Occasionally I like doing the “six degrees of separation” thing to see if I can connect to someone. Two of our favorites are:
– Barb was encouraged in her studies by Maeve Leakey, like her husband Richard a paleoanthropologist, who was with him when they unearthed “Turkana Boy”, the type skeleton for Homo antecessor. Getting to the early Pleistocene in two steps is something hard to beat.
– We’re acquainted with a local black Episcopal priest who was mentored by Desmond Tuto, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning archbishop who worked alongside Nelson and Winnie Mandela. Two steps to Tuto and three to the Mandelas is somethng I cherish.
But what occasions this thread is that I made it to the late DeForest (“Dr. Bones McCoy”) Kelley in six steps today, by the most roundabout connection possible. We have been dinner guests and regular coworkers with Margaret from our church, a longtime Raleigh resident who is friends with the Aiken family and knew Clay as he was growing up. Clay of course was catapulted to stardom by American Idol, of whom one judge is Randy Jackson. And Randy produced records for Travis Tritt, who as a boy earned pocket money by doing odd jobs for neighbors including the Kelley family, meeting Dee when he came home for visits.
As a longtime Star Trek fan who has always admired the dignity and integrity of Dee Kelley, that roundabout connection is one that I was quite pleasantly surprised to make.
Erratum: Turkana Boy is Homo ergaster, not antecessor; I misremembered which of the two transitional species was which, and was corrected by Barb. Though the tongue-in-cheek comment at the time was that as an adolescent male, maybe they should leave him where he was originally classified: Homo erectus.
Also, I do know how to spell “Tutu” – not sure why it came out “Tuto” not once but twice!
Another from the “don’t know if this counts” category: A friend gave me a jar of Newman’s Own Spagetti Sauce that was given to her by Paul Newman. (She worked down the hall from him – one day he passed out jars to everyone in the office).
I’ve met Kevin Bacon’s father (a big name in Philly urban renewal circles, which is, of course, a completely separate story). That’s got to be good for something.
I was always taught that you had to actually work with them in an artistic endeavor. If not, every star would be within one or two degrees of every other.
How famous are we talking here? My cousin’s daughter is a budding movie star - she’s done several movies (starring role in a couple), had guest roles in some popular TV shows, and starred in a few short-lived sitcoms. But I doubt anyone would recognize her name if I wrote it here. And, my one-degree-of-separation might be considered a bit shaky: I haven’t seen the girl since she was nine years old, I don’t know her, and I doubt she’d remember me - hell, she probably doesn’t even know I exist.
Academic genealogy: 4 steps from Alan Turing, and 5 from Alonzo Church (through the supervisor-supervised link). It’s pretty rare to be an academic descendant of Turing, as he only ever had one PhD student: Robin Gandy. He only has around 100 descendants.
I did some math the other day, and realised I’m four or five degrees from pretty much the entire Star Trek cast, and by extension most of the Babylon 5 cast as well, without any of the intervening steps involving meeting one of them at a con.
My mother used to work for a gentleman who had once had theatrical aspirations, and had taken acting classes in Montreal back in the early 50s, way before Star Trek. One of his classmates (who was apparently a large ham even then) was none other than William Shatner.
In college I had a part time job at the local cable company. One of the folks I worked with also worked as a gopher for the movie The Evil Dead. Two to Bruce Campbell and three to Spidey is pretty cool for a geek like me.
I worked out a little while ago that I have an actual Bacon number of 3 by virtue of appearing in this, but only if you count members of the chorus* (who were onscreen for the duration and had a lot of lines) in the calculation.** We appeared with Michael Palin, who appeared with Bob Hoskins in Brazil, who appeared with Kevin Bacon in Balto.
Now I just need for this to happen and my geek cred will be complete.
*And it’s the BBC Symphony Chorus, dammit, not the “BBC Chorus” or “BBC Symphony Choir” as IMDB shows it.
**Please don’t take this away from me. I have so little in my life to validate my existence as it is.
I won’t go on, but I’ll mention one fairly neat connection. I crossed paths with Vernon Bogdanor a couple of times when I studied at Oxford. His most famous student, David Cameron, is now the UK Prime Minister.
I have a godmother/cousin who was a location manager in the film industry, I have two close friends who work in television costume design, and I play tennis with one of the stars of a current TV show. My entertainment bases are pretty well covered.
I don’t know how in the hell I’d get to Nelson Mandela, though.
Remember that scandal at Oprah’s African school? I know a slew of people who know the woman who was head of the school at that time (she had previously taught at an independent school here in Philly that my sister taught at/was on the board of), so I’m three degrees from Oprah – that makes me four degrees from just about anyone who’s anyone, globally.
We just did this thread, but I have a blood relative who I visited once, who was a scientist and worked on the bomb. He worked directly under Harold Urey who later conducted the famous Miller–Urey_experiment. At Los Alamos he saw Dick Feynman around but didn’t personally work with him. He also worked with Stanislaw Ulam at one point, but I’m not sure if they worked directly together.
I also have a another relative who worked under Bush Sr. before he was President, not directly but they had lunch one time. That connects me to all the modern world leaders and politicians. (Also I had a music tutor who performed at the White House and met the Clintons.) The same relative also helped on some research for a Tom Clancy novel, thus giving me a Bacon number of 4: my relative, Tom Clancy, Alec Baldwin (Hunt for Red October), Kevin Bacon (She’s Having a Baby, 1988).
Also a kid who beat me in a high-school band audition has performed on Conan O’Brien’s show, putting me 4 steps from a large portion of modern celebrities.
Oh, and I also took a summer course taught by a guy who taught at Philips Exeter Academy during the year, so that probably connects me to the business world although his students are mostly fairly young still.
… after landing at Normandy on D-Day as an artillery officer (still hoping to spot a tv/movie scene where his missing middle finger is visible). He flew later - the Canadian military trained their own artillery guys to fly as spotters. That has to be a pretty ballsy job - presumably flying low and slow behind enemy lines in a lightly- or unarmed small aircraft.
Of course, the story most interesting to me would be about fathering a child at age 80.
I’m connected to everyone, ever, by one step because we both lived on the planet earth.
C’mon, these threads are always so amazingly tenuous. At least in the kevin bacon game, they had to work together on the same movie. In these threads, it’s like just breathing the same air is enough to qualify.
