When I was 16 I got drunk and chatted for ages with one of the members of ZZ Top. I only found this out later when mentioning him to friends and describing him. He’d done something or other at a charity I was volunteering with and was just a chilled-out friendly old dude. Still don’t know which one it was.
I also once sneaked into the top level of the Fernsehturm in Berlin to take some pictures for a student video and, when questioned, claimed I was a member of the press and nodded along to their questions about who I was. I’d done this a few times before and it had come to nothing.
This time I ended up with a lovely free meal on the same table as someone that I later found out was the Mayor of Berlin, who I chatted to at length about British and German relations in the relatively-newly united Berlin. The journalist who I was accidentally impersonating must have been quite important and presumably wondering why they weren’t allowed in.
So, about 2years ago, I flew 14 hours and a lot of timezones to Vancouver by economy class. Then had 3 days of really important meetings that started with email about 6.00am and finished in the bar at midnight. It was great but draining. At the end of about 80 hours of this marathon, I made a run for the airport and a late flight to Seattle for a round of high powered internal interviews for a new positionthat involved uprooting my family from China and bringing them to the US for the first time.
I don’t know about you but I have the ‘business’ travller routine down. In and out like a special forces mission. No wasted motion, speak only when spoken to by someone that can affect my trip (agent, security, immigration, etc). Don’t make eye contact or small talk with fellow travellers. Bury head in a book or post to the Dope via smart phonewhilst wearing headphones cranked to 11 with something that sounds good loud.
Blew through immigration, into the short line to security then auto pilot takes over. Toss out a couple of xray trays, throw all metal in a tray, laptop into another tray, backpack in the tray, shoes off and into another tray. Give the guy behind me the hairy eyeball so he’ll keep back and not snatch my mojo and set the metal detector off. Guy looked like an older version of Half-Life’s Dr Morgan Freeman complete with a fedora pulled down low.
Mission accomplished. the alarm does not go off, I reverse engineer and all items are back in the right places, shoes on my feet, laptop in backpack and I’m on my way to find a a beer and chill.
Later on the plane, a colleague I vaugely know said ‘did you notice Leonard Nimoy in line behind you going through security?’
One day, when I was a college student in Barcelona, there were several very-tall guys on the bus, all but three of them wearing identical tracksuits (white with black lines). My crystal ball said they were probably a visiting basketball team, but I didn’t really know for sure. Being a curious sort, I investigated by the complicated procedure of “watching the sports bit on the night news”.
Aris Salonniki, in town for a match with Barça; the dudes without tracksuits were Barça players. I had friends who would have needed CPR if they’d found themselves sharing a bus with them.
In the mid-90’s I worked at a new movie theatre in Manhattan. (Lincoln Square) It’s on the upper west side and many famous people came through the doors while I worked there. The place was very busy. Anyway one night a group of two women and a young woman (I figured the two adult women as friends and the younger woman as one of their daughters) couldn’t find a seat in “How to Make an American Quilt”. There were seats not three together or not in the very front row. This is no big deal I just changed their tickets to the next showtime and reminded them to get there early and I even recommended a few places nearby to get something to eat. I had simply wrote on the tickets and they were worried the ticket take may not let them in so I gave them my card so I could be fetched if necessary. I walked away from them and another manager and a few of the staff were giggling at me. “Ohhhh let me help you. Here’s my card.” I was very confused till finally someone pointed out that one of the women was Christie Brinkley and the young woman was her daughter.
When I was young (7 or so) we lived in Florida. My dad worked for an awning company. He had to do some important job on a Saturday, and was informed that he could bring my sister and I, and we would be allowed to swim in the customer’s pool!
Not famous so much as infamous, but in July my friends and I spent a day at the beach. Being that they were all from New Jersey, they chose some seaside town that I nevet bothered to catch the name of. All tacky boardwalk and such. Not that I cared- spent the day swimming in the ocean. Come evening, we’re walking on the boardwalk and I’m not watching where I’m walking. I bump, fairly hard, into some short girl with really big hair and this inexplicable camera crew guy yells at me. My friends crack up, and I ask what is going on. One of them, through their giggles, says, “you almost knocked Snooki off the boardwalk!”
Cue explanation of just what Jersey Shore is. I will forever be known as the girl who accidentally attacked Snooki.
Ok not exactly like the OP asks for since I did realize before I left. I was working and was sent to a dispute call. It turned out to be a verbal dispute over custody terms. As I was dealing with the people involved I noticed I guy standing over to the side. He looked very familiar. I asked who he was and he said the man involved was his brother in law and he was just there to support him. After we got things temporarily resolved my partner said “I think that’s that weather guy.” We went over to him and sure enough it was Chris Cimino. Local New York weatherman and sometimes sub for Al Roker. He seemed like a very nice guy. Very short. I doubt he was 5’3. I’m 5’9 and I towered over him.
Speaking of short celebrities, Paul Simon is truly itty-bitty. I was at a Starbucks on Sixth Avenue standing next to this old guy who was kind of adorable in a short old man way. The old guy left and some woman ran up to the bar as the barista was handing me my drink and said, “Oh wow! Did you guys recognize him?” The barista and I were like, “No…” and the woman said it was Paul Simon. He was getting into a big black SUV as I left the Starbucks.
I googled him when I got back to work and it was in fact him. He’s also 5’3".
When I was in High School in Memphis, TN, maybe 1974 or 75, I had a buddy whose mother lived in a downtown apartment. One Friday evening, I went down there to run around with my friend. His mother answered the door and told my buddy I was there. While waiting for him, his mother introduced me to a large black man sitting at the kitchen table, a Mr. Riley King. I shook his hand (a bear paw of a hand) and made pleasantries until my friend came out and we left.
In the elevator on the way to the parking lot, my buddy asked me “You know who that was, don’t you?”
Me: “No, who?”
Buddy: “That was B.B. King”
Me: “No! Really? Let’s go back up.”
Buddy: “No, we’re not going back up. You met him, what more do you want?”
I’ve seen him several times since, but he’s always been on the stage, me in the audience.
I had lunch with some friends, they brought a chum. Actor Curtis Armstrong, I did not recognize him. When I asked him what he did he said “I’m an actor”.
I almost said “What restaraunt?”.
But I managed to say “What city?”.
I felt like a fool when he went to the men’s room and my friend pointed out who he was.
I’ve mentioned it here before, but I was at a dinner some years ago and fell into talking to an older gentleman. He mentioned that he’d recently retired from a very well known large company and so, as one does, I asked him what he did there. He replied that he ran it. :smack:
I don’t know if you can trust any internet resource for any individual celebrity’s height. It is one thing that is hard to get truly accurate data on unless you are standing right there beside them with a measuring tape. Shorter celebrities are obviously sensitive about the issue and the camera plays tricks with people’s relative size on screen. Try finding out how tall Tom Cruise is within 1/2" for example with a high degree of confidence. You get a lot of different answers and people that have stood next to him say that most of the published ones are way too high.
I obviously knew who he was when I met him but Bill Clinton is an unusually large person. I mean like borderline giant. It isn’t that he is super-tall at 6’3" or so but he is scaled up in a way you don’t usually see. Everything about him is huge from his head to his hands. You can’t tell just big he really is from TV.
Google is full of shit. I have stood a few feet away from Michael Douglas and he’s 5’7" at best. The height on his official actors profile may be 5’10" but he’s noticeably short man.
I was in a paint store and this lady ahead of me was being helped by the salesman. It took quite awhile and I was a little irritated. She seemed to have a big order.
After she left the salesman said that was Mike Huckabee’s wife, The current First Lady of Arkansas. His final term as governor was ending and they were building a big retirement home in 2007. I’d seen her on various newscasts but never recognized her in person. She didn’t have anyone with her that day. Just an important housewife picking out paint.
In 4th grade my soccer coach got us to be ball boys for a Minnesota Kicks soccer game. My coach was Nigerian and played pro soccer in South America one year when he was younger. At one point before the game he disappeared for a while and came back with some dude from the other team. He made sure each kid on the team shook his hand. Hi random dude, nice to meet you. That night my dad asked me how the game was. I told him, I was kind of bummed that the ball never came near me. “Did you get to meet Pele?” he said, kiddingly. Yeah, he met the whole team. Who is he?