I rode in the back seat of a rented Lincoln while Jose Feliciano sat behind the wheel with his road-manager steering the car from the passenger seat. It wasn’t on a public street. It was on a driveway in the fair grounds in Vancouver, Wa.
It happened in 1980. I have a picture of us with Mount St Helens erupting in the background.
I was at a cocktail party attended by author Tom Robbins in Seattle, but he lives up here.
Lots while I lived in LA. I was introduced to Jonathon Winters as he crawled under our table while I was having breakfast.
About a year and a half ago, I saw Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera in my local Coconuts music/video store. Wasn’t quite sure it was him until he left the store and drove off in an absolutely gorgeous silver Mercedes.
Just Bono from U2. In Killiney (the suburb of Dublin where he lives). He was driving pretty fast and I’m not good with cars. All I know is that it looked like some type of vintage car and was pretty nice. It was quite dark but I think the car was either navy or dark green…
Pikers all of you are pikers.
I won’t bother to list the celebrities I have seen driving their cars, that is too easy. I will tell you which celebs whose car’s I have repaired!
I have worked on Captain Kirk’s starship (Jaguar)
As well as Howie Mandel this man is as crazy in real life as he is on stage, that is no act. On a scale of 1-10 his wife was a 12 BTW Marla Gibbs whose car was always a mess.
Michael Eisner. Honest to OG I did not know who ME was when I started working on his car. One Sunday night my kid turns on Disney and Eisner walks out to intro the show. There I sit in my living room going “Hey I know that dude!” :smack: Franklin Ajaye who is a very funny guy IRL
Consumer advocate David Horowitz who drove an old Puegot station wagon. It was really funny when a customer threatened to Call DH on us, and my boss would offer to call David on his private line.
There were several others that I don’t feel like listing right now, but I will close with my two favorites Victor French A real down to earth fun guy. One time I was putting a gas tank into his Jaguar. to be able to reach the tank (Located in the front of the trunk) I had emptied the trunk and was sitting cross-legged where the spare tire usually lives. Victor shows up to get something out of the car, and his comment was priceless “Do you know just how fucking stupid you look sitting like that?” Made my day. He was a great guy.
The other celeb I really really admire and like is William Daniels His wife Bonnie owned a Volvo that I used to maintain. When ever it needed work, he would always have it scheduled on a day when he was not shooting, so that he could follow her down and take her home. No shuttles or taxi for his wife. The other thing is that his natural speaking voice is the same voice that he used in Knight Rider. Every time I would talk to him to explain the repairs, he would start talking, and I wanted to look around for a black Firebird. :smack: He is a real gentleman.
On a trip to southern California a few years ago, I noticed a man driving a white corvette. He was wearing a tux and his vanity plate read “filmvet”. I have no idea who it was, though.
About 20 years ago, when I was living in Toledo, Ohio, my then boyfriend and I were going to see a Moody Blues concert. On the way to the concert hall, a limo pulled up next to us, so I looked through the window (from my car–I didn’t get out.) A blonde man held his drink up in a toast. I later found out it was Justin Hayward.
[hijack]I’m glad to hear William Daniels is nice in person; since I know him mainly from ST. ELSEWHERE and 1776 (on both of which he plays brilliant but “obnoxious and disliked”) I’d wondered if that was the case in real life. I always thought his wife was very attractive (and their scenes together after their characters on-air son died on ST. E. were some of the best dramatic moments in the history of TV without being maudlin). [/hijack]
In New Orleans for Mardi Gras a few years ago I was almost hit while crossing a street by Kevin Kline & Phoebe Cates. (It was really a mutual-fault thing if it’d happened- I was jaywalking and they were driving faster than they should [which in New Orleans at Mardi Gras means more than 1 mph- they literally weren’t going more than 7 mph but even that’s dangerous.) Like everybody else they were looking for a parking space, which somehow seems to diminish them (you’d think Kline & Cates would have a parking space gnome to help them.) They were in a very nice convertible but I don’t remember the type; Kevin was driving and said “sorry” (which was sort of a disappointment as I was hoping he’d scream “Assssssh_llllllllleee!” ala Otto from Fish Called Wanda).
Polly Holliday (bka Flo from Alice, though she works constantly on stage and in guest appearances in TV & film) stayed at a hotel I worked at once and drove a 1950-something Studebaker, perfectly restored. Janet Dubois, bka Willona from Good Times, also stayed at a hotel where I worked and was driving a 1980ish (that’s a guess) Rolls-Royce, which she actually joked about to a housekeeper that “I’m not doing that great and not doing that poor- I still got the Rolls but I can’t afford to fix it.”
Last summer I had two Goldie Hawn sightings, as she and Kurt Russell keep a home here. Firstly, I was driving down a steep hill in West Vancouver, when a woman in a Jaguar convertible passed me. At the next light, I looked over, and it was Goldie, no doubt about it. She was pretty cool about it, slid her sunglasses down, winked, and took off. The guy behind me had to honk his horn as I was mildly dumfounded.
Less than two weeks later, I was visiting a friend as he was working on a yacht engine. The people whose boat it was showed me over their boat, and we walked up and down the docks as they pointed out other boats, told me who owned them, and where these boats had gone. As the saying goes, these boats were wee, not so wee, and freaking huge; and they told me the freaking huge one down the end belonged to Goldie and Kurt, and that they might be by that evening to check on it. I made some comment to the effect of pigs flying first, and nearly choked when Goldie said, “No, really, it’s true!” as they walked by.
There have been other sightings, here in Hollywood North, but I like Goldie Hawn, and so I’m gonna cherish these.
In Atlanta in 1990 (I think), I and some friends were driving around the Perimeter (I-285) and saw a blazer-type vehicle with a license plate reading TWITTY. Same story: we wondered what kind of jackass would get “TWITTY” on his license plate, so we drove up alongside, and sure enough it was Conway Twitty.
As I recall, he looked old and frail and sick; I know he didn’t look happy.
Oh! I completely forgot: About a month ago the jillelope and I were walking around downtown Memphis, just goofing off, and saw Ike Turner getting out of a limo.
Granted, he wasn’t driving, and it probably wasn’t actually his car, but aside from some local regulars (Isaac Hayes, Al Green, Cybill Shepherd) we don’t see a lot of celebrities here.
Last time I was in LA, I saw Ed Begley, Jr. driving in his electric car. He had the windows down and some Doobie Brothers blasting out of the radio, and was happily singing along (badly) utterly oblivious to everything around him. He was having such a good time driving his little renewable energy car (he powers up at his house which is all solar powered) and belting out “China Grove” that it brought a big old smile to my face.
Back in 95’ it wasn’t rare to see Shaquille O’Neil tooling around Orlando. He drove a nice big SUV but he still made it look tiny.
I also followed some other tall Orlando Magic player (forgot his name) down I-4 once who was driving a convertible. If he sat upright he was taller than the windshield. So he was trying to sit diagonally and keep his head behind the windshield. Looked very strange.
While living in Charleston about 10 years ago, I saw Ric Flair, Lex Luger, and the Steiner Brothers pull up to the Quality Suites on North Arco Lane in a long Lincoln Towncar, only this one was white in color with gold trim.
When the got out, they blocked the sun. These guys were really, really big.
Also in Charleton, U.S. Senator Ernest “Fritz” Hollings (D-SC) cut me off in traffic over on Highway 61 near Colony Drive. He was driving a Buick. I honked and flipped him off, but I still voted for him in subsequent elections.
I’ve seen Santa many time on Queen Anne Hill and most recently at the Costco in Tukwila. He now drives a burgundy PT Cruiser with the vanity plate HOHOHO2. He used to drive a yellow station wagon with fake wood paneling. And he seems to prefer Hawaiian print shirts and shorts over his heavy red suit.
