Brushes with Celebrities anyone?

[bellweather]

Back when I lived in Manhattan and worked on the upper east side, while walking to work early one morning I saw Bill Cosby standing in front of his town house wearing a bathrobe, peel off some bills from a wad big enough to choke a horse, and hand the money to a limo driver as a drop-dead gorgeous blond quitely slipped into the back of the limo, then they drove off and Cos strode back into his abode. Guess the rich and famous do live different than the rest of us.

 

[Gary_in_Indiana]

John, lest there be any misunderstanding, I believe each and every one of these kids would be where they are if we'd never met. I think our associations were, if anything, more of a tribute to my ability to recruit than develop talent.

Now for the irony. I coach basketball, period. Probably the most famous athlete of all with whom I've had contact is just finishing his NFL career. He was a two sport All America in college and neither was basketball. I tease that I did such a good job with him in basketball that he now plays football for a living.

I also coached two brothers who went straight from HS to professional soccer contracts. One is now starting for the US World Cup team playing now (I believe he's the youngest player on the team). A couple played in the NBA last season. One in his first year and the other possibly in his last. More than a couple have played professional basketball overseas and in central and south America.

 

[Ozarker]

Chris Cristopherson almost stepped on my toe in Nuremberg back in 1987. I was stationed in Hanau and he was doing a concert in Nuremberg. I waited too long before I bought tickets and the local ticket agent sold out. So I decided to drive to Nuremberg to get the tickets a couple of days before the concert.

The tickets were on sale at the Country Club in Nuremberg. They had a mural in the stairwell of the cover of the Highwaymen album and when I got there, Christoperson was standing on a chair signing the mural. As I walked past him he stepped down and almost fell on me. He appoligized, shook my hand and went about his business.

I, of course, just stood there with my mouth hanging open in "fly catrching" position. I may have mumbled something incomprehensible but don't remember.

 

[DarelS]

Back when I used to play music for a living I met a few singers and such, like the Whites, Ricky Skaggs, and Emmylou Harris, who was very nice. Most of your "traditional" country music singers have memories of hard times when they started out, so they are very nice to younger musicians. I met Dennis Weaver at a recording studio party in Nashville once, very friendly guy, UNBELIEVABLY skinny. I once shook hands with then-Governor Bill Clinton at my then-brother-in-law's high school graduation.

In my current job I do a lot of radio interviews, mostly local arts-type figures, but also a few "celebrities". I just recently did an interview with Bill Wyman, former Rolling Stones bassist, about his new blues book (great book if you're into the blues by the way "Bill Wyman's Blues Oddysey"). He was a very funny guy, more talkative than you would have expected. Probably the highlight was about 4 years ago, I got to interview Jimmy Carter when one of his books came out. We had to go through the Secret Service checkout and everything. Carter was very sweet, flashed that famous smile. I did about a 30-minute live interview with him, then, since they didn't want to cart him all around town, he stayed in my studio and did phone interviews with other stations. So we hung out, drank cokes, ate peanuts (not my idea; I was very embarrased, but he really seemed to like them!) and talked for about four hours. A very VERY nice and sincere man, no matter what you may think about his term as President.

DarelS

 

[pajoube]

Back in the early 60's, Peter, Paul and Mary were not the big hit as yet and attended my university (U of Minn.) smoker and sang all night. In the mid 70's I was on a flight and there they were. Peter and Paul sat in the coach section and Mary was up front. Half way through the flight Peter and Paul came up front and entertained the passengers for over two hours. They played what they liked to play not the popular stuff they are known for.
A truly great group of people, interested in their music.
Most of my life seems to be spent on airplanes, have met some very nice people. Charles Krault, Peter Jennings are some of my favorites.
PJ

 

[pdxman]

When I was about 6 or 7, my family went on a camping trip in the Black Hills of South Dakota. We were meeting one of my Dads best buddies from the service and his family from Oklahoma. It was a camping trip I remember pretty well. My Dads friend and his famiy (wife, daughter, son) were very musical. Stanley Gill (the Dad) plucked the banjo pretty well and Vince played guitar at 13 like no one I ever heard before. Vince Gill has turned this into a full time job as it seems. My Dad kept in touch with Stanley on a regular basis until Stanley died a few years back. When Vince was touring the area, they'd give Stan a call and he'd work it out to see Vince and visit. They even spent some time with him on his tour bus and comment that although as famous of a singer he his, he is very humble and down to earth.

 

[Gary_in_Indiana]

I have a couple in the "celebrities before they were celebrities" mode. I got fixed up on a blind date with a girl from a small town nearby (Wabash, IN). We went out and it was OK. She was a nice enough gal but our music tastes were very different (a big thing in HS) and she lived almost an hour away (again, a tremendous distance in HS). I swear the only reason I even remembered her was the fact she had the longest hair I'd ever seen. Her name was Crystal Gayle.

Also, I went to HS with Sharon Gabet, who went on to be a regular on two or three different soap operas in the seventies and eighties. I'm thinking Edge of Night was one of them. Really cast against type. An incredibly nice girl, she was always the evil, manipulative vixen character on the soaps. She now does speaking engagements and just had her autobiography published.

 

[micromike]

A couple years ago I was in Kroger in Morgantown WV. Doing my shoping I noticed a guy wearing sun glasses who vaugely resembled Harison Ford. Didn't think anything of it until I read in the paper the next day that he had indeed landed at our little airport in his personal helicopter due to bad weather. He had to hang around several hours and had borrowed the aircraft mechanics vehicle to pick up a few things at Kroger!

Many years ago when I was in college I used to watch Mclean Stevenson as the General (his screen name Henry but the last name slips my mind right now) on MASH. One evening about 7pm I was leaving my dorm at Illinois State University and he was standing right there in the lobby of my dorm! As it turns out his niece went to ISU and he was picking her up to take her out to dinner. I knew he was from Bloomington Ill. because he frequently made jokes about Bloomington in his comedy dialogs.

One night on Johnny Carson, he said he knew many of the people from Bloomington were watching. He told everyone to..., at the next commericial break, to go to their bathroom and flush their toilets. He said he bet if everyone did it at the same time we could get Lake Bloomington to drop two inches!

I also met Pete Seger, a famous folk singer from the 60's. He wrote "Where have all the Flowers Gone", Blowin in the Wind , If I had hammer, and many other famous songs. He was billed as one of the singers at a rather small Appalachian Song fest fund raiser in Kentucky back in the early 80's. I was walking on an old dirt road on the several hundred acre "retreat" area where the fund raiser was being held. I came upon an older man standing at a fence talking to some cows. He chatted a bit about the cows and I walked on. It didn't occur to me until later it was Pete. The next moring at the breakfast building we sat at the same table and talked again. He is a very kind and gentle man.

 

[Gary_in_Indiana]

<font color=blue>"I used to watch Mclean Stevenson as the General (his screen name Henry but the last name slips my mind right now) on MASH."</font color=blue>

Lt. Colonel Henry Blake