Nicked from
Name the famous people you’ve met or seen at a close distance. Feel free to post this in your journal or to make comments in mine.
This is more or less in order of appearance.
– When I was 9, Dad and I went to see Bob Hope perform. It was *awful*. But I got to see Bob Hope perform. :)
– I failed to meet Kirk Cameron in an up-close-and-personal manner when I was 13 (at the height of his Growing Pains fame) due to chickening out at asking the really cute boy playing video games at the airport if there was some reason he looked familiar. Later the group of kids I was with mobbed him, so I’ve been in his presence, anyway.
– watched John Goodman play “Papa” in the Broadway production of Big River
– I spent an afternoon at Anne McCaffrey’s house just after my 20th birthday. Elizabeth Anne Scarborough was also there.
– *Directly* consequential of the Kirk Cameron incident, I introduced myself to Jim Byrnes (at another airport), making enough of an impression that he remembered me for the next several years.
– Stan Kirsch, who had a thing for
– Peter Wingfield‘s signed a pair of underwear for me
– went to a Douglas Adams lecture & had him sign a copy of HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE
– I’ve slow danced with Anthony DeLongis
– I’ve been hugged by James Marsters more than once, but not as well as
– spoke very briefly indeed with Amber Benson
– watched Hugh Jackman perform on Broadway the very first preview night of The Boy From Oz. He broke character at least once and almost fell off the stage in the final number. :)
– I gave Ron Glass a copy of URBAN SHAMAN. Wouldn’t he make a terrific Gary? O.O
– Ted and I had a totally embarrassing very giggly very funny fanboy moment when we walked into the I-CON guest suite and Carmen Argenziano was hanging out there.
– Brushed past Kevin Sorbo, who looked like a bit of a prima donna, if you want to know the truth.
– listened to George Takei give a speech
– JG Jones, comics artist and Louisiana boy, who has promised to cook us jambalaya someday
– authors are actually getting to the too many to list stage (buh). If I limit it to NYT bestsellers I’ve actually had at least brief conversations with, I believe it’s Jim Butcher, Steven Brust, Terry Brooks, Anne McCaffrey, and Joan Johnston. Oh! And Anne Perry! :)
That’s about everybody I can think of right now. Tom Cruise and Patrick Swayze have both stayed at a friend’s B&B, but I was neither the one who got locked into the video store so Cruise could look for a movie alone without being mobbed, nor the one who knocked on the door of the B&B, asked the man who answered if it was true Patrick Swayze was staying there, then shrieked and ran away in delight upon learning that the answer was yes, without actually realizing it was he who’d answered the door. :)
Ok, that was really actually a lot of fun!
I find it really amusing that you mention all the famous people you met at I-Con, while you’re going on my version of this meme as a famous person I met there.
See, your business card is right. You are a famous author. ;)
Hah, I have a sub-set of famous people that I keep track of…
*LAUGH* *turns pink* That’s cool. :)
Wow! I am more impressed with your skills making all those links and stuff than with the list – and the list is pretty impressive.
My list of actors is pretty long but the bigger celebs fall into the category of have seen at close quarters but not spoken to for the most part. Too tired to attempt it now though. Although the David MacCallam story is a good one.
I’m not gonna try this one because I’d undoubtedly forget to put down Tom Cruise and he’d hear about it and come and hunt me down and beat me with a baby stroller or something.
But I will just throw out some other locals, such as Burl Ives, Frank Herbert, Tom Robbins, Andrew Dolbek…
And I will mention yet again that I kissed Joan Baez. :)
I wonder whose list I’m on?
…and he’d hear about it and come and hunt me down and beat me with a baby stroller or something.
Nah, he’d just not invite you to the wedding.
Now, the rabid Scientologists… they’d come after you.
Nice list.
I don’t keep track of the writers (having met and partied with so many of them), but there have been some highlights, including a garden party in Cambridge with Prince Philip and being admitted to the Bachelor’s degree there by the Queen Mum (which involved physical contact, also kneeling). Actors I haven’t been exposed to much, except Mark Lenard, who was GoH at a convention with me and whom I met a time or two after that. Lovely man.
Do Spanish Riding School riders count? Them I’ve met individually and en masse. Kind of arcane for fangirl squeeage, but still.
I think royalty takes the cake for highlights. O.O How cool!
Defining famous turns out to be hard, doesn’t it? I think “famous within personal context” is a perfectly sensible way to go, which means arcane fangirl squeeage *definitely* counts. And besides, even if I don’t know names of Spanish Riding School riders, the very idea makes me go squee, so so if you’ve got envy-by-extension you’re on to something. Wow. I can’t even imagine getting the chance to *watch* them, much less meet them. Wow. Jellis, as I’ve taken to saying! :)
Well, the links were mostly just opening up an IMDB tab and typing in their names. All the photographs are my own, so it wasn’t like it was hard to find them. :)
Sometime you must tell the David MacCallam story! :)
I think I’m not going to play this game, as fun as it would be. :)
You know, I don’t think I’ve met any famous people. Well, Bob Casey, the former governor of Pennsylvania, in a photo op. when I was in 8th grade. But that’s it.
I haven’t even met you.
Oy vey.
Since you counted stage performances, I’ll put up: Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks. Actually, I’ve been in a reception with Avery Brooks, and said hi to him, so I guess that counts as more than just seeing him on stage. :) Oh yeah, and I saw Jonathan Frakes at a Trek Con I took my Dad to (because he’d been a lifelong fan, and never went to a con), but yeesh, that hardly counts.
Since you didn’t count music performances, I’ll skip those, except for Suzanne Vega, whom I first encountered at a book signing. The same goes for Yoko Kanno. I’ve also met Neil Gaiman at a number of signings.
I’ve run around lost in Georgetown with Mike Jittlov, and eaten dinner with Ray Bradbury.
I’ve met and spoken with many well-known game industry figures. Enumerating them all would be silly. The best known, I guess, would be John Romero. I’ve also seen Bill Gates, Marvin Minsky, John Carmack and many, many others speak at the GDC, too. I lose track.
I shook hands with former MD Governor Parris Glendenning. I ran into Patrick Leahy at a comedy show in DC.
I was friends in high school with Myla Goldburg (author of “Bee Season”) and David Braxton (producer of “America’s Most Wanted”). I went to the prom with the 12th richest person in the United States. I won’t list his name here, because he’s really good at searching. ;)
I know I’m probably forgetting some folks!