HRH Prince Edward of Wessex
His Excellency Ray Hnatyshyn, Governor General of Canada
Now that you mention it, nobody important you ever heard of. A bunch of general officers. Nobody else much.
Ran into Bob Hope at Love Field with my family when I was a kid. Chatted with him, got his autograph.
When I lived in Taos I owned a shop there. Met Some celebrities when they came in to shop. Brian Dennehy, Julia Roberts and Alan Alda (of all people).
Met Oliver Stone twice.
Met Arnold twice.
A friend of mine is a friend of a publisher in Dallas. Tom Cruise was coming to town to meet with him. The publisher invited my friend and he invited me. So I spent about 45 minutes eating lunch with Tom.
Bullshitted my way backstage to see Tim Curry. Managed to get invited to a after-party with the band.
Met and talked with Brandi Carlisle a couple of times.
And finally ‘exchanged words’ with Dennis Hopper at a restaurant.
Met, but didn’t speak to, because I didn’t know what to say;
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau
Al Gore (twice)
Aaron Copeland (had dinner with him)
Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut (had breakfast with him)
Mariel Hemingway (had lunch with her)
Christopher Reeve (lived in the same college dorm)
Jane Goodall (took her on a tour of a museum I worked on)
Jared Diamond
Paul Ehrlich (took birding)
E.O. Wilson (had dinner with him)
Frank Gehry (worked with him on a museum)
Ruben Blades
Omar Moreno
Maya Angelou
Isaac Asimov
Leonard Bernstein
Ernest Borgnine
Michael Feinstein
Jose Feliciano
Michael Feinstein
Harvey Fierstein
Allen Ginsburg
Alan Greenspan
Joel Grey
Keith Haring
Sir Edmund Hillary
Janis Ian
Larry Kramer
Kate Mulgrew
“Cubby” O’Brien (original Mouseketeer/drummer)
Luciano Pavarotti
Bernadette Peters
Ayn Rand
Vito Russo
Stephen Sondheim
Frank Spangenberg (longtime ‘90s Jeopardy! champion)
Micky Spillane
Barbra Streisand
Lily Tomlin
Garry Trudeau
Some of them, I only spoke with for a few minutes. Others, I knew for months or years.
My mom went out with Jerry Siegel (co-creator of Superman) a few times in high school. She also met Orville Wright.
Huh. I thought I’d have a fun answer to this thread, but on reflection, I don’t. Now, if we were talking “one degree removed,” then I am connected to lots of famous people. But actually knowing them? Nope. Not a one.
I’m not as vicariously interesting as I thought I was. 
My wife got to flog David Bowie with a cat-o’-nine-tails in a music video. Does she win?
Not too many. The most excited I got was to see Bill Guarnere from Band of Brothers. He died a few months later.
Stevie Ray Vaughn
Buzz Aldrin
Steve Schrippa
Chris “Jesus” Ferguson (poker)
Joe Piscopo
Joe Klecko
Dwight Gooden
Joe Haldeman
ODavid Petraeus
A few other well known generals
Bunch of stand up comics:
Jim Breuer
Bert Kreischer
Dave Attell
Ron Bennington
Robert Kelly
Artie Lange
Rich Vos
Big Jay Oakerson
Dan Soder
Dozens of old time Blues musicians including:
KoKo Taylor
Anson Funderburg
Sam Meyers
Pinetop Perkins
Link Wray
Son Seals
Keb Mo
Bill “Sauce Boss” Wharton
Sonny Landreth
Little Charlie Beatty
Rick Estrin
Jimmy Carter
Jim Bouton
Jim Beam
I met Johnny Copeland and his daughter Shemeika.
Aww, I should have mentioned Shemekia. I met her at Moondog’s, and her dad, Johnny Clyde was a good friend of the owner (who is a buddy of mine). Should have mentioned Jimmy Thackery, Lil Ed, etc. as well.
I met Alan Hale Jr. (“The Skipper” from Gilligan’s Island) at an appearance at a local bar. I tossed him some good straight lines, and during a break, he came over and bought me and my buddy a pitcher of beer.
Mick Jones of The Clash
The members of the band, The Cramps, during their tour of France in 1980.
Jesse Jackson, when he was running for president in '88.
I work at the Minnesota Capitol, and so I’ve met many of the top political leaders of the state, including current and past governors.
The first lady of Iceland, Eliza Reid
Regarding Ms. Reid, our chance meeting occurred when my Icelandic friend, Arni, who works as a speechwriter for Iceland’s president, was giving us an unofficial tour of the President’s house in the summer of 2017. No one was supposed to be there at the time, and he took a great risk in sneaking Mrs. Spiff and me in to the place. But Ms. Reid surprised us all when she showed up with some American cousins to give them a tour.
Well, she didn’t surprise Mrs. Spiff, because she had gone off to use the WC just before our encounter. And she was rightly pissed that she missed the whole thing.
Anyway, the First Lady and I had a brief conversation, and when she learned that I was from St. Paul, Minnesota, she mentioned that she had relatives in Mankato, Minnesota.
James Jesus Angleton
All these while working a retail fine art and picture framing store in Palo Alto, CA:
Steve Young, NFL quarterback
I was wearing a 49ers shirt when I rang him up for replacement framing glass. He said, “nice shirt.”
Michelle Pfeifer, actress
Helped her with an easel, apparently she paints on the side.
Steve Jobs, computer salesman
Twice. We once shared a laugh after a fanboy lost his shit when trying to say hello.
Kevin Gogan, NFL offensive guard
Helped him with rolls of black paper to cover his hotel windows while at training camp. Biggest man I’ve ever seen at 6’7" and 320lbs.
These while working at a Cisco Systems internal event hall:
Steve Wozniak, computer inventor
Got one of his cool, metal business cards, he autographed our team’s Apple server. Awesome guy.
Vint Cerf, co-inventor of the Internet
He talked more about technology like hearing aids as he and his wife ate both nearly deaf. Awesome guy.
Had a short conversation once with Pete Seeger. Beyond that, knew a lot of well-known mathematicians, but none that anyone has heard of (possible exception: Alexandre Grothendieck, #1 mathematician of the mid 20th, sort of famous for his survivalist movement).
Mike Farrell
Dave Van Ronk
Ted Lewin (Children’s author/illustrator and brother of wrasslin’ legend “Maniac” Mark Lewin)
Ox Baker
Angelo Poffo (50s-60s wrasslin’ star and father of Randy “Macho Man” Savage
Blues Man Johnny Shines
Cal Ripken, Jr.
Nora Roberts
Billie Jean King
Dominique Dawes
Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty
Jimmy “Bunkhouse Buck” Golden
Arthur Schlesinger
John Scieszka
Karen Hawkins (best-selling author, went to my high school)
Emmett Kelly, Jr.
Billy Carter
Porter Waggoner
Hmm, sure I am missing some.
College Radio DJ, so just about every American Hardcore and Punk band that toured in the early 1980’s.
Played records on live broadcast with DOA and the Red Hot Chili Peppers (not at the same time. DOA were way cool, Chili Peppers were pretty out of control and completely lost their shit and trashed the CSU Chico college radio station a few days later during an interviews)
Interviewed John Lee Hooker, and spoke with Little Milton, Gatemouth Brown, Willie Dixon and others. Envious of those of you who listed out a whole bunch of my wish list blues artists above.
Hung out with George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers for a couple of innings of a college baseball game at UCD before their gig.
Played pinball with Robin Williams (he sucked at pinball but was friendly and did a ID for my college radio station), at a Bo Diddley concert at a comedy club in SF. Hung out / interviewed Bo for about an hour at that show.
Spent time with a couple of billionaires when at Microsoft including Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and now Taiwan Presidential candidate Terry Gou.
Especially envious of those who met David Bowie, Sammo Hung and the Cramps (Lux Interior asked what the small weekday audience wanted to hear for an encore, I had just accidently split open the skin above my left eye and blood was streaming down, shouted out “The Crusher”, Lux saw me, smiled and launched into the song. But I didn’t meet him or any of the rest of the band.)