When I was about ten, our family waited at the airport for Dad to get in from a work-related trip to the East Coast. Senator Barry Goldwater came out of the same airplane, to our surprise. My brother yelled out, "Hi Barry!" but did not get any visible reaction from the senator. Dad told us, "I knew he was on the plane, but he sat up in first class."
When I was in my early thirties I paused in my vehicle to let someone come out of a parking lot in her fancy car. She looked like Martina Navratilova, and in fact there was a tennis tournament in town that week-- so I'm sticking to my story.😵
Of course if we count sports venues, I've seen Wilt Chamberlain, Johnny Bench and Randy Johnson. And then there was old Bob Dylan performing on stage, and at other times Nancy Sinatra and the Pointer Sisters. But that's a bit different because it doesn't have the surprise factor, not to mention you are pretty far away from the person.
On the day he applied for college, Isaac Asimov went with his father to a museum in New York City, and there was Albert Einstein looking at the artwork.
What are your experiences seeing the famous, and maybe even shaking a hand?
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In plane from Belgrade to Munich, I was together with famous Belgradian fashondesigner (she continued for Miami), and Spanish basketball team fom Euroleague (I had to ggodle them out now in my Amsterdam hotel to find out who they are.)
I saw Serbian Prime minister at the funeral of Gligoric, but there were a lot of body guards.
I met NBA player John Wallace, who played for the Knicks and had his own sneaker. Someone at a church I went to said that he was able to get him to talk to the youth. I responded ''There's no way John Wallace would be anywhere near Rochester'', because it's a boring city. At that moment, John steps out of this huge black SUV, looks at me and says ''What are you talking about? I grew up here.''
Originally posted by lolofI had close encounters with Jamie Cromwell, Ed Asner and Redmond Gleason but it was in a professional capacity, my band played on the Lou Grant show and James' first real gig was at the Onion company theater in Hollywood, now defunct playhouse, playing the lead in a Brendan Behan play, The Hostage. James came over to my apartment several times to record his voice, I had a home recording studio. I did run into him in public once in Venice Beach, my band had a gig on a beachfront restaurant and he popped in and said hi.
Opera singer Kiri Te Kanawa once in Notting Hill, London many years ago.
If you don't know who James Cromwell is, he was the tall lanky farmer in that old movie starring the pig in 'Babe'.
He was also the scientist who invented the warp drive on star trek, he got that gig directly as a result of the Hostage play, which played 4 days a week for 5 months running. My band played off stage when the singing started, about 20 songs in that play.
There were a LOT of stars attending that play, including several from Star Trek. Nice guys, all of them.
Ed Asner personally hired my band Southwind Irish Band, to play at his wrap party, that was a blast, great party! We got three paychecks for that TV gig, because our sound was used in the sound track, live on a fake stage and in the credits. The episode was called Guns, it was to play on St. Patricks day 1980, so they wrote in an IRA gunrunning episode.
As a result of that gig, we (Southwind) were actually contacted by serious members of the IRA.
It seems they wanted us to be the official IRA spokesperson band to play all over the UK.
We politely turned them down. Have been curious from time to time what would have happened had we taken them up on the offer🙂
If anyone here has heard of Pete Seeger, I played onstage just before him once. Also met Peter Yarrow who had a couple of kids of a friend I won't name, was over to her house a lot.
We attended a music course together at Santa Monica College. Nobody else in the class knew it was Peter, he told me not to mention his name for obvious reasons.
Originally posted by sonhouseI'd say you, sonhouse, qualify as a celebrity in your own right. 🙂
I had close encounters with Jamie Cromwell, Ed Asner and Redmond Gleason but it was in a professional capacity, my band played on the Lou Grant show and James' first real gig was at the Onion company theater in Hollywood, now defunct playhouse, playing the lead in a Brendan Behan play, The Hostage. James came over to my apartment several times to record his ...[text shortened]... ody else in the class knew it was Peter, he told me not to mention his name for obvious reasons.
Three, in chronological order.
1984-ish. Worked at The Onion Bar and Grille, Spokane, WA, just out of the Army. Warner Brothers are in town filming a coming-of-age wrestling movie, "Vision Quest," and opt to use the restaurant for a few bar scenes.
In her first movie role (as Singer at Club, no less!), Madonna on the little makeshift stage across the bar. She really wasn't Madonna-famous yet, with only a few hits out, and Like a Virgin starting to get serious airplay on MTV.
We did not date.
1992-ish. Standing in line for Bruce Cockburn's "Nothing But a Burning Light" tour, right behind (thought I was going to pass out from not gushing how much of a fan I was), none other than Joni Mitchell. Two or three people behind us, three nimrods are loudly wondering if she was Joan Baez or Linda Ronstadt or some such--- essentially mocking her and her companion (pretty sure it was Larry Klein).
So Bruce's producer comes by and tells Joni not to wait in line, since they have her tickets at will-call.
She gets out of line to go there, but no dice.
Starts walking the long line of shame to the now blocks-long end, the jack-a-lopes howling.
I stop her to let her back in front of me, to her great appreciation.
Waiting for just the moment to start my gush, producer comes back out and personally walks her in.
I'm in balcony watching the concert, see the back of her head up near the front.
2000. Play league ball with a guy from work who went to school with Patrick Ewing. Ewing gets traded to the Seattle Supersonics, we get invited to watch them practice. Seven feet is waaaaay up there, but I gotta tell ya: smallest hands on a big man ever.