Talk about your brush with famous people

My grandfather was attorney to Jim Thorpe during the final years of Jum's life. I was pretty young, but I remember him telling me stories (he talked kinda wierd, a result of surgery for lip cancer, as I learned only later - it wasn't to be mentioned when he was around), and I remember his wife, Patty (his 3rd, - she pretty much was his nurse as well as his wife, in effect, anyway - I dunno if she really was a nurse, but she cared for him like one). I have a bit of Jim Thorpe memorabilia, including an old picture of a very young me standing infront of a group of adults, one of whom who was a very old-looking him, his arm around Patty - hadda be taken not long before he died, musta been Christmastime '52.

It was about a hundred years ago and I was attending college in the city of Sydney. I was running late and my first period was with a mean, dried out old biddy who made life miserable for anyone who "crossed" her. I was hurrying through a huge park in the middle of the city - quite stressed, as I was already in her bad books.

It was one of those magical mornings - early fog, gradually lifting, rays of sunshine filtering through the trees, dew glistening on the grass in the luminescent glow and not a soul about except for me - quite eerie.

A figure emerged from the mist ahead of me, a tall, well-dressed man, slowly sauntering along the path in my direction. As he neared me, he raised his hat, nodded slowly and smiled, saying -

"Don't waste this wonderful morning by rushing it, Miss. Just slow down, take a deep breath and enjoy it, there will never be another one just like it."

He then replaced his hat and continued on his way.

I was stunned. It was Gregory Peck, in Oz to film "On the Beach".
What a beautiful man!

Yes, JLN, I was totally awed by the incident. At that time Hollywood was not just thousands of miles from Australia - it was millions of miles away - another planet, and movie stars were like gods. It was as if one of the gods had come down from the heavens and spoken to ME, a naive, introverted young teenager (as most teens were in Oz in those days)!

Years later I was working in Belgrade and, as a member of the American Club, was invited, in the weekly newsletter, to "come along and meet our special guests from Hollywood, (XX) and (YY)." (As one is still living I will not mention names.) "They'd love to see you!" A friend and I went along.

No, we didn't get to meet them, nor did our American friends. The couple, from the moment they walked in the door, were surrounded by a phalanx of about 40 minders who rudely pushed club members aside as they made their way to the dining room. Some of the minders then proceeded to escort all of the other diners out of the room so that the celebs could have thier meal in private. My friend and I were watching all this from the top of the stairs. We were disgusted because the expat community was so small there was no way these "stars" were going to be mobbed. I very much got the impression this was a carefully staged scenario. I for one was turned off the pair for life - and I used to think the male half was fantastic.

I still take a deep breath and enjoy glorious mornings whenever I can.

Who is Stevie Ray Vaughn?
Do you know Levant and Boyer were? I suspect a generational divide here.

Well, Gregory Peck. That's something else, isn't it?
That's like the two times I met Aldous Huxley. Something larger than life.

I was cycling home but got off as a downtown cafe or tavern had been bordered up for a filming. There were two or three crew members standing around. I asked what was being filmed and a young, red haired girl, 14 or 15, started explaining everything to me. She was very intelligent. I thought she must be the director or the producer's daughter. I didn't see movies as much as I used to so on watching those celeb tv shows I realized it was Lindsay Lohan. But, of course, I am not absolutely sure.

I was working as an elevator operator in NYC on a summer job. They were filming Elaine May's movie in the hotel. Also, I was tipped by the other operator that a bearded Warren Beatty moved in. He did come to my elevator and was quite friendly. The one afternoon a young blonde girl in a 7-inch pony tail in sandals and summer dress walks into my elevator. She seemed familiar so I carefully looked at her. I was stunned and said: 'You are Julie Christie!'. She smiled back and said that she was and took her to Warren Beatty's floor at 34. Without the big hair, she looked different.

Oh, I did see Charmian Carr who played Liesl Von Trapp in 'The Sound of Music' in one of her book tours. She certainly changed a lot.

In my college years, I worked in a drugstore in the downtown core. Because it was open 24 hours a day when very little else was, because of it's location, because I usually worked the night shifts to accommodate my classes, I got to see many political, sports and entertainment celebrities - at their most down-to-earth time. After a performance, they're tired but still have some adrenalin pumping. They could send a lackey for the mouthwash, I'm sure, but it's amazing how many of them do it themselves. Perhaps it's a way to relax.

The store also had a problem with theft by "rubbies" - what we called the homeless then, and based on their propensity to drink rubbing alcohol. The day before, we had a lecture by the store manager on the need to keep these under control.

Karen, my co-worker, had just gone on her break. She was a little bitchy this night because Rod Stewart was in town and she couldn't afford the concert tickets. She was a huge fan. In the convex security mirror, I could see a scruffy-haired guy in a black trench coat (a definite warning sign of a possible thief) meandering the aisles with the purpose-driven aimlessness of an insomniac. (24/7 retail is a great place to practice amateur psychology.) He had picked out a toothbrush and paste, and had spent time looking at but rejected all the hair products. He was heading for the shaving products.

I ran to the back room and called Karen. I said that there was a trench coat in Aisle 5, with its' alcohol-laden aftershaves. (Well I don't actually talk like that, but you get the idea.) She suggested that we split and approach him from opposite ends of the aisle. She reached him first, because I was moving very slowly now, and tapped him on the back of the shoulder, saying "Hey you…!" Startled, he whirled around, and Karen came nose to nose with Rod Stewart. A moment of stunned silence and then she screeched, really the most ungodly noise, and ran.

I went back to the cash register. When he came to pay, we didn't say a word. Most people don't talk much at 3 a.m. But he looked at me with intent, and I just shrugged and smiled as devilishly as I could. Rod winked, signed his name on a paper scrap and left.

I gave the autograph to Karen. She was still sobbing in the back room.

Hilarious. I love the Rod Stewart story.

Agree re Rod; best one yet!

A few famous Canadians:
Bryan Adams. Pamela Anderson, Paul Anka, Jann Arden, Dan Aykroyd, Margaret Atwood, Donovan Bailey, Conrad Bain, Robert Bateman, Gil Bellows, Conrad Black, Rachel Blanchard, Kurt Browning, Genevieve Bujold, Raymond Burr, James Cameron, Neve Campbell, John Candy, Tantoo Cardinal, Emily Carr, Jim Carrey, Kim Cattral, Thomas Chong, Bruce Cockburn, Leonard Cohen, David Cronenberg, Hume Croyn, James Doohan, Colleen Dewhurst, Celine Dion, Linda Evangelista, David Foley, Megan Fellows, Glenn Ford, Michael J. Fox, Marc Garneau, Bruno Gerussi, Scott Goodyear, Graham Greene, Lorne Greene, Paul Gross, Monty Hall, Alan Hamel, Phil Hartman, Doug Henning, Ferguson Jenkins, Norman Jewison, Margot Kidder, Eugene Levy, Gordon Lightfoot, Art Linkletter, Rich Little, Howie Mandel, Andrea Martin, John McCrea, Lorne Michaels, Rick Moranis, Farley Mowat, Mike Myers, Kate Nelligan, Leslie Nielson, Catherine O'Hara, Brian Orser, Matthew Perry, Mary Pickford, Walter Pidgeon, Gorden Pinsent, Christopher Plummer, Jason Priestley, Keanu Reeves, Paul Schaffer, Monika Schnarre, William Shatner
Helen Shaver, Martin Short, Frank Shuster, Jay Silverheels, Marc Singer, Steve Smith, David Steinberg, Elvis Stoyko, Donald Sutherland, Alan Thicke, Dave Thomas, Scott Thompson, Jennifer Tilly, Meg Tilly, Alex Trebek, Shannon Tweed, John Vernon, Gilles Villeneuve, Jacques Villeneuve, Johnny Wayne, Al Waxman, Fay Wray, Neil Young, Kevin Zegers

You Canadians may have Rich Little, but us Americans has got Little Richard.

Sure, but Rich Little can sound like Little Richard. Can Little Richard sound like Rich Little?

He possibly can when imitating Rich Little imitating Little Richard.

Yeah, but Rich Little sounds more like Little Richard when Little Richard is singing like Little Richard.

He can't dress as well as Little Richard. That's important, too.

with a little more work, you guyw could take that routine on the roadjavascript:emoticon('')
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ON CONCORDE

The most famous Canadian in my book is J Tuzo Wilson, hes the originator of the "Theory" of Plate tectonics. Oh sure, a German weatherman had a seminal ideaw that continents were possibly joined because their margins matched , but that idea had many fathers and even the name Gondwana Land was posed by Suess in 1881.
Wilson and another Canadian were sitting around, quaffing beverages when Wilson proposed his theory.
I met him at a seminar in 1976 and he was drunk , so we had a great time telling Newfie jokes.

I met Andy Divine on an elevator as a kid. He gave me an autograph.

I met Jimmy Carter at an event and was interviewed beforehand as to protocol

I saw Richard Cren.na in an Artshop in Maine and we discussed work by an artist we collected and (so did he)

I met Robert Bateman in the Explorers Hall of the SMithsonian

Governors dont count as famous people.

I met , in academic meetings or committees, Richard Feynman, John Rodgers, Richard Zaire, Neil Armstrong, Sally Ride, Stephen Jay Gould, Niles Eldredge, David Raup, and (geologist author) Simon Winchester.(Mark Bowden is one of my neighbors , so he doesnt count),EO Wilson, and Mike Behe. Ive been in a debate featuring Duane Gish and didnt lose (didnt win either)
And, most moving to me, I met Muhammed Ali (he was already suffering from Parkinsons but he still had a sparkle in his eye and an attenuated but ever present, wit)

Ive seen Andy Wyeth so many times and talked to him only once at a diner he frequented. I met his son Jamie in a store on Monhegan Island Me. And was totally blown away by the wit (and missing parts) of glass artist Dale Chihully.

Also, in regina, I met an old TV naturalist named JOHN ACORN, he was a real treat for my kids (and me cause he was a naturalist who kept a sense of humor)
Some others in government might tend to incriminate me. However I did work for a lawyer on a big mining claim case. This lawyer was, in the 60's a one term Senator from MAryland and whose father was in the Roosevelt administration. This guy had a picture of himself as a kid sitting on Churchills lap, and signed autographs to him from the likes of JFK, Everett Derksin, and Nixon. Talk about degrees of separation.

Farmerman has jogged my memory. Made me recall the time I came face to face with Senator John Tower, at a VFW function. I had seen him several years earlier, when he spoke at a Goldwater for president rally, along with John Wayne and Ronald Reagan. Tower was a little dickens. At the gathering, I became separated from my people out on the park grounds. I turned to look for them, but there was no one in sight, but this one little shrimp of a guy, who spotted me simultaneously. He immediately headed straight for me, being a politician that never wanted to miss a vote. My politics had changed, in the meantime, from the Goldwater days, and I turned my back on him and walked off. He took the hint and went back in the hall.

on this threadi listed a few brushes i've had over the years...

a couple others --

i was walking down broadway @ 116th street one day and saw former NBA point guard mark jackson, who was a rookie with the knicks that year, heading straight for me
i said "hey, mark."
he said "hey, what's up", or something to that affect...

and i went to high school with (we were in the same homeroom as a matter of fact) the drummer of the group Luscious Jackson...

there may be one or two others -- will joggle my memory to see if i can remember any...