Anybody want to own up to meeting a celebrity, speaking to a celebrity, punching a celebrity, getting punched by a celebrity, or maybe just seeing Britney cross the street with her short skirt hiked up and no undies? Anybody here a celebrity?
I find it interesting when you meet one by coincidently being in the same place at the same time or after a concert. I just wondered if anybody had any interesting anecdotes. Plus it might be considered “research” for my “novel” in the works (yeah good luck getting that publinshed Bebe).
For instance, back when I worked in the record store and Bruce Springsteen (aka “The Boss) was famous, he came in before his concert and checked that we had plenty of his product in stock. Well, he and his huge bodyguard were standing between my manager and me, and of course there were a bunch fans rolling in. I tried to pass them to get to my manager and the bodyguard stuck his hand out and held me back. Now, I don’t like people touching me without my permission, and I said, “Hey look, I gotta get to my boss.” Apparently, he thought I said “The boss” and he went into bodyguard mode and I just butted into him and got behind the register where I was needed and he figured out I worked there and left me alone.
Well, I thought it was an interesting story. Not in the league of Sandy’s stand in, but interesting. By the way, Bruce’s look was not contrived. I was close enough to verify that the man did not bathe very often or wash his jeans.
Same as all of Mouse’s ones.
And my claim to fame is that Kitty Flanagan thought I’d pulled a razor out of my bag at her (it was a foldable pen).
Ummm… Clarissa Dickson-Wright used to buy jewellery from me.
And my dad was heckled by Bill Bailey.
You know I was hoping to edit that post before anyone read it
I was in a hurry and thinking back it sounded far more
adversarial than I had intended. I guess I was too late :/
I’m afraid my attitude has always been ‘so what’ to celebrities
I had a friend who worked in a shop and I’d go in regularly and
play chess with him. On one occassion we stopped because he had
customers, after he served the guy and he left, my friend commented
that was *someone or other* from Eastenders.
My response was ‘so what?’
Maybe because I don’t watch soaps I didn’t recognise him and I couldn’t tell you
his name because I wasn’t really listening.
I met the Queen when she was shown around my work place when I lived in
the UK, as well as all he bodyguards and the Lord who’s job it is to follow her
around and claim it as his any time she farts.
I met the entire cast of some sit-com called ‘Allo Allo’ at the opening night
of my brother’s wine bar (I wonder what ever happened to that) Ok it
wasn’t the entire cast, there were a few missing. It appears that my brother’s
partner in this venture was the mother of one of the actresses in it. Sheesh I hate
that show, some of the people were great though
I don’t think you sounded adversarial, Sharruma.
I couldn’t care less about meeting someone just because they’re famous, although many people do seem to care, but I like talking to people whose work I admire/enjoy.
I went to a private girl’s school in NYC, so I saw a bunch a people. And it’s true that after you see enough people, you don’t really notice anymore.
Katie Couric is WAY too perky for her own good.
Dylan had to get pulled out after Woody/Mia/Soon-yi affair.
Jamaica Kincaid, while a great writer, is a very disappointing public speaker.
I was a stage manager for Keith Powell of 30 Rock fame. And practically everyone I’ve ever worked with on stage has down at least one episode of Law & Order.
No matter how many celebs I see, though, I’m still too shy to talk to people I really love/admire. I couldn’t muster up the courage to ask a question to Alison Bechdel or Keith Knight at the MoCCA Art Festival yesterday, and I’m an actor - I should be able to do this! And I think I’d run away screaming (and kick myself later for being so stupid) if I saw David Bowie up close and personal
I have met some comedians and some bands. Most famous of them all, Pauly Shore. I do have a good story about the drummer from a crappy punk band though. I saw this band, Zebrahead, in a Minneapolis club. After the show the drummer and the guitarist were sitting at the bar. I went over, introduced myself and told them they played a great show. About a month later they were back in town. I went to the pizza place right around the corner from the club, are some food and headed to the show. I was walking down the street and the drummer walked past me (I didn’t recognize him) and stopped me. He was way more excited to see me than I was him, he thanked me for coming again and told me to pay attention to the opening band. It was pretty humorous that the guy stopped me, it usually goes the other way around.
Well, I’ve traveled around a lot and met many people, so I’ve met quite a few famous people over the years. Of course, exactly which ones qualify as “celebrities” is a bit hard to say. And for the most part, they are indeed just regular people going about earning a living and all that sort of thing. I’m not going to count people who I simply saw wandering around in the distance as people whom I’ve met.
Ones whom I spent at least some time chatting with: Harlan Ellison (Met him unexpectedly at a book signing. I ended up with some free books out of the encounter.) Sharyn McCrumb (Met her at a book signing, too.) Gabriel José García Márquez (I met him in Mexico, where I was introduced to him.) Elie Wiesel (He was a speaker at a convention I went to in New York City.) George Foreman (We sat together in a Wendy’s restaurant.) Michael Jordan (He spends a lot of time in my wife’s home town, playing golf.) Colin Powell (I actually knew him fairly well.) Arnold Schwarzenegger (I met him when he was doing some sort of health thing for schoolkids in western Virginia.) Leonard Nimoy (I met him in Texas, when he was apparently going to some sort of Sci-Fi convention.) Marina Sirtis Rikki Fulton (Incidentally, those of you who know me really well might have a bit of an epiphany regarding this one ) Hugh Laurie (On an airplane.) Robert Plant and Jimmy Page (I ended up being a sort of unofficial tour-guide for them, which was rather useless since I had no real idea of what was around the area, either. . .“And there you see, errrrr, a statue of some guy, yes. . .and there’s a big building, doesn’t it look nice?”) Thom Yorke (Yet again, thanks to my wife; otherwise, I wouldn’t have had a clue who he was. But she, in her typical shy and gentile fashion, practically tackled him in the middle of the street.) Juhi Chawla Sean Bean (We rode a bus together.) Chase Masterson (Shared a lunch table with her.) Mark Allen Shepherd (Couldn’t get the guy to stop talking.) Jennifer Ellison Jon Bon Jovi (Thanks to my wife and her rabid fan-senses.) Alison Armitage / Brittany York(it might not be entirely safe to open that link at work) (Again, thanks to my wife.) George Harrison (Again, on a bus.) Nicole Johnson (Met her at a medical research place.) Stanley Prusiner (I was wandering around wasting time on a university campus in California.) Col. Rex Applegate Chuck Yeager (One of his grandchildren was a friend of mine.) Buzz Aldrin (I met him at. . .umm. . .some sort of airplane-related gathering.) Robert Bakker (I met him at a paleontology seminar.)
Some personal friends of mine: Erika & Thelma Peterson (Thelma’s a painter, and she and her daughter Erika also have their own band)
Then there’s pretty much the entire royal family of Britain during the mid- to late-90’s, as well as a large number of other kings, queens, princes, princesses, presidents, premiers, generals, field marshals, dukes, prime ministers, various politicians and the likes. Some of them I spent a good bit of time with, others it was just a handshake and “Pleased to meet you”.
As for being a celebrity, one time while in Wilmington, North Carolina I walked unknowingly across the background of a street scene that was being shot for a show called Dawson’s Creek. Woohooo!
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