Pretty much EVERY visit I’ve ever made to “Don’t Tell Mamas” could have gone in this thread.
I don’t have one of these of my own, unfortunately. However, I do have a story about my wife which she will kill me for. =)
Back when she was away at college, she was hanging out with one of her buddies who was a townie. Specifically, they were hanging out doing homework at a really upscale antique store that her buddy’s dad worked for (the owner was apparently cool, too, and didn’t mind these two just hanging out). Behind my wife, the door chime sounds, but she thinks nothing of it until her friend stands up, points behind her, and yells “IT’S THE HEADLESS FUCKIN’ HORSEMAN!”
She turns around, and Christopher Walken is standing there. Apparently he likes antique stores. And other things, because she’s just trying to be polite in a very “yes, but I have homework to do” kind of way and he’s rambling on asking for restaurant recommendations and such, and then out of the blue he asks if she wants to join him for dinner.
Behind her, her buddy, still pointing openmouthed, yells “DON’T DO IT! HE BIT MIRANDA RICHARDSON’S FUCKIN’ LIPS OFF!”
About that time, the store owner emerges from the basement to find out what the commotion is and takes him off my wife’s hands. But that’s the story about how my wife got creepily propositioned by Christopher Walken.
No, but I met him a couple of times too (been a fan of his since long before Corner Gas). No embarassing story here, but I remember he too was taken by our little one (at this point it was our son) and took a picture of him on his cell phone.
I also remember either me or my wife teasingly asked his co-star/wife who was with him (nancy Richardson I think is her name) if she changed her last name to “Butt”, Brent piped up with "no, but I’m thinking of changing mine to Richardson … "
I saw Ditka in O’Hare about 15 years ago. Traveling on break with a college buddy- his jaw dropped, and I turned around and said “Hey Mike” and he grunted and walked away.
The song “Lost Without You” was climbing the charts, so my radio station hired Robin Thicke to be our headliner for our Black Party (everyone was dressed all in black). Robin stopped by the station before the show to do some on-air press. Robin was very gracious about posing for photos with all the staff girls who were drooling over him (he’s very nom nom) and one by one we posed with him. I chose that day to wear my 5" mules - and when they told us to move in closer, I placed my spiked heel directly on his toes.
I immediately moved it away - and he said he was all right - but he walked very carefully away. I slunk away to the promotion director’s office to announce, “I’m sorry - I broke the artist.”
We triple checked on him and he seemed fine on stage - but I noticed that when we went back stage, he made sure to give me and my shoes a very, very wide berth.
Last year I paid an absurd amount to attend a Pet Shop Boys meet & greet before a show. Since Neil (Tennant) likes books about London history I’d brought him a copy of “Thunderstruck” by Eric Larson (the author of “Devil & the White City.”) He boredly flipped through it and said “I don’t know it; is it good?” I blurted sarcastically: “NO Neil, I gave you a BAD BOOK!” He stared at me like “WTF?” and Chris (Lowe) started laughing hysterically. There was more insanity on my part that I won’t go into but I’m pretty sure I’m on the Pet Shop Boys “Do not fly” list now. Good times.
This one is fairly local, so non-New Englanders may not get the reference…
Years ago, I was a “gate guard” at a private road/beach on the North Shore of Boston. On July 4, I worked late into the night, checking cars into the many parties at the large homes on the street. The process was simple. If you were a resident, you said so (if I didn’t recognize the car/person), if you were a guest, I needed to check your name against a list.
Dana Hersey, who was the host of “The Movie Loft” on Channel 38, came through, and didn’t want to give out his name at first. He tried to play the “Don’t you know who I am?” game. It went something like this:
M: Are you a guest of a resident, or a beach club member?
DH: Don’t you know who I am?
M: No.
DH: Haven’t you ever watched The Movie Loft?
M: No, I don’t watch the terrible movies they show.
DH: I’m Dana Hersey. <with a terrible aristocratic Boston Accent>
M: Right, and who are you a guest of?
DH: <annoyed> The Joneses.
M: <looks at list> Thanks, have a great night.
It would have been much easier for him to just say who he was, and where he was going, so that I could move on to the rest of the line. Instead, I got a great story about what an ass he was. Turns out he lives in my old home town, and my parents, through other interactions with him, pretty much formed the same opinion.
I also sold a battery to Michael Chiklis at the Radio Shack in Lowell MA. I asked him if he was “The guy from The Commish” (this was 20 years ago). He acknowledged that it was in fact him, we finished our transaction, and off he went. Seemed like a nice guy.
Lol - hiya neighbor! I used to live in Lowell near Saints Memorial/exit 38 off 495.
2 quick stories for the locals:
I had an email conversation with Frank Avaruch but mixed up his show with Dana Hersey’s show. I knew who he was, I just said the wrong show name. Got a patiently polite email making me feel like an idiot about it.
Back when I was working for Century 21, I was in a training class with this loudmouth know-it-all named Peter. . . Chiklis. Trying to chat politely with him during a break - I asked him if he spelled it the same way as “The Commish.” There was a long pause before he admitted that was his brother. He was amazingly subdued after that - as if he went from being the star in his own mind to his brother’s shadow. I actually got thanked a few times by my classmates for stumbling on a way to shut him up.
Not really embarrassing per se, in that I did not embarrass myself in front of the celebrity in question, but I did something stupid that I very much regret.
In '89, I was in my senior year in high school in the East Bay Area, working at my friend’s dad’s restaurant as a busboy. A few days after the big Loma Prieta earthquake, I’m in the back washing dishes, and my boss comes in hollering in broken English about how the Mr. Coffee was in his restaurant.
I didn’t know who the hell he was talking about, and he finally spit it out - “Joe DiMaggio! Yankee Clipper - in my restaurant!”. Apparently, DiMaggio had been in town for the interrupted World Series, but his house in the Marina district had been damaged, so he was staying with a friend, an announcer at the SF horse track who happened to frequent our little hof brau.
So I go out to speak to him, and all I can think to say is (in the smallest voice possible):“Can I take your plate, Mr. DiMaggio?” He said yes, I took his plate, and scraped his leftover roast beef and gravy into the trash, and that was it. Meanwhile, my friend (son of the owner) comes back brandishing his autograph - “look what I’ve got!!!”
I felt very stupid that I didn’t think about getting an autograph.
OK, I’ll share - it’s embarrassing but has a cool ending…
In 2000, I was working at the US Embassy in London. Thirteen Days starring Keven Costner was having its London premier and they decided that since it was a politically themed movie it would be cool to have the premier at the embassy (which has an auditorium with projection equipment) with a short reception following in the embassy lobby. I was tapped to work the event, which essentially consisted of mingling and making sure no one was standing around looking lost, etc. All the cast and crew attended and everyone seemed duly impressed by the surroundings and getting to meet diplomats and what not. (FYI Kevin Costner and Bruce Greenwood were absolutely lovely and very friendly.)
So I’m working the crowd when I see one gentleman just standing in the corner all alone not talking to anyone. This is absolutely verboten in the dip world so I bounce on over and say, “Hi, I’m Surly Chick! Welcome to the US Embassy! Is there anything I can get you, blah, blah, blah…” At first he was nonplussed by me but then decided he found my cheek amusing and - never telling me who he was - started taking me around and introducing me saying “Have you had the pleasure of meeting Surly Chick yet? You simply must meet her.” This went on for most of the evening - still without me knowing who he was. At the end of the embassy reception, he came over to me and gave me two tickets to the “after party” which was being held afterwards in an ubercool club in the West End (that I would never ever have stood a chance of getting into even on a normal night). The party was essentially for the cast and other important industry types. When we (I took a female British friend) walked in, the gentleman enthusiastically greeted us at the door and walked us through the buffet line (including a champagne fountain featuring Cristal, shrimp cocktail the size of my head and every dessert imaginable). You could see everyone whispering about us trying to figure out who we were, why were with him and, more importantly, were we somebody that they needed to know.
Needless to say, we had a fabulous time at the party. We didn’t find out who the gentleman in question was until we were leaving when another actor who wasn’t in the movie (it was a guy from Trainspotting whose name I can’t recall at the moment) who we were talking to said, “So how do you ladies know Marc?” Both of us said “Marc who?” and he replied, "You know, Marc Abraham, the executive producer. :eek:
It was the parading me around making people think I was somebody important that was embarrassing. And everyone knowing who he was but me and my friend.
Back in the early 90’s I was in the city of Kotor, then Yugoslavia, now Montenegro. A small group of Americans was there filming a low-budget horror film that would evidently be called Cutting Class. I was offered a job on the production because well, I spoke English. I wasn’t remotely interested. I had never even heard of any of the American actors, especially the lead. It was this guy that went by the name Brad Pitt.
My Dad told me that I met Deep Throat when I was a kid. (William Mark Felt, not Linda Lovelace) This was before Watergate and I am sure I did something childish, as 7 yr old boys are apt to do.
My father and Mr. Felt worked together in the FBI.
Well this didn’t happen to me, but rather to a friend, but it’s worth retelling.
Last year, he went from London to New York for a holiday, and was hanging out in a club with his boyfriend when they spotted a woman, sat alone, who was seemingly being eyed-up by a group of blokes.
My friend and his partner, feeling chivalrous, sauntered over to the woman in question and said ‘are those men making you feel uncomfortable? Would you like us to stay with you until your friends arrive?’, to which she said ‘sure’.
So they introduced themselves, and she introduced herself as ‘Beyonce’. My friend then said ‘oh, don’t you just hate that your parents named you after a celebrity’ (He wasn’t thinking straight, obviously, as this would have made her about ten years old).
She replied ‘no, no, I am Beyonce. And those guys over there are my bodyguards’.
Ouch. Anyway, apparently she was lovely and bought them drinks.
He’s not a big celebrity–maybe a minor one in Canada–but it’s an embarrassing story nonetheless. I went to a Sloan concert in Los Angeles and I was standing at the back wall of the club during one of the opening acts. This short dude with messy hair and his head down stepped on my foot and tripped over me. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but it was something to the effect of “Watch out, you stupid fuck!”
The short dude with the messy hair glared back at me. It was Jay Ferguson, Sloan’s guitarist.
I was hanging out in a Carrow’s (similar to IHOP) one night with a couple friends. 4 or 5 long haired guys walked in.
I freaked out because one of the long haired guys was Rod Morgenstein. Rod FUCKING Morgenstein. A drum god.
So I walked up and said ‘Excuse me, I just have to say I love your work’ to Rod. We ended up talking for about 15 minutes about his work with The Dixie Dregs and The Steve Morse Band. Great conversation.
During this time I ignored everyone else at the table except to say Hi.
The next day I went buy a music store with some friends. While thumbing through the posters I came across a poster for Winger, who happened to be at their peak at the time.
I looked at the poster and said ‘Holy Shit, that is who the rest of those guys were’.
I did the same thing to Ringo Starr. It was the end of the day in Snowmass, CO on the mountain. I ran out to the truck to grab my comfy shoes so I could sit in the bar. I looked back to make sure I locked the truck and was still walking forward. I ran right into this weird looking man. I apologized profusely for being an idiot, and he was very gracious about my lack of coordination. I didn’t realize until I had walked away that it was Ringo Starr.
My mother in law did the same thing that summer to Kevin Costner at the Popcorn Wagon in Aspen. She was digging in her purse and ran right into him.
