As a big baseball fan, I’d have to go with Lou Boudreau. I’d bask in his stories of winning the World Series as a young player-manager, and his years as a broadcaster for my favorite team.
I’d pay, since he hasn’t had much of an income stream since his death.
Runners-up include James Cagney, Art Linkletter, Phyllis Diller, Donald Sutherland, Spencer Davis, and David Hasselhoff (as long as dinner isn’t a fast-food cheeseburger on the floor).
Etta James
Gary Oldman.
John F. Kennedy, Jr., so I can punch him in the face for causing the death of his wife and sister-in-law and destroying a perfectly good plane just because he was too incompetent to listen to the professional pilots who were saying they weren’t going to fly that night because it was too dangerous, so he could fly across the water to an island in the dark so he could attempt a landing at an airport that was going to be closed when he got there.
But I’m not bitter.
Or maybe Amy Grant.
Booker T Washington
I think I’ll have to go with Thomas Hobbes, although I’d have a bunch of reading to do beforehand if I’d want to do justice to the occasion. Then again, Bette Davis would be fun…
I don’t have a lot that I’m interested in, so it’d probably be a choice between Andrew Carnegie and Ricardo Montalban. Carnegie seems like an interesting person considering his achievements, and Montalban played interesting roles, especially Khan.
I have Teddy Roosevelt - CHARGE!!!
But I would happily trade him for Peter O’Toole.
I believe I’d have to go with Dolly Parton. Edgar Allen Poe would be interesting, as would Janis Joplin, but I bet they’d hog all they booze.
My choices boil down to quite a few, actually: Sterling Hayden, Nancy Pelosi, Steven Tyler, Martin Short, Strother Martin, Sandra Day O’Connor, Keira Knightly…but the winner would probably be Leonard Nimoy.
Well out of the choices I have, that I know:
Davy Crockett
Mae West
Maureen O’Hara
Robert DeNiro
Belinda Carlisle
Sean Penn
Donnie Wahlberg
Davy Crockett might have horrible table manners so he’s out.
Not sure Mae West would pay any attention to me, though maybe I could get some tricks from her.
Sean Penn, too darn serious.
I would have to go with one of my all time favorite actor Robert DeNiro, don’t know how exciting the dinner would be but I could learn a lot about movies!
Why would you want a Frenchman to teach you Russian??? 
I think I will pass on Byron Nelson, Betty Friedan, Conrad Bain, George A. Romero, David Brenner, Dan Quayle, Alice Cooper, Lawrence Taylor, and Clint Black and have dinner with either Charles Lindbergh or Rosa Parks. I think I would choose Rosa Parks, and I don’t mind paying.
Hmmm. After looking at my birth date I have narrowed the list down to 3. James Randi, Mata Hari or Charlize Theron.
We have the same birthday. I’d go with either Karl Marx or Michael Palin, I guess.
Offended with France’s tax reform which (unfairly?) targets the rich, Depardieu has renounced his French citizenship. Putin has apparently offered him Russian citizenship.
Google it for yourself. As weird as it is.
Well, since I share a b’day with one of my favorite fictional characters, I have to choose Archie Goodwin, Nero Wolfe’s assistant. I would offer to pay but really would hope for an invite to Wolfe’s house. I’d give a lot for one of Fritz’s meals.
Hrm…tough toss-up. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Bat Masterson, or Scott Joplin.
Dang.
I don’t speak french, and cannot paint or speak of art; nor can I play the piano or speak of musical history. But I bet Masterson has a couple of stories he’d already dined out on, and perhaps he could give me some shooting lessons after.
Huey Lewis? Edie Falco? P.T. Barnum? I think I’ll go with Barnum.
Woody Guthrie