How many degrees separate you from a celebrity/historical figure

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
121

Grant Wistrom is from the same small town where I live. His mother and my sister-in-law worked together.

Joe DiMaggio was a boyfriend of the wife of the preacher at our little church where I grew up.

My father-in-law was a highway patrolman and was a frequent member of the security detail for Kit Bond when he was MO governor. He has an incredible memory and is very friendly. Really goes out of his way to make sure everyone around him feels important, and not just for political reasons. When they had to stop somewhere to eat, he would always pic up the tab. He sent a nice letter to my f.i.l. when he retired from the patrol, and it wasn’t just the standard form letter thanking him for his service. It was obvious he put a lot of thought into it.

My step-dad and step-brother have long been into drag racing, but in the last 20 years, they’ve been hitting a lot of national meets. They like to pit near John Force and Tim Wilkerson. Mom always bakes a bunch of cookies if she knows they will be seeing these guys and she loads them up through that entire week. Drag racers can sure eat a lot of cookies. Tim Wilkerson lives only about 60 miles away from them, in Springfield, IL.

Last summer, the day after seeing them in concert, I found The Del McCoury Band lost on the side of the road in my town. They were trying to get to Kansas City Int’l Airport and had taken a road that had just opened and wasn’t yet on any maps, then missed the sign pointing to the right highway. I pulled over and helped them out and they were super-nice folks. Most bluegrassers are. These guys are multi-grammy award winners and have done lots of work with lots of famous musicians.

122

I’ve had dinner with Michelle Trachtenberg and her mother, I almost was run over by Adam West on the stairs, and my daughter acted with both of them and with Iggy Pop.

My mother got to sit at a table with her idol Benny Goodman for dinner at a UN day.

And at the first conference I ever attended I got to have lunch with the guy who wrote the paper about microprogramming the IBM 360 - well, he was a celebrity to me.

123

My mother reminded me of one: in her later years, my great x4 grandfather’s niece was very good friends with a young man who was the postmaster of her town. He would visit with her for hours on end to hear stories of her years in captivity with the indian tribe who raided her farm and killed her father. She was very impressed with him, and once told a friend “That Abraham Lincoln is a very smart young man. I would not be surprised if he became President of the United States someday.” When he was told what she said years later during his candidacy, he mused that she was a pretty good guesser. :slight_smile:

124

Back when she was a teenager, my mother and grandfather met one of the Wright Brothers. She had won an art contest, and the prize was a ride in a biplane. There were actually two winners; the other one would become my father. His mother wouldn’t let him go, because flying was too dangerous. So my grandfather went up with my mother instead.

125

Just remembered another one:

Back in the 60s, at an Objectivist lecture in NYC, Ernest Borgnine was the doorman. I chatted with him briefly.

126

I’ve told most of mine before. In the last couple of weeks I have found out that the kid that lived up the hill from me out in the country has a job in which he knows all of the NFL coaches and all of the NFL players except the very newest ones. So I’m two degrees removed…

In the last year I was able to check something off my Bucket List. I finally got to meet Jeff Fisher, head coach of the Tennessee Titans. It was at a roast for him.

Cherry Jones, the woman who had the role of the President of the United States on 24 is a family friend.

I am 3 degrees removed from Ted Bundy and 2 degrees removed from Susan Smith (who drowned her two little boys in the back of a car). For a very long time I did not know that Bundy’s youngest victim was the niece of an old friend. As for Susan, her husband’s step-mother and I shared a mutual friend who was asked to come during all of the mess as a comfort to the family.

The person that I found most mesmerizing that I spent much time with was Rose Kennedy.

127

panche, you met SONDHIEM!!!:cool: My friend’s ex husband knows him through the Kennady Center…so we have a six degrees connection there!
Gerhaldo used to live in my town in the 80’s and 90’s. He was one of my dad’s clients, and was best friends with a friend of mine from elmentary school’s dad…
I used to see Gerhaldo at the Fourth of July parades.
James Spader lives in my town. My dad does business with him, and I’ve paddled my kayak past his boat many a time.
My friend Lauren is good friends with Jim Parsons. He was at their wedding, which my sister also attended. My sister told him that I am obessed with both Jeopardy! and Big Bang. So he wrote me an autograph that says " Hey AAWAYCG isn’t Big Bang Theory better then Jeopardy!?":smiley:

128

I’ve frequently met Jack Layton at party functions (most recently at Pride Community Day, where I took him handshaking among the Montreal queer community), so I suppose that puts me no more than two degrees from the Prime Minister and the rest of the Ottawa muckymucks.

129

Pretty sure I’ve seen that footage before. Seriously.

130

I’ve been in the same room with and talked to Fidel Castro.

131

I wouldn’t say I’m exactly friends with Richard Garriott (of video game and dude in space fame) but I’m friends with several of his friends and I’ve had long conversations with him: mostly about space and how port is made. If you told twelve year old Ninja that she would get to sit up at a bar in a princess dress as her idol served her drinks, she would just die. :smiley:

I was an extra in A Slipping Down Life, which you haven’t heard of, and Office Space, which you probably have. In Office Space, Jennifer Aniston tried to get into my car. She seemed nice, slightly flustered, and distant from everyone else for the one second we actually interacted.

What else? I made Terry Pratchett laugh twice at a book signing – I was getting a copy of Thief of Time, I think, for a friend of mine. The dedication I asked for was something like “Hope this makes California a little more bearable!” He laughed and said “Oh, it won’t.” He chuckled again when I pulled out the book I wanted signed for myself: a copy of the Riverside Shakespeare. I have a plan here: there’s very few people whose autographs I really want, and I want to use this as my autograph book. Anything that’s just a little autograph book I can and will lose, but I will keep my Riverside forever. He signed it “Wm. Shaksbrd” and advised me that I could tell everyone (all together, now!) it was signed by the author. The next time Neil Gaiman signs down here I shall bring it along and tell the story and if he does not sign it Kit Marlowe, I will eat my hat.

One of my professors is rather famous: Dr. Ian Hancock. He is just as awesome as he sounds. I am doing quite well in the class so far. He is known for being tough, cranky, and demanding, and in the words of one of my old friends combines “a year of introductory linguistics and a year of cultural studies into a three-hour class”.

Um. My grandmother was once Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh’s housekeeper. Dad is about the same age as their daughter, but he says he doesn’t remember her.

A college friend was good friends with Patricia Morrison. My best buddy is friends with Mercedes Lackey and a few other scifi and fantasy authors, webcomic authors, fantasy artists, and the like. I helped Steve Jackson once finding some stuff at the Halloween store I worked at and later was interviewed by him for a job at Steve Jackson Games. I didn’t get the job but they liked me very much. I know two other people who work there, which is fairly substantial for such a small company.

My old boyfriend did some copyediting for Kevin Andrew Murphy’s novel Penny Dreadful, which was a fantastic mage-centric World of Darkness novel. Regrettably, White Wolf dragged their feet in publishing it and finally put it online in seralized PDF format. I should have known they’d take it down again when they redesigned, and now I really want a copy. :frowning:

I know some local actors, mostly stage but a few screen actors. One of my gaming buddies has a leading role in an incredibly bad zombie movie that probably won’t ever see distribution, but even if we get it on bad DVD it will be a treat.

132

You probably have, the video of it was pretty widely circulated at the time - I think the band even included footage of it with the guy’s face fuzzed out on their “Live! Tonight! Sold Out!” video. Googling “Kurt Cobain punched” turns it right up.

133

Yep, that was it. I love how Dave Ghrol reacts in that video: he throws his stick down and stand up like he’s ready to kick somebody’s ass. You can just see the “WHAT THE FUCK?!” forming in his brain.

134

When I was a kid I met- if you can call it that- Ronald Reagan. I was 9 and he was on the campaign trail (1976) and he shook my hand at a rally. I had absolutely no clue who in hell he was or why my parents drug me there with them when I could have been at home watching TV. Anyway, if that counts as a connection (no words exchanged, neither of us knew the other’s name, and mine one of probably hundreds of hands he shook that night) then I’m within six degrees of pretty much anybody of any significance in 20th century politics.

I later met Jimmy Carter but didn’t shake his hand because it wasn’t offered. I did know who he was at the time (I was in my mid 30s). Quite frankly he seems a bit of a jerk (story there). His wife is very sweet though. So if that counts as a connection, slightly under Reagan in terms of 6-degreeing.

As for people I’m connected to in the “somebody on my speed dial knows somebody on their speed dial who has them on their speed dial [etc.]” connectivity, then my biggest conduit would probably be through a friend who works for (as in directly for- sees on a daily basis, goes to football games with, etc.) Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who isn’t that famous himself but has many A-List acquaintances. (Very very very strange man, incidentally, and his best friends would call him “slicker than owl shit when it comes to money”.)

I’m also friends (not bosom buddy but “we hug and speak for a minute” when we see each other) with a character actress who I honestly think is going to be huge one day. She lives in L.A. but is from Montgomery and comes here periodically to see her family. She has a major role in the movie The Help (which she also read part of the audio book for) and I’m hoping that’s her big breakout role. She deserves it because she’s funny as hell, tremendously talented, extremely intelligent (straight A student in school and president of her class) and above all just a very sweet and genuine human being. Anyway, in her career she’s worked with many famoust actors and actresses and a couple of well known playwrights.

My closest friend was close friends with It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star Glenn Howerton in high school. He can’t watch the show due to “actor bitterness” issues (they were the stars of their performing arts high school- my friend never did anything with it [lots of extenuating circumstances] so Glenn’s his “it might have been if I’d had a rich father” irritant. That makes me two off from Danny Devito- Yeeeaaaa!

135

This would explain the hat.

136

I once worked with a guy who knew Donna Dixon’s father through mutual business contacts. As noted in the second link, Dan Aykroyd once stopped by my co-worker’s place and played a Blues Brothers set with the house band.

137

If you’d get Einstein to pick up the phone when you call, that’d be a heck of a lot more impressing than most celebrity relations…

I wonder, though, is the world connected? Is there always a path between any two persons on this planet, or are there people that have no common acquaintance?

138

I’m part of the chorle that sings on this record. So, I guess you could say I’m one from Yo Yo Ma.

'Cept he recorded his part seperately from when we recorded our part, so maybe not. Sent a ringer to the premiere performance, too.

Whenever the subject of Lerner and Loewe comes up, I like to bring up “Uncle Alan,” because my late mother-in-law’s sister was married to him (Alan Jay Lerner) for two years. I did personally know my wife’s aunt, so that makes me two from Lerner himself, and three from the girl who played Fred MacMurray’s pissed-off fiancee in The Absent-Minded Professor.

Also this aunt worked with John Raitt, so I’m three away from Bonnie Raitt. And Kathryn Grayson was pretty much her bff during her later years, so I’ll claim two to her.

And two to the Marx Brothers (she was in the stateroom scene in A Night at the Opera).

139

My taijitsu instructor used to be a bodyguard. There’s a picture of him with Steven Segal and the Dalai Lama in the dojo (he was guarding the Dalai Lama, Segal was guarding somebody else). I know he did bodyguard work for several other famous people, as well as stunt work.

I might be related to Davy Crockett on my mother’s side, but I’m not sure how far back, and the family isn’t entirely sure it’s the Davy Crockett.

140

Oh, yeah: my SO spent some time as a cashier for an indpendent grocer and once had Patch Adams in her line.