Are there any celebrities that absolutely refuse to give out autographs?
I met Edmund Hillary (1st mountain climber to top Everest) when he spoke at my high school … 1967 or so. He would not sign autographs. I’m still SAD to this day! He was a childhood hero of mine and still is.
There is at least one who will stop, chat and be completely gracious, but will not sign autographs.I can’t remember who… someone on approximately the level of Robin Williams.
Bob Hope signed an autograph for me once. Sorry, just bragging. 
Within the last few years, Ringo Starr announced that he would no longer give out autographs.
Yes, you have absolutely no chance of getting Robin Williams to sign an autograph.
Have there been any who’ve never given out autographs, even before they became famous?
I doubt anyone would seek an autograph from someone who wasn’t already famous.
I always carry a pen, just in case.:o
ISTR Steve Martin would hand out business cards announcing the person had just met Steve Martin instead of autographs, and Vincent Price would sign someone else’s name.
I found an article which lists these celebrities as not signing autographs:
Ringo Starr
Paul McCartney
Cameron Diaz
Jack Nicholson
Steve Carell
William Shatner
BruceWillis
John Malcovich
Tobey Maguire
Steve Martin
John Densmore
Rosie O’Donnell
John C. Reilly
Will Ferrell
Bill Murray
The list with more details is here:
http://styleblazer.com/130263/think-twice-before-you-ask-for-their-signature-15-stars-who-oppose-autographs/
Some of the celebs on that list will sign autographs but only at promotional event and such.
My brother’s girlfriend works in our local Tourist Office. She got an autograph from an unknown author on a book that Tourism was promoting, first of a trilogy; she’d bought it “to check it out” and devoured it, one of those cases of “I kept saying ‘just another chapter’ and then it was almost dawn”.
The author is now famous, the book a bestseller, and the area described in the book is getting more tourists than they have restaurants for. Mom’s going to meet the author in a couple of weeks and has been asked to bring the second book to have it signed.
Ringo Starr says he’s too busy to sign autographs
(That is really Ringo Starr and he means it)
Ringo later explained that he had become really annoyed to find that many of the photographs he signed, were going straight to Ebay. It seems that there are people who do this as a living - write to all celebs for autographs and then promptly sell them on.
But at least he didn’t refuse.
There’s quite a number of celebrities who are reported to refuse requests for autographs as a matter of principle. Usually, the reason for that is that they don’t want autograph collectors to make money from something which the autograph donor would regard as a favour done to a fan. Neil Armstrong, for instance, was reported to have stopped giving autographs years ago for precisely that reason, which made me all the more proud of one that I got in the early 1990s, when he would still give them. Of course, now that he passed away the question becomes moot.
I would not exclude, however, that even the staunchest anti-autograph celeb would deviate from their principle if you were to meet them while they’re in a real good mood, you ask really nicely, and they think “Hey, why not after all?”.
A lot of celebrities operate a less strict rule: They will give autographs if you ask nicely, but they will explicitly dedicate it to you with your name spelt out. I guess the reasoning is that this will raise the inhibition threshold of selling the personalised autograph to someone else.
This is a bit O.T but in 1970 I was standing outside the terminal at Heathrow airport waiting to pick up a passenger, when I noticed a stretch Limo with a few long hair guys standing around. I looked around and standing next to me was Ringo Starr. So I got chatting about how the Beatles used to play at the local hall before they became famous.
After a few minutes the long haired guys called him to say they were ready to go. Ringo turned to me and offered me a lift into London.
I had to refuse, but I’ve always thought he was a good bloke to offer a lift to a complete stranger.
I met Morgan Freeman when I played at his blues bar in Clarksdale, MS. I had been told that he didn’t give autographs, so I didn’t ask for one. But he was very cordial.
Sports stars autographs is big business, and some are reluctant to give away free what they can sell. I once read that Ted Williams, late in his life, made more money every year signing autographs at shows and events, than he ever made playing baseball. Nowadays, a sports star autograph has to be authenticated in order to be considered genuine, and one casually signed on a scorecard in a parking lot is often not considered marketable.
A far cry from when I was a kid, and got two Hall of Famers-to-be just hanging around the ballpark after the game. A few years ago, my wife got Muhammed Ali at an airport.
In some cases, by the way, the decision not to give autographs is not actually made by the stars themselves. Many celebrities or sports stars are under contract with some corporate sponsors, and these contracts often provide for the celebrity to provide autographs to the sponsor which can then be used in promotions, advertising, etc. Just yesterday, for instance, I saw a cardboard display in a German bank announcing that you’d get a free jersey of a particular soccer team, signed with a particular player’s authentic signature, if you get one of their credit cards. In such cases, it is in the interest of the sponsor to contractually prohibit the player from giving autographs to keep up the usability of their signatures for promotions like this.