<p>H and I were at the Louvre in Paris during our honeymoon (that we finally went on five years after the wedding!) While walking between exhibits, an usher abruptly whisked us and the rest of the crowd to the side, and Prince Charles walks right past us. I got excited, thinking Diana would be with him, but they were already on the outs at the time I am sure…</p>
<p>DD was (briefly) so close to Paul McCartney that she could have touched him at her college graduation (he was receiving an honorary degree and was near the kids while they lined up to enter - friendly and joking with them.) I think a lot of people in the audience (myself included) were pretty excited to be that close to one of the Fab Four.</p>
<p>I was walking on a bike path when I heard this voice behind me. I thought, The voice sounds like “Robert Redford”. So as he passed me, I took a look and it was. He had a nice voice and he looked good.</p>
<p>After that, I saw him many times. I used to call my wife and told her if she came down to the bike path, Robert Redford would run into her. She never did.</p>
<p>It’s funny. When you watch shows like ET, you get the idea that a celebrity can’t go outside without being followed by groupies. I saw Robert Redford many times and never saw one person bother him. </p>
<p>Michael Bolton played volleyball on a beach in Hawaii. My kids would retrieve the volleyball for him. He was very nice. At the same beach I saw Sylvester Stallone with a gorgeous woman. Just gorgeous.</p>
<p>Andre Agassi is a really nice guy.</p>
<p>I missed Paul McCartney because it was open school night for my daughters 3rd grade class!</p>
<p>Husband was at a fundraiser and Paul and his wife (the second, nasty one) were being honored. Hubby and friend (who happens to be from the same town as Paul) were at the bar talking when Paul hears the accent and comes over to spend the rest of the cocktail hour with a hometown compadre! Husband said he was really nice and quite intelligent. I was sitting a mini chair learning about creative learning.</p>
<p>My SIL also met Jimmy Stewart and found him to be charming. As a young child, Gene Kelly danced for her and her sister when he was looking to buy a house they were renting.</p>
<p>I sat next to Maria Shriver in a resaturant in Rockefeller Center. We were seated on the same banquette with tables in front of each other. She was with her kids. She seemed as nice as could be and the kids were very well-behaved. Here’s where I get myself into trouble: she was so skeletally thin and her bone structure is so pronounced that she is actually very unattractive in person.</p>
<p>On a rainy Sunday in NYC, DH and & were at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We were in some distant gallery away from the crowds and found ourselves alone with Woody Allen and Soon Yee and their 2 kids. Woody carried one, stood in front of paintings and talked about them to the puzzled-looking toddler. Soon Yee carried the other and looked at seemingly everything but art. In fact, she looked bored. He looked like a flasher.</p>
<p>I grew up in a small rural town which happened to be the county seat. In those days, who ever had the nicest car got to drive 60 miles to the nearest airport and pick up the “celebrity” for the county fair grandstand show. One year our car was chosen (A 1966 Pontiac Catalina) So my dad got to pick up Loretta Lynn (I Never Promised You a Rose Garden). </p>
<p>A few years ago H and I were in a restaurant in Austria and we were suddenly told (along with other couples) that we had to finish our meal in the bar area. Al Gore had decided to dine at this location and he wanted privacy.</p>
<p>Nearly 40 years ago, I was sitting in a bar in Rome with Clint Eastwood.</p>
<p>Years ago, one of my roommates invited Bob Clampett and his wife Sody back to our house after a lecture. He was one of those funny,larger than life type characters and his wife was cool too. He stayed for hours and at one point joked with me that he thought his son would like me. Of course, I never met the son but thought that was funny. This is making me want to try to dig up some old pictures of that!</p>
<p>We met Paul McCartney at a private concert that he (with his then wife) Heather Mills) put together for a charity. He performed for an hour. Fantastic. </p>
<p>Mimk: You are younger than I am, but were at the reception for the Beatles when they first came to LA? I was YOUNG…but omg what a memory! One of my friends actually curtseyed when she met them. I just stared into their eyes. Oh, to have been several years older!</p>
<p>We met Jimmy Stewart after his wife Gloria died. There was an air of privacy and melancholy about him. But he always smiled at my kids.</p>
<p>Ellebud, I wasn’t there. What a nice memory. </p>
<p>Two of my in-laws, on two separate occasions, met Robin Williams. He was very funny and “Robin” in person, my SIL found him to be quite enjoyable. They were both at a park with kids. I am personally holding out for a George Clooney sighting.</p>
<p>were all of you at the same fundraiser with Paul McCartney??? there are alot of you…</p>
<p>Mikhail Baryshnikov in Greenwich Village, picked my chin up. He, I swear, floated.</p>
<p>dg5052-I think H is from your neighborhood!</p>
<p>H believes he was seen by Elvis. He lived a block away from where Priscilla went to high school. So he thinks it is possible that Elvis saw him on the street sometime when he was picking her up. (If you knew H, you’d understand that “Elvis saw Me” rather than “I saw Elvis” is SO his attitude.) Once for Christmas I gave H a framed, autographed (by me, but I looked up Elvis’ signature on line and tried to copy it) picture of Elvis. It said “XXXX, it was great seeing you again–Tell your mama I said, ‘Hi!’ Elvis” He used to have it at his office and it impressed quite a few people ;)</p>
<p>I saw Barbra Streisand in a museum in Amsterdam back in the 80s. She asked my friend and me a question like, “Do you speak English? Is this the whatever. . .” and we said “Yes. Yes.” Then, after she walked away (she was with a man) my friend and I said to each other, “OMG–that was B.S.!”</p>
<p>In the late 80’s, I worked in an office with Dustin Hoffman’s first cousin. He looked very much like Dustin–he dressed up like Tootsie for Halloween. (He didn’t work there long. I think he got fired.)</p>
<p>When I was in Peace Corps, I lived with a woman and her sister who are now the minister of education and “speaker of the house” in that country. And another lady I knew is now on the supreme court there.
When I first arrived there, I was hitchhiking through the village with a British neighbor. A Mercedes (very rare) stopped on the dirt road and, not wanting to get in the back seat with this guy I’d just met, I got in the front next to the native driver! We had a nice conversation for a couple miles and he dropped us off at a bar. I said to the Brit, “Gosh, his English was good for a native!” The Brit literally rolled on the ground laughing. I asked him what was so funny. He said “Don’t you know who that was?!” (I didn’t) “That’s the CHIEF and he bloody well better speak good English–he was educated at Oxford!” (The chief had a very bad reputation with the ladies–much safer not to sit next to him.)</p>
<p>Umm, who else? Jack Kemp’s daughter was in my dorm in college. I’ve met a couple governors and congressmen and saw the first president Bush in Ohio. Once shook hands with Mike Huckabee when he was running for Arkansas governor in the 90s. It was in a small town and he went around and talked to everyone at the event, asked us where we were from, etc., seemed like a regular guy. He gave a good/funny speech. </p>
<p>My D used to compete in figure skating. A couple years ago her coach got backstage passes for an ice show–my younger D and I saw the show but didn’t have passes. When the manager saw us sitting there waiting, he gave us passes too. So we all got to meet, and D got her picture taken with Evan Lysacek, Sasha Cohen, and a whole bunch of famous skaters. Most of them just signed autographs and posed for pictures. John Zimmerman was the only one who really chatted with us. D was SO thrilled!</p>
<p>I’ve had several interesting encounters with celebrities but my favorite was when we were on the same plane to Maui, and seated just a few rows behind, Willie Nelson. Just before the escalators down to the luggage carousels, I ran into him. I did a very nonchalant chin raise and he did one back - no words were spoken. I was very pleased with my extreme coolness. Now I like to tell people that Willie and I are close friends.</p>
<p>Not I, but my Dad: He was about 6 feet away from Dwight David Eisenhower, while at Camp Lucky Strike in Le Havre, awaiting transport home after being liberated from a German POW camp. Eisenhower had announced that ex-POWs would have priority on the ships home. My dad winked at Eisenhower.</p>
<p>Puzzled – that reminds me that when my son was in middle school he went to summer camp near Austin and one of his bunk-mates was Willie Nelson’s son. And Willie and the whole family was there to move him in. He was a surprisingly clean-cut looking kid.</p>
<p>Wynton Marsalis was a table away from us when we were dining at the China Bowl in NYC (many years ago.) I tried desperately to not stare, but I so wanted his autograph . . . The only thing I had on hand was my cloth napkin. Didn’t think the China Bowl folks would appreciate me using that, so, alas, no autograph from Wynton Marsalis. I did get to hear him talk about his coming up gig, though. :-)</p>
<p>I was working in the stadium when Jim Palmer was filming one of his underwear commercials, but I couldn’t get near, they had it pretty well blocked off.</p>
<p>I heard later he had to wear many pairs (like 10) of briefs to, shall we say, smooth out the bulges and get the commercial down to a PG rating.</p>