Wait, there’s a crowd who does not see Hefner as an obsessed sex-addicted creepo?
Ha! Hefner is strictly an amateur. Come over here, and I’LL show you some obsessed sex-addicted creepos. Particularly in Pattaya.
The Master Speaks: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/040813.html
Gandhi was also a firm believer in daily enemas and both administered and received them to/from the girls and others in his entourage. Google cites. A weird man all around.
Mozart was also obsessed with enemas, though they were something of a panacea to many in the 18th century (though a century before, when they were called ristorantes, they were really all the rage). Mozart, like Martin Luther 2 centuries before him, frequently went into great detail of his bowel movements in letters to friends and his wife.
Aaron Burr wrote letters to his daughter Theodosia in which he discussed (in a private code between them) his sexcapades with the many ladies in his life. The rumor that he and Theodosia had an incestuous relationship found its way into Gore Vidal’s novel as the precise rumor that caused his duel with Hamilton.
The James Brown story above reminds me of a story I heard once (can’t cite) about a stagehand who entered Orson Welles’ dressing room before a one man show and found him enjoying a similar tribute from his longterm companion Oja Kodar. Welles yelled out “Well, what is it!” and when told “10 minutes to curtain” he just responded “Ah… well let me know when it’s 2 minutes. But knock first!”
A semi-classy story from the “Original King of Bling”: there’s a retired journalist here in Montgomery who still receives piano shaped trinkets on the anniversary of the day from 50 years ago when she wrote a glowing review of Liberace’s concert here in town. He was so delighted he sent her piano shaped gifts every year and in his will it was continued (I’m assuming there were several others who also received such posthumous gifts). She has a display of them in her home and has been pictured a couple of times in newspaper articles.
Elvis probably has the greatest numbers of “great guy” stories and “crazed sleazebag” stories of almost any celebrity. There’s no shortage of tales about people whose hospital bills he paid/bought homes and cars for/gave insane tips to, and at the same time there’s the Memphis Mafia tales of his shooting TV sets and guzzling pills like they were peanuts. All adds to the Olympian mythos (I think he was a bastard of Dionysos who visited his mother in the form of a FullerBrush man).
Word. And Hugh was looking for a particular kind of love – there are plenty of PAs and up-and-coming actresses willing to kiss-and-not-tell.
Not sure any of those anecfotes put him in the sleazebag camp. Self destructive but otherwise harmless.
Jackson Browne.His first wife’s suicide and his beating that put Daryl Hannah in the hospital really really creep me out.
I grew up in West Los Angeles and now live in Santa Barbara. I have seen numerous celebrities in everyday situations in stores, restaurants and out on the street. Mostly they’re just acting like regular people going about their lives.
The Good:
The late Peter Boyle was in a small Santa Barbara restaurant with his wife and another couple. It was in an excellent but obscure place that that usually only serves locals. This was during maybe the next to last season of Everybody Loves Raymond. After he finished eating, a couple of people went up to him and he graciously talked to them for several minutes.
Jonathon Winters: Many people in my town have a Jonathon story. He’s always wandering around town and loves to talk to people. I met him in a cigar shop downtown. I and several others spent at least an hour and a half smoking cigars and talking. Actually, it was not as much talking as Jonathon doing an improvisational stand-up routine. It was hilarious.
The Funny:
The curly haired guy from That 70’s Show who imdb tells me is named Danny Masterson. It was Valentine’s Day in downtown Santa Barbara and all of the nice restaurants have been booked for weeks. This was near the height of the show’s popularity. He showed up with his date and asked for a table. He wasn’t a dick about it but the look of incredulity on his face when he was told that he couldn’t be served that night was priceless.
The Bad:
Christopher Lloyd is the only celeb I have encountered who was a dick. It was at my favorite sushi place in Montecito. I had seen him there before a couple of times previous and he always sat at the far end of the bar with an empty seat next to him. I was there with my then wife. He was there with a date or associate or something. His date was on the end, then him, then two empty seats which were the only two seats at the bar. They tried to seat us at a table but I asked to sit at the bar.
When they sat me next to him, he gave me this look like I was a piece of garbage and then turned his back to me to directly fact his date. He spent the rest of his meal sitting sideways to the sushi bar. I can understand him doing that if I was trying to talk to him but he didn’t even give me a chance to not be a star struck ass.
hajario, I PAed on a show Christopher Lloyd was in. I was specifically told not to tell any passersby that he was in the cast, because he had a stalker. That was in the late 1990s, FWIW. May or may not cast a different light on his actions that evening.
I once read that Spencer Tracy was a binge drinker. Occasionally, he’d check into a hotel with a suitcase full o’ booze. He’d hang the Do Not Disturb sign on the door and just sit in the tub nekkid suckin’ down booze and relieving himself right there in the tub. When he sobered up, he’d clean up the tub, get dressed, and check out.
I’ve since heard that the story is phony, but it’s stuck in my mind for decades.
It’s not a fact that he beat Daryl Hannah. There is some doubt about the veracity of her story, which was never pursued by the police or prosecuted anywhere but the press. Be creeped out by it if you want, but not because it’s a fact or anything. Not sure what, if any, blame he can or should take about his wife’s suicide either.
My friend just told me this story about James Brown:
Daniel (the friend) had another friend who did video for a local TV station. James Brown came to a local venue and the video guy schemed himself and Daniel in to do an interview. They watched the first half of the show then went backstage to do the interview. They were let into the interview area by James’ wife who called him “Mr. Brown,” saying “Mr. Brown will be with you in a moment.” James came out in nothing but a bathrobe and huge hair curlers. When Daniel explained that it would be a video interview, James went back and changed into his regular performance clothes. When the interview was over, Daniel, being a huge fan of James Brown, told him how much he loved him and how much he wished he could sing like him.
Brown said “Sir, I hope I live 99 more years and you live 100 more years because I don’t want to be around to see a good man like you pass.”
Daniel was definitely awestruck.
I used to be “friends” with Ben Folds, through some mutual friends who were technically groupies but good enough to become actual pals with rock stars. I got to be on Ben’s AIM Buddy List, and I did an online interview with him once, and we’d chat every so often when he was bored and on the road (this was between “Whatever and Ever Amen” and “Reinhold Messner”
Anyway, one night I was online talking with my pal Jason, when some chick IM’d me and started asking about Ben. Lots of Ben Folds Five fans knew me and knew my “status” so I wasn’t too surprised when a stranger wanted to talk to me about Ben.
The girl started getting kind of pushy about questions regarding Ben, and asking stuff I didn’t want to answer. So Jason says “tell her I’m one of his roadies and to email me her questions and I’ll answer them really rudely,” just to be funny. So I tell the girl I can’t answer her questions but my friend is a roadie (which was a complete lie) and maybe she should email him .
I honestly don’t remember what exactly I said in the conversation, nor how it ended, but after she logged off I realized that the person I was chatting with was actually Ben’s new wife (I figured it out by her screenname), and I must have let slip some stuff that an “insider” shouldn’t be telling an “outsider” and she was basically spying on me - and I pissed her off.
I never spoke to Ben online after that, and obviously he never spoke to me. I stopped going to hang out backstage for a while too, just because I didn’t want to have to think about it in person.
I don’t think Ben or his wife are bad people, or mean. It’s just a creepy story, and it’s weird to have to explain it when people ask me about how I know Ben and why I don’t talk to him anymore.
Another Ben Folds Five story…I am friends with another Chapel Hill musician who got me backstage for a show a few years later. I happened to be there with my very very VERY good looking blonde friend from college. We went backstage and the drummer immediately latched on to us and offered us a beer and a seat, very clearly thinking that I had “brought” this girl to the show “for” him. He was all over her for a few until he realized that she was a very happily engaged fan of his music.
(All in all, Darren Jesse, is a very good, sweet guy. This is just a funny personal story.)
I got to be good friends with the sax player, Ken, from the Squirrel Nut Zippers, by just sort of walking up to him at a show and telling him we should be friends. We’ve become very good friends since then and have hung out a lot when we’re in the same towns (him here or me there). Platonic, of course.
It’s very weird to see my friend on MTV and know that he played for the President and stuff.
One last Zippers story…
After the Zippers broke up, Jimbo Mathus left his wife (singer Katherine Whalen) and baby in North Carolina and set out for greener, more single pastures. This was kind of shocking to everyone. Especially if you’re familiar with some of their lovesongs and whatnot.
What’s worse, is that the Zippers have gotten back together (sans Ken) for another tour, and Katherine came along to fill her position as a band member and singer. I’ve heard several stories from friends of “that half” of the band that Jim has no qualms about bringing various women along to hang out backstage or spend the night with them.
He’s got big balls to act like that around the woman he scorned, and she’s made of stone if she can put up with that and still show up all cool on stage. I don’t think I could do it.
Speaking of partner abuse, I still think of the fact William Hurt was abusive to Marlee Matlin when I watch his performances. She’s implied that it was physical as well, but he was definitely emotionally abusive, telling her on the night she won her Oscar it was strictly sympathy for her deafness and not talent. (Luckily she didn’t hear him.)
OTOH, when she left him she moved in with Henry Winkler and his family (strictly platonic as Winkler’s been married since God was in Junior High). By all accounts I’ve read, Winkler is a super decent and very intelligent person.\
OTOH, his HAPPY DAYS co-star Scott Baio’s new “I Banged the 80s” reality show makes me see him as a sleaze whereas before I had no opinion either way.
An anecdote Liberace told about himself I always liked (no idea if it’s true): when he was young and just on the verge of fame and fortune he was hired to entertain at a dinner party by a super rich socialite hostess (a Babe Paley type- not saying it was her). In spite of being loaded she prided herself on driving a hard bargain and even tried talking his price for entertaining at her party, pettily telling him she was deducting for any alcohol he drank or food he ate and that she’d be timing his breaks unless he played for less (let’s say $450 instead of the agreed upon $550). Finally she informed him that “the most powerful names in business and NY society will be here tonight and you are not to mingle or engage in social conversation with any of them!” to which he responded, “In that case I’ll take $50 less.” She was insulted, he said, but she paid him $50 less.
Kinda creepy, kinda cool…I just found out that, apparently, a few months back this year, a group of guys broke into the tomb of Slobodan Milosevic and drove a stake through his heart.
Supposedly, they said it was, indeed, to pin him to his grave so he couldn’t rise from the dead as a vampire.
Well, one less thing to worry about, I suppose.
I went to the same secondary school (high school for you guys i suppose) as current Formula 1 uberkid Lewis Hamilton. I was (and still am 
) several years older than him, but my brother was in the same year at school and they were close friends for a number of years.
Sadly Lewis at the time, was increasingly becoming a bit of an arse with a superiority complex - he’d been signed with Maclaren since the age of 8 and was just then starting to win the various carting championships. As happens with these things, he even ended up with a “crew” of various hangers on which included some rather nasty types.
Ultimately towards the end of their time at school, as is bound to happen in situations like that, something happened which got out of hand which involved Lewis and his crew and ended badly.
Without going into too much detail, ambulances, school authorities and the police were all involved in some way, as were eventually permanent expulsions and criminal charges.
As quickly as it started, however, it was all frantically swept under the carpet and forgotten about - the school didn’t want their rep damaged and the Hamiltons and Maclaren didn’t want it damaging their racing prodigy (his did is very much like the William’s sister’s dad in tennis, and his mother is just fucking scary). Plus he was already reasonably well known in the local press (we didn’t exactly have a lot of promising, positive things to shout about in the town back then).
I won’t recount the full details because, from what i hear, it did serve as a rude awakening for him and he cleaned his act up after that, becoming the “nice guy” he is generally said to be now. It did, however, result in the cooling of my brother’s friendship with him (my brother refused to confirm/be a certain persons false alibi), although he says they still chat occasionally now and then.
Lewis has, however, earned a small degree of respect from me since for never being ashamed of where he was born and grew up. Stevenage is far from a fashionable place, and he had legitimate grounds for claiming to be “from” any number of other places he later ended up.
Also, i take a certain amount of twisted pleasure in knowing that i’ve bought beer from the offie on a number of occasions (back when he was underage) for the man who may soon be the Formula 1 World Champion.
Hope he remembers that when he gets his bazillion-dollar contract. 
With regards to positive celebrity experiences, several years ago i met James Marsters (of Buffy fame) in a Pub during/after a Sci-Fi conference he was headlining. Ended up beering it up with him that night and several after. Over the next year or so i’d get occasional calls from him whenever he was over this side of the pond and we’d hook up for a drink, before we eventually drifted out of touch.
Thoroughly decent bloke all round.
I’ve still got his contact details somewhere but have decided its probably not a good idea to renew the acquaintance as i think he’s on my Missus’ “List.” :eek:
Two different people I worked with in San Fran said that Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman smelled VERY bad when they went to a movie theater.
That’s all I got…
Joe
Ok.
John C. McGinley (Dr Cox in Scrubs) is a nice man. He has cousins in Ireland, and sometimes comes over to see them and play golf. He spent a night in Dublin drinking with a couple of our friends, then, when my husband and I saw him in a bar in Belfast several months later and dropped their names, he bought us drinks and asked us to remember him to them. Nice guy.
The Flaming Lips are lovely. Our friends were at the Electric Picnic, and one of them managed to somehow accidentally get Wayne Coyne in a headlock without realising who he was. he was totally cool about it.
Anyhow, they spent most of that day smoking with the band. A year or so later, we were with these friends at another Lips gig, and our friend threw a joint on stage that had a note pinned to it saying something like “remember us from Electric Picnic”…at the end of the gig the drummer leaned down and, singling my friend out of the crowd, gave her the drumsticks and thanked her for the gift.
As a chamber maid many years ago (crappiest summer job, ever) I cleaned up after Michael Flately. The man is a pig, and we had to dispose of the linen and towels. Yuck.
A few for the “pleasant” category:
Martina Navratilova: She walked out of a bar in Aspen that I was walking into, timed in a way that we both had to stop and reposition to avoid running into each other. She had a tiny dog in her hand. I was really startled and just stared awkwardly and said “…wow…big…fan…” in the lamest, least-quick-on-your-feet way possible. She smiled and said with a chuckle: “well, that’s not what people usually call me, but it’s nice to meet you!” and walked away.
Dick van Dyke: I rounded a street corner at exactly the same moment he was coming around the other way, and we bumped into each other fairly hard. I was mortified, especially because he was already pretty old at that point. But before I could say anything he extended his hand, apologized profusely for “being so clumsy” and wished me a pleasant day.
David Robinson (NBA): He and (I assume, since I know nothing about him outside of basketball) his family were getting into an SUV on the street when I was circling looking for parking. He stopped, waved to me, and signaled that I could have his spot after he left. I didn’t recognize him at first, but it didn’t take long given how incredibly big he is!
Not surprising. **Kevin Costner ** was accused of openly playing with himself while getting a professional massage at a posh golf resort in Scotland. This was after he married his second wife, who was understandably humiliated.
In addition the armpit sniffing rumors, here’s the legendary “shitpants” story about John Cusack. Something(?) caused him to shit his pants on the set of the Thin Red Line (food poisoning? drunk?) and rather than dispose of his own drawers, he apparently left them for his assistants to deal with.
Oh, and Elizabeth Hurley is a diva of epic proportions. A former classmate of mine told me a story about being on a transatlantic flight with a broken leg. She was sitting in first class, and the flight attendants were being very attentive in order to make sure she was comfortable. Liz Hurley happened to on the same flight, and pitched a huge fit that the crew was paying more attention to someone else other than her.
No wonder Hugh Grant wanted NSA-blowjobs from a hooker.