Same. Lord knows I heard more than my share of Harlan stories, growing up in L.A. sci-fi fandom, but everytime I met the man (maybe half a dozen times over twenty years) he was invariably polite and personable.
Side note: if you can find it, go read Harlan’s account of how he was hired by Disney to write for them – and fired on the same day. Delightful.
It can be found here: Ellison Webderland: The 3 Most Important Things in Life
I’ve heard on podcasts enough stories about Jerry Seinfeld where if you weren’t on his “level” (either comedy level or celebrity level) or you weren’t a hot young woman he didn’t give a single shit about you. He was super friendly with high level comedians but an utter prick to those he thought were below him.
The long reply would well qualify as a Blog post. When I was 12 my Dad handed me my first camera. When I was 14 a stranger in the neighborhood was sitting on his front lawn with an Arriflex 16mm camera on his shoulder. I got off of my bike and stood nearby watching. He looked over at me, and asked if I wanted to look through it.
He rested it on my shoulder and I “tracked” with a car as it drove by. Immediately hooked. Got my first paying gig at 17 shooting/editing municipal meetings. Went to NYC for Film School. Got ahold of a Steadicam at a rental house in 1986. More love at first sight/ touch. 33 years as a Steadicam Operator.
Every single day at work was a dream gig. Some rough, some unpleasant, many just plain FUN. Some electrifying. Some rather humbling. It’s all I have ever wanted to do and to a very great extent still adore it. Got to shoot everything from Popes to Presidents to Rap artists to AIDS Awareness PSA’s to industrial videos to the 1996 Olympics Opening & Closing Ceremonies.
Put a camera into my hands and I’m a happy guy.
Plus, he can’t hit a breaking ball !
OK. Let’s tie it all together. Naughty + Nice + Adoption = Gerry Ford.
Gerald Ford was adopted by his mom’s second husband. He became a lawyer and got very busy with elective office and all. But yet he still found the time every few years to have private detectives track down his birth father. He would then sue the man for every penny of back child support he never paid.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
I had only heard he tracked down his birth-father(last name Lynch?) and had lunch with him once and never met him again.
I have obviously been misinformed. Where did you hear about the lawsuit and private detectives?
I am completely wrong. Shame. It was a great story.
Gerald Ford’s mother and stepfather did not tell him of his biological father until shortly before he turned fifteen, in 1928. Ford described his biological father as “a carefree, well-to-do man who didn’t really give a damn about the hopes and dreams of his firstborn son”.
Ford’s paternal grandfather, Charles Henry King, took care of his first grandson and paid Ford’s mother child support until shortly before his death in 1930. After his death, King inherited $50,000 ($687,000 in 2016 dollars), and Dorothy got a judgement from Nebraska courts to force King to pay support, but King was living in Wyoming, outside of Nebraska’s legal jurisdiction, and continued to refuse.
King met his firstborn son again for the first time when Ford was a sophomore in high school. King came to Michigan to pick up a new car and visited Ford where the future president was working at a restaurant in Grand Rapids.[8] They had a superficial conversation. King, who had never paid child support, handed Ford $25. It is believed that the two had no further contact,
although it is also reported that Ford visited King Sr. one summer at King’s spacious home in Wyoming when Ford was working at Yellowstone,
In 1939, King moved from his home in Riverton, Wyoming In Nebraska, he was arrested for failing to pay alimony, particularly what was due after the death of King’s father in 1931.
King died on February 18, 1941, in Tucson, Arizona He was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park
In 1949, his widow Margaret King married Roy Mather.
My aunt worked in Detroit at a big hotel (I can’t remember which one) and said that Jim Garner was the nicest celebrity out of the many who stayed at the hotel. Treated staff like gold, including standing when any woman, including the maid, entered the room.
A local (Nashville) DJ said that when his son was in a coma, he for a picture from Chuck Norris, who was in studio for a promotional tour. He explained his son was in the hospital and was a big fan. Chuck went with him to the hospital and stayed and talked to his son, who was comatose. The son never regained consciousness and later died.
StG
There’s a Chuck Norris meme in there somewhere.
Obviously he didn’t cry when he visited the comatose kid, because his tears cure cancer.
Wiki says Frederick was his fourth wife, and Sellers was in the process of writing her out of his will when he died, btw…
Throughout the 90s my wife worked as a bartender and server and said that Jeremy Piven is a huge jerk with a terrible case of Short Man Complex.
What is it they always say about Dee Wallace? The nicest scream queen around?
Mary Kay Place and Heather Langenkamp were very nice when i met them.
Must be nice meeting celebrities through your job and finding them to be nice.
All of the famous people I met at work were terrible people.
I’ve met a few well-known politicians through work. Most were pleasant. The sick ones that had almost no visitors might surprise you. Also some fairly successful athletes and such.
I’ve met a small number of Canadian celebrities in random places. Didn’t really want to bother them. But they smiled and signed another autograph without the cynicism one might reasonably expect - e.g. from “Rocket Richard” who was polite.
I’ve met a few foreign celebrities while travelling. I usually had no idea who they were. Some were nicer than others.
I saw Chaka Khan at my Local Ralphs 759 and she refused to sign any autographs or take pics. But she was still loved 25 years after Feel For You.
Man, that’s criminal.
What’s a Local Ralphs 759? Is it a performance venue, or a public place like a grocery store, or what?
I don’t think being a celebrity obligates a person to sign autographs and pose for pictures every time they go out in public to run errands.