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Yukon 
"Co-editor of FWFR book"
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 Posted - 02/06/2008 : 03:54:33
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Chocolate Lady's story in the FYC about her run-in with Bob Marley on a train had me wondering about other people's brushes with Hollywood celebrities.
Anyone else have any interesting stories?
Here's mine.
When I'm not writing on FWFR, I'm a newspaper editor/reporter.
Back when I was in university taking journalism courses, guess who was the very first person I ever interviewed in my life for an article? It wasn't the winner of the local pie contest or some school administrators for a story about cafeteria food.
Nope, I talked to Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh of Traffic and Ocean's 11, 12 and 13.
It was for my campus newspaper back in 1997 or 1998. I had never actually written a "real journalism article" -- I only wrote humour columns and movie reviews. I saw an advance screening of Soderbergh's film Kafka. The publicity people then called up our campus paper and said Soderbergh was coming to Toronto and we could do an interview with him.
Because I was the only one to have seen the movie and was completely unqualified, my editors made me do it.
I went to his hotel room, was scared shitless, asked a bunch of simple basic questions (mostly about trying to emerge from the shadow of his previous, debut film Sex Lies and Videotape). Fortunately he was a real pro and gave me lots of interesting answers and it turned out to be a good story.
Ironically, I no longer live in Toronto and work at a newspaper far away from any celebrities. So now I interview winners of local pie contest and school administrators for stories about cafeteria food.
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Edited by - Yukon on 02/06/2008 14:48:29 |
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GHcool 
"Forever a curious character."
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Posted - 02/06/2008 : 05:56:38
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I live in Los Angeles and work in the film/tv industry, so I've got too many to count and don't feel comfortable writing about some of the juicier ones on the Internet for fear of reprisal. 
The famous person I had the most contact with is John Landis, the writer-director-producer of Blues Brothers and Animal House. I was good friends with John's son, Max, in grade school and I give a lot of credit to John for supporting my love of films. Max and I both enjoyed watching movies and John would sometimes watch them with us or at least suggest ones we should watch. John introduced me to the work of Monty Python, Mel Brooks, Joe Dante, the Marx Brothers, Ray Harryhausen, Hammer horror films, and many others. Once, John took Max and me to see my very first silent movie (with a full orchestra) at a revival screening (it was Show People directed by King Vidor and starring Marion Davies ... great film, btw). The best thing he did was introduce us to his own work and give a running commentary along with it (this was before DVDs with directors' commentaries). It was a hell of an education and it affected me deeply. |
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damalc
"last watched: Sausage Party"
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Posted - 02/06/2008 : 07:03:41
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Yukie, i knew there was a good reason we seemed to connect so well. i'm a journalist too, which has gotten me close to some famous people, mostly in sports -- Mike Tyson, Laila Ali, Rick Pitino.
the big one for me, that i didn't meet for work, was John Carpenter. i think i've shared this story here before.
i met him at a book fair and told him that i watched the original "Halloween" when i was about 11 or 12 years old, and didn't sleep well for weeks.
he looked at me, and his eyes said, "what terrible parents you must have. i did NOT make that movie for pre-adolescents."
i also got backstage at a Beastie Boys concert in the mid-80s. not nearly as wild as i had expected. |
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ChocolateLady
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 02/06/2008 : 09:23:33
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I actually have another train story. As my husband and I were moving from Chicago back to Israel in 1981, we took as many trains as possible. The first leg of our trip was Chicago to Salt Lake City, then from there to LA. On one leg of that journey two unaccompanied kids get on the train - turns out they are Chastity Bono and Elijah Blue Allman - Cher's kids, going to Las Vegas to meet their mom. At the time, Elijah Blue was 5 years old and Chastity 12, and while Chastity did everything in her power to keep her brother under wraps, Elijah Blue (well, that's how she called him) was a pain in the ass, and every unreasonable request (well, more like demand) of the train employees that was met with a "no" would start him shouting about who he was, and that these people can't treat him that way, and he'd get his mother to fire them. Funny thing was, poor Chastity kept telling him that Mom couldn't and wouldn't fire these people, that nobody cared who he was, and he was being a baby and should shut up already. One of the porters told Chastity at one point that if Elijah Blue didn't stop shouting and disturbing the other passengers, he would have to put them off the train. She appologized to the train staff profusely and kept telling them he'll fall asleep eventually - to which he kept replying that he heard her and he wasn't tired. Unfortunately, he was right and he only fell asleep about 30 minutes outside Vegas. I felt so sorry for the girl - only 12 and having to deal with that all by herself. What we (and the porters) couldn't understand was why there was no adult with them, and even so, why these two couldn't have gone into a private compartment. Go figure, but I certainly wouldn't commend Cher's parenting skills!
(Say, can I recount a good friend's brush with fame here as well?)
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Sal[Au]pian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 02/06/2008 : 10:12:48
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Another great story, C.L.! How touching of Chastity, and what a brat Elijah Blue (of whom I had never previously heard) was at only five. Strange indeed that a twelve-year-old was left to take a five-year-old all that way. Even on her own (and even if she didn't have famous parents, which would bring greater risk of trouble), it would be a bit much.
And yep, I'm all ears for your friend's story.
No good stories from me. The best famous person I've met was Sir Edmund Hillary, as I mentioned when he died, but that was just a nice experience without any juicy details. Other than that it's things of the order of being on a stag do recently with the brother of Charlie from Busted (former British boy band)! |
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Ali
"Those aren't pillows."
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Posted - 02/06/2008 : 10:23:24
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I used to go this gym in Chiswick, West London about four years ago. It was a small, dingy complex, situated on the second floor of a Georgian Arcade. The clientele was made up of young professionals, and not all that exciting. I am not into pumping iron (not the film; love the film - and love double negatives, too), so the only things I would do were cardiovascular crap like running, jumping, climbing trees; putting on make up while I was up there.
I was almost done on the running machine -- the last five minutes or so -- and, bored of the telly, I was just looking around, to see if I could spot any cheeky little ladies I could chat to afterwards (I must point out that until that time, I had spoken to, count 'em, zero women - or men - at the gym). Scanning the familiar faces with a sense of inevitable disappointment, my heart skipped a beat when I spotted an exquisite enchantress, a modern-day Venus, a lady most fair walking towards the treadmills. Following that instant of unadulterated awe, I suddenly realised that I recognised her from some place. Within a fraction of a moment, my thoughts proceeded thusly: "Do I know her from school, or from uni or was she in Durham during my masters - that's not it either - oh, I must have seen her at work... Wait."
"Isn't that Kate fucking Beckinsale?"
It was Kate fucking Beckinsale. And she was hot, hot, hot. Not only that, she was at my gym. And not only that, it was written in the stars that today was the day we were to meet, and live happily ever after. In a true Cinderella-via-Taxi-Driver kind of way. No one could turn down a hairy, sweaty, and thus, incredibly smelly, Turkish man. Ask Billy Hayes.
She had her personal trainer along, who was consulting her on what cardiovascular exercises she should do after a weights session. She got on a running machine across from mine; and there was absolutely no way I was getting off until she did (I would like to say not like that, you perverts, but we all know that's not true). Anyway, I decided to impress her with my running skills, so up went the gradient to something like ten degrees and the speed to 16km/h. Arduous and painful as it was, the natural high I was going through was too great to allow me to falter in my stationary quest. And things were about to get better.
She was doing that otherwise-hilarious-yet-on-her-incredibly-sexy power walking thing with the huffs and the puffs and the arms bent at right angles doing the robot. Not only that, but she was staring at me. Not in the nauseated way the other patrons glared at this malodorous, then-quite-heavy-set Sam Gamgee look-alike, but in that hello-I-love-you-won't-you-tell-me-your-name kind of way. Was it Christmas in July?
She got off the treadmill after about ten minutes, and I fostered the courage to introduce myself to her. I decided to quickly freshen up (I still can't believe I was thinking about it - you know, seriously thinking about it), so I went to the gents, but when I came back out, she was gone. Alas. I thought I try my chances the next time I saw her but that was not to be.
As I was walking over to the changing rooms, I saw the lovely Kate's personal trainer talking to one of the gym's own trainers. They seemed to be looking for something; "she must have left them here near the weights," the personal trainer said. The other man suddenly knelt down, picked something up and exclaimed in a way that would have made Sir Galahad proud: "There they are." Yes. It was a pair of glasses. But the final nail in the coffin was the personal trainer's painful (to me, at least) clarification: "She's absolutely blind without them."
Awesome. So there I was killing my heart, my legs, and my back, thinking I was being checked out by Kate Beckinsale, when all the time, all her myopic eyes could register was a big hirsute blur, kind of like a real-life Big Foot, but without the panache and the refinement. It's such a sorry memory.
Funny epitaph to the story: A couple of weeks afterwards, as I was coming out of the gym, someone asked me the time, and it was Kate Beckinsale (again sans glasses). I quickly indulged her (I know, I know), and went my way (to cry into my pillow, obviously). Not surprisingly, that is the only part of the story I tell at parties.
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I have met all sorts of other people, too, including The Queen, and I will get to them soon, hopefully.
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Edited by - Ali on 02/06/2008 11:00:42 |
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Sal[Au]pian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 02/06/2008 : 12:01:17
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I forgot that I've also met Yann Martel. He's a real tosser. The B.B.C. was filming some episodes of The Readers and Writers Roadshow in my college's library. He wanted to check his e-mail and asked (demanded) to use a computer in my office. He was just really unfriendly and ungrateful, and paranoid about people being able to log into his e-mail afterwards - doesn't he know how to log out?!
Owen Wilson looked me straight in the eye and smiled once. (It wasn't a generic celebrity smile where everyone thinks they are smiling at them, as I was looking through a gap between two hordings and so he couldn't have seen anyone else.) His photo on Wikipedia is from the same occasion. Not a claim to fame, I know, but it made my day (or more like week). I even kept one of the hordings (posters of You, Me and Dupree) as a souvenir and have it up in my flat. |
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ChocolateLady
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 02/06/2008 : 12:14:47
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A good friend of ours goes to New York during the Jewish High Holidays to sing as a cantor. She has some pretty wealthy friends there and they have been known to lend her their (swanky) apartment while she's there. A few years ago she was just arriving from the airport, tired and dirty, when she sees some VIP's entourage at the entrance. Someone tried to stop her from entering the building saying "don't you know who he is?", to which her (very typical Israeli) reply was "doesn't he know who I am?"! The famous person heard this and approached her and it was none other than Antonio Bandaras, who appologized for his person's rudeness and invited her to come by his apartment whenever she wanted. He then made his people take all his things out of the elevator then made that rude guy carry all her luggage to her apartment, and then made him go out and buy her a fancy breakfast and have it sent up to her apartment. He was a total gentleman, albeit a bit depressed when Melanie wasn't there with him. Anyway, they all became friends, and always meet up if they're in New York at the same time.
(I think I already told you guys the story about Placido Domingo and my father. Did I also tell you guys about my connection to Nicolas Cage's character in Matchstick Men?)
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Edited by - ChocolateLady on 02/06/2008 12:17:19 |
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rockfsh 
"Laugh, Love, Cheer"
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Posted - 02/06/2008 : 16:12:11
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I was a student host in college for John Denver and radical organizer Saul Alinsky. At Clinton's second inaugural at an Arkansas dinner I was seated next to June Lockhart. Also on the same table was reporter Sarah McClendon and Richard Kelley, Clinton's step father. In New Orleans I met Chess Master Jude Acers who lived in San Francisco with Janis Joplin. Acers told me that Joplin first seduced him by presenting herself to him naked while he was analyzing a chess game and told him, "What are you playing with those things for, here I am."  |
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duh 
"catpurrs"
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Posted - 02/06/2008 : 16:47:12
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quote:
Originally posted by ChocolateLady
I actually have another train story. As my husband and I were moving from Chicago back to Israel in 1981, we took as many trains as possible. The first leg of our trip was Chicago to Salt Lake City, then from there to LA. On one leg of that journey two unaccompanied kids get on the train - turns out they are Chastity Bono and Elijah Blue Allman - Cher's kids, going to Las Vegas to meet their mom. At the time, Elijah Blue was 5 years old and Chastity 12, and while Chastity did everything in her power to keep her brother under wraps, Elijah Blue (well, that's how she called him) was a pain in the ass, and every unreasonable request (well, more like demand) of the train employees that was met with a "no" would start him shouting about who he was, and that these people can't treat him that way, and he'd get his mother to fire them. Funny thing was, poor Chastity kept telling him that Mom couldn't and wouldn't fire these people, that nobody cared who he was, and he was being a baby and should shut up already. One of the porters told Chastity at one point that if Elijah Blue didn't stop shouting and disturbing the other passengers, he would have to put them off the train. She appologized to the train staff profusely and kept telling them he'll fall asleep eventually - to which he kept replying that he heard her and he wasn't tired. Unfortunately, he was right and he only fell asleep about 30 minutes outside Vegas. I felt so sorry for the girl - only 12 and having to deal with that all by herself. What we (and the porters) couldn't understand was why there was no adult with them, and even so, why these two couldn't have gone into a private compartment. Go figure, but I certainly wouldn't commend Cher's parenting skills!
(Say, can I recount a good friend's brush with fame here as well?)
Geez, Chastity was cheated out of her childhood. How sad. I always figured, it was no wonder that Cher's daughter would turn out to be a lesbian. Not that there's anything wrong with that, bless her heart. |
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silly
"That rabbit's DYNAMITE."
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Posted - 02/06/2008 : 17:57:44
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What a cool thread! Thanks for sharing, y'all.
(I once delivered flowers to Tony Dorsett's wife. She was purty. He wasn't home, but nice house).
Yeah, that's all I have. 
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Edited by - silly on 02/06/2008 18:00:37 |
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turrell
"Ohhhh Ohhhh Ohhhh Ohhhh "
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Posted - 02/06/2008 : 17:58:47
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I used to go to church with the following regular attendees:
Arnold Scwarzenegger and Maria Shriver, Gregory Hines (RIP), Nicole Kidman, and Martin Sheen. Plus loads of other lesser knowns. It was church so we let them do their thing. |
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Downtown
"Welcome back, Billy Buck"
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Posted - 02/06/2008 : 18:24:37
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Well I once lit a cigarette for Richard Belzer when I was living in New York.
I was walking through Midtown and I guess they were between shoots on S.V.U., and he was there on the sidewalk with a cig in his mouth feeling at all his pockets (presumably looking for a lighter), so I stopped and whipped out my Zippo and gave him a light. He said "thanks," I said, "no problem, by the way I loved your Mick Jagger impression on The Tonight Show," and then I kept walking (no time to chat, I was on my way to a job interview).
But I never really thought it was a life-changing event...that's just life in the NYC, you see celebrities like that all the time just doing "stuff" on the street, and you're supposed to act like it's no big deal. I think that's the difference between NYC celebs and LA celebs. LA celebs want to be seen and followed by screaming fans and cameras as they go from one exclusive nightclub to another, with bodyguards fending people off and such...NYC celebs just want to blend into the crowd and be New Yorkers! I once found myself three tables away from Bob DeNiro at a restaurant. |
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Sal[Au]pian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 02/06/2008 : 20:09:43
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Yep, we see them pretty often in the street here too, and I would never say anything to them, though I might look them in the face. As well as central London, in Richmond where I used to work there would be the Rolling Stones, Richard E. Grant. My hero David Attenborough also lives there (as does Richard) and I've seen him too, but at a talk/book signing, so it doesn't count.
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damalc
"last watched: Sausage Party"
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Posted - 02/06/2008 : 20:46:20
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i got one more.
i was staying in a hotel in Detroit, and from the main entrance, you could see a banner several stories tall hanging on the side of a building. the banner was promoting a show that was playing featuring tap dancer Savion Glover.
i was in the hotel elevator and two guys got on _ one, a light-skinned black guy with dreadlocks, dressed pretty casually, and the other, dressed more professionally. on a chain around his neck, the well-dressed guy was wearing an all-access pass to the show. before my brain was engaged, my mouth said to dreadlock guy, "oh shit, you're Savion Glover."
"yeah."
i introduced myself. "i loved (recent, at the time, tv special he did that i can't recall now)."
he grinned. "for real? thanks."
very cool.
quick hits - Lennox Lewis, Jim Carrey, Darius Rucker at the Ali Center opening celebration. Jermaine Dupree, Spike Lee, John Lovitz at the Kentucky Derby. Treach from Naughty by Nature in a strip club. |
Edited by - damalc on 02/06/2008 20:47:38 |
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duh
"catpurrs"
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Posted - 02/06/2008 : 22:00:04
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As far as I know, I haven't crossed paths with anyone who could be considered a major celebrity. If I did, I would be only mildly amused about it and I would leave them alone. I think I mentioned before that one of my best friends taught Denzel Washington and Sean Astin how to drive tanks, but that he thought Meg Ryan was a snob and also possibly high much of the time.
Bill Murray was in my home town recently to deliver a brief address at the high school. We learned that his brother Bryan Doyle Murray is a resident here because his wife is a student of veterinary medicine at our world-renowned school of Veterinary Medicine.
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Brushes with fame
