and Rollins began to look mightily pissed. I thought for a moment: “Now’s your opportunity to save the day of a famous rock star“ by translating and explaining the situation, but I was just too shy and let the opportunity slip…
Not terrible famous people, but not unknown. Mostly writers.
I was once part of a university lecture audience that was called pointless and scrupulously slagged off by Susan Sontag. Her major beefs seemed to be that she was plugging her novel but didn’t like the fact we wanted to talk about her fiction and the fact that we hadn’t all been in Sarajevo when it was under siege. She found the one Bosnian student in the mix and conducted an hour long personal conversation in front of us.
Chaim Potok was less than pleasant. Dith Pran was lovely. Mark Bowden is a gentleman, as is James Kelman. Alasdair Gray is oddly shaped, with a surprisingly high-pitched and naughty giggle. Seamus Heaney was also a gentleman.
Stephen Rea- we were all very drunk. Very. He was in a state of high agitation about a costume choice for the then-current production at the Abbey Theatre. I may have professed my love. I don’t remember.
Pete Best- at the Shoney’s near Philly Airport, a Fab Four Fest clearly in progress near by. He seemed vaguely amused by the teenager (me) who had recognised him. Or annoyed.
Shook hands and chatted briefly with Ernest Borgnine at the Presidio in San Francisco in the late '60’s. He was visiting wounded Vietnam vets at the hospital. Nice guy.
Nervously stood in front of Edward G. Robinson at a Baskin & Robbins ice cream store in N. Hollywood in early? '70’s. He was wearing a pinstrip suit and vest with a carnation, had everything but spats. Too intimidated to say anything. Somehow he just didn’t belong there!
A few years before Entourage, Jeremy Piven came up to us three unassuming 30-something-year-old guys and asked if he could sit with us as we headed out toward the pool at the Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas…guess he didn’t want to ogle alone.
Also Bill Clinton (once before and once after his White House years), OSU football great Archie Griffin, Sens. Sherrod Brown, Paul Simon and Al Gore, Congressman Dick Gephardt, Gov. Mike Dukakis and two governors of Ohio, Dick Celeste and Ted Strickland.
I’m a camera operator by trade and so have spent the last 37 years encountering the famous and near-famous. However, in the spirit of this thread, I’ll share one that happened to me in my private life.
I lived for about 15 years in a small town in Orange County, NY. I volunteered on the local ambulance corps and was dressed in my spiffy uniform one day. Sitting watching the kids at their Tae Kwon Do class, hoping I wouldn’t get a call.
I see a large black Suburban drive by with what appeared to be an older Frank Langella behind the wheel. I watched as he got out, helped out two elderly people and walked into the furniture store next door. I couldn’t resist. What the hell was he doing in town- I’d never seen him before up there. Mighty curious
The store was utterly empty but for Mr. Langella and his parents and the sales people. I waited until his Mom and Dad were deep in conversation with the salesman and then I walked up and caught his eye. He gave me a friendly smile and I put out my hand and said, " Mr. Langella, it’s nice to see you here. Do you live up here now?" He said his parents had a summer house in town and he was buying them some furniture.
I told him I didn’t want to intrude, just wanted to say a hello. Then I said, I’ve been enjoying your work ever since " The Twelve Chairs". With that he busted up laughing and lit up. He said, " NOBODY mentions that !! " I said, yeah, everyone talks about “Dracula”, right? He agreed. Mighty amused, and a thanked me for the laugh. I wished him a good day and left.
I’ve got dozens of stories from work, some the usual snarky celeb stuff, quite a few meatier than that. But this one stands out because I made the guy laugh with genuine delight and gave him a smile.
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