OT: Who is the biggest celebrity that you've met?
To keep OT season alive and well, I'd like to hear any humorous or intriguing stories from you all on who've you met, where, and how did it all go down.
For me, I have a few:
1. Pee'd next to Jeff Daniels at the Midland County Civic Arena when his son was on my counsin's Domino Farms hockey team. It was the mid-90's but even as a kid, all I could do is vision his scene in Dumb and Dumber when he was on the toilet. I really wanted him to reenact it.
2. Met Mr. T at a bar in Bay City when I was really young. Not sure why he was there, but he kept telling me to be respectful to my mother. Pretty sure he was drunk.
3. Wife and I met Joe Girardi outside Trump International in Chicago at a Starbucks. His daughter and my daughter played for like 3 minutes. I played it off like what was happening was competely normal.
Share away...
Goerge Foreman in an elevator, he is one nice but HUUUGE dude. One of the biggest humans beings I've ever seen. His hands are monstrous and his shoulders seemed as wide as the elevator.
SRV before a show. Also really nice guy from what I saw. He was chatting with 5-6 of us like we were friends.
Several NHLers including Fuhr, Kocur, Scotty Bowman.
for the rich and shameless (this is 30+ yrs ago). short list would be: prince, princess stephanie, rob lowe, chakka kahn, OJ, reggie theus, rodney dangerfield, mick fleetwood, stevie nix, gary busey, marcus allen, janet jackson, various hair band groups and on and on. most were pretty cool, yes even pre-murder OJ. reggie theus was a very good guy and mick fleetwood liked his booze. chakka kahn and i played drums at the club one morning until about 0500. she was as sweetheart.
and i'm leaving out all the michigan and local pro guys. my dad was a true old-timer and his friendships were really cool. start with gordie howe (uncle gordie) and joe schmidt, and go forward from there.
I've had a few over the years.
Walked past 'sheed at Cedar Point in 2012, would have said hi but he was on his cell.
Met all of Switchfoot in Texas 2014, it was a big multi band show at Texas Stadium and they just walked out carrying a table and set it up in the outer walkway, talked to them all for several minutes. Very down to earth.
Met Alan Trammel and Sparky (and a couple others I don't remember, but no other big names) at the old Hyatt Regency in downtown Flint back in the 80s when they stayed overnight there for some reason.
Checked in mateen cleaves at a hotel working 3rd shift. i acted like i didn't know who he was, asked for ID, held it up to him, double checked it, I could tell he was upset. :)
Met Tommy Chong at the Cannabis Cup in Denver in 2014, he was awesome.
Serious question: What rides would a guy as tall as Sheed be able to take? I'm on the tall end for a lot of them.
I worked there for a summer before and as far as I can remember, there's no height restriction for being too tall. It was pretty much up to the riders comfort. Now that was back almost 20 years ago so safety things may have changed it.
Same here haha, I discovered them around 04 and they have been my favorite since. I'll be seeing them in July for the 6th time, 4th time in Michigan :) they put on such a great show
Lindsey Vonn in Vail two Aprils ago, super nice and certainly looks like a fine tuned athlete.
Reggie Jackson (Pistons) was on the field for the Penn State game last year. Asked for a picture and came right over, he was also wearing a Desmond Howard jersey and a Tigers cap.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was in Kalamazoo for a book tour last March, definitely the tallest person I've ever met.
I sat in an airport chair knee-to-knee across from Tyson Chandler, who is way skinnier than he looks on tv. He wasn't interested in interacting with others but when he turned down selfie requests from other people (which I understood, since if he had said yes I would have asked for one) he was kind and polite about it.
I'm 6'5 and used to being the tallest guy in the room, so it was an experience.
Mike Babcock at a UM hockey game.
Darrell Hammond from SNL in NYC.
Mr. Hockey at The Joe doing a book signing.
But, back in the day (circa 1982) in Houston. TX, my wife ushered some guy named Clint Eastwood to his table. Somehow in the chit chat it came up that he hated those cigarillos and he couldn't stand ( was allergic to) horses.....She said there was a lot of excitement in the restaurant, and by the way who was this Eastwood guy? He was very charming...
The real question is if you wanted to do her...
several years back. One of those little 50-seat CRJs, so there was no first class, he was crammed in with the rest of us.
Talked for a couple minutes - did want to respect his own time & space - he was a genuinely nice guy.
Walked right between Jesse Martin and Dennis Farina on a NYC sidewalk. I was like, huh that's neat. Yup, they were taping an episode of Law and Order. I'm sure they had to film another take. Sorry guys.
Tom Selleck (during filming of the final episode of Magnum PI)
John McCain
David Robinson (total class act)
Bill Laimbeer (my mom was his realtor and my sister babysat his kids - used to get lots of free Pistons tickets)
Alan Shepard (first American in space) & Wally Schirra (another Mercury 7 astronaut) - I met both of them working out at the Naval Air Station (now Marine Corps Air Station) Miramar gym back in the '90s.
Speaking of astronauts - I met Jim Lovell at a luncheon where he was promoting his book, which was turned into the Tom Hanks' movie "Apollo 13." He seems like nothing more than a very nice, pleasant, older gentleman - until you remember that he faced death, spit in its eye, and said "Not today."
Jordan, Lemiuex and Ahmad Rashad at the same time. Generally I don't GAF about celebrity. Who cares.
dinner with Gordon Lightfoot - he is a childhood friend of my father. Stood in line at an airport with Jay Buhner - former Mariner outfielder and sat on a plane with Chris Berman on the way to Hawaii - all 3 are very nice guys
While I was in school I spent three years working admitting for L&D at a small-ish hospital in LA. Good L&D with great doctors meant that I encountered my fair share of celebrities, most of whose identities I am prevented by law from disclosing. I will say that most of the notable ones were co-stars on tv shows everyone would recognize. One or two were spouses of moms, others were moms.
But the biggest celebrity I've met was unquestionably Bruce Willis, who was neither a patient nor related to one, but happened to knock on the door to my lobby not realizing it was closed (it was about 10pm, I worked the second shift at the hospital). He was surprisingly short and was wearing a ball cap, so it took me a moment to realize who he was, but he asked directions to a place in the building and I gave them to him. He said, "thanks," and went on his way.
His chauffeur waited in the lobby.
I met Wiz Khalifa backstage after his concert. Participated in some post-show celebrations with him and his crew.
I met Urban Meyer at the Seagate Center in Toledo when he was the coach of the Gators.
I met the President after driving in his motorcade at U of M.
My mom grew up in his childhood home. Her family moved in about 10 years after his family moved out.
A close family friend was in D.C. during a high school civics class trip. Was able to meet with Pres. Ford in the oval office. He gave a picture of the house that my parents had to President Ford. It included a letter from my mom. Pres. Ford sent a personal letter back to my mom.
This is the picture on the website of the Ford Pres. Library in Ann Arbor:
http://www.ipl.org/div/potus/grford/house.html
The website says it's "ca 1923", but it's actually from the late 40's. It's the photo the real estate agent took when my grandparents were selling the home.
The chair on the porch is my grandma's.
Side note: The house went into disrepair in the 60's and 70's. It was purchased in the 80's and renovated. Ford came to visit the (current) owners who renovated the house. I've had a tour by those owners. It's beautiful inside. The house sits on the edge of GR's "Heritage Hill" neighborhood -featuring large older estates.
Sports: Desmond Howard, John Beilein, and Dikembe Mutombo
Journalism tier: Bob Ley, sportswriter William Nack
Religious people: Cardinal Timothy Dolan
Politicians: Former Argentina President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (when she was president), US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Ed Royce, Carl Levin, Debbie Stabenow.
And finally: Clarence B. Jones, who was Martin Luther King Jr.'s lawyer and advisor, who helped draft the first part of the "I Have a Dream" speech.
Leaned over to him while he was reading his phone, congratulated him on the knicks drafting of "bootstraps bazingas." He asked if I was lithuanian and I realized I should probably stop interrupting the mans dinner. This was the same restaurant I got to tell Sam Cassell how much I admired the big testicles dance. He seemed nice.
Depends upon your definition of "celebrity." The founder/head of one of the biggest companies in the world? That's pretty good.
Do you work for Amazon 4godkingandwolverines? Would love to sit at a table with mr. bezos. Not too likely for me at a lowly sortation center in Michigan!
Who?
I met her at the convent of the Missionaries of Charity in Washington DC in 1996. A main spiritual advisor for the order and a dear friend of our family, Fr. John Hardon, SJ (who has a cause for canonization himself), arranged for her to film for commercials for Right to Life of Michigan, and I was in-house counsel. She made it a point to speak to everyone in the room for a minute or so, and she gave each of us a handful of Miraculous Medals. Unforgettable experience.