Too bored to bother 
I live in NYC and see famous people all the time. In fact I worked next to a movie theater where they do the NYC red carpet premiers, and at least once/twice a week limos would show up dropping off major celebs right outside my door. I recall seeing Tom Cruise and his then wife (War of the Worlds), Michael Douglas (Wall Street sequel) and many others. Down the street is NBC studios, I see SNL stars in the area once in a while. One day I walked right past Ashton Kutcher while out for lunch. There are lots of hotels where stars stay near my office, saw one of the actors from “The Office”. Flying in/out of NYC airports I have seen US Senators, heads of major corporations… and I never bother them to chat nor ask for autographs…They deserve their privacy,
and likely I would have nothing to tell them they have not heard a 1000 times already !
In NYC, Larry King glared at me in FAO Schwartz, daring me to start something, haha! What a tiny, tanned, cranky man! Also, I made eye contact with Clinton Kelly (“What Not to Wear” “The Chew”) in SOHO, and he looked horrified that I would want to intercept him. Hey, I’m in a hurry too, pal.
I used to be an IRS auditor, and had a few famous taxpayers. The ones that came in to represent themselves were very sweet.
Lol, @MomofWildChild , I grew up in the PNW. Seems like lots of Bill Walton stories are out there.
As a newspaper reporter, I’ve interviewed a bunch of famous and sorta famous TV and movie stars. My favorite was Sam Waterston about a year ago (which got me to start watching Grace and Frankie). Worst, sadly, was Sally Field a while back. She was the face of osteoporosis medicine Boniva then and only wanted to talk about the drug and very little else. Last fall, I met Lauren Graham at an event before the new Gilmore Girls came out, but don’t think I said anything at all intelligent to her.
Rick Schroder introduced himself to me after we dropped our kids off at pre-school one day. “Hi, I’m Rick.” Nice guy.
We invited his D to my D’s birthday party which was in a neighborhood private park where we arranged a mobile petting zoo and sno-cone machine. When I requested the sno-cone machine, W asked me if I was planning on manning the machine for the whole party. Of course I replied, “No, I’m going to make Schroder do it!”
Sadly, he just dropped his D and left immediately. Otherwise there would be a few people here posting about how they met Rick Schroder when he made them a sno-cone at a birthday party :))
Rick Schroeder was a patient on the unit where I worked in 1978, before he moved to CA.
Madonna.
Her kiddo goes to my college with my kid…same graduating class. Just talked about mom stuff. She was nice.
I have read this thread at various times thinking I don’t have any famous encounters to report, but I did talk with Al Gore in a bowling alley in the late 80s when he was running for Prez the first time. I asked him if he bowled regularly and he said “Yes, Tipper and I love to bowl.” Then the press following him started to ask him just how often he bowled but he was rather vague. He scored about 130-ish.
My brush with greatness was 60’s actress Patricia Neal. She changed my diaper on an airplane, and I peed on her. True story as told by my dad.
Back in the 80s, actress Connie Sellecca and her husband at the time, Gil Gerard, attended the church my H was working at as a seminary intern in a resort community in Southern California. They had their young son with them, and he went up for the children’s sermon.
At first I didn’t recognize her - she was incredibly beautiful, but seemed so much skinnier than on TV so I wasn’t sure it was her.
There was pleasant chit-chat after church.
When I’m in comparatively close quarters with famous people, I try not to stare and them and never speak to them. I figure they want privacy. This policy was really strained when I realized that the figure skater Paul Wylie was standing immediately behind me as we waited to get onto a plane in Detroit. I really, really wanted to turn around and say “You are my favorite male skater of all time! And you were ROBBED of that gold!” But I didn’t.
I did meet Bob Dole at a financial junket H and I went to on Martha’s Vineyard, where George Stephanopoulos and he were guest speakers. It was a fairly intimate event, and after he spoke he did a meet and greet. I gave him my elevator speech on my vision of campaign finance reform in a manner that indicated that I knew it was quixotic. He was extremely gracious and said “That’s an interesting idea.” He and I exchanged a smile that said, “But we both know it will never happen!”
This was during the Clinton administration, but after GS left and before he was on TV. IIRC, he was writing a book. He told the group that Monica Lewinski had made an attempt to ingratiate herself with him, before she moved on to BC. Apparently she happened to be behind him in line at Starbuck’s one morning, and took note of his order. She then proceeded to show up at his office several mornings with his preferred coffee. Luckily, said GS, his assistant wouldn’t let her in. 
To be fair, he did indicate that he thought she really was “in love with” BC.
Now THAT IS FUNNY; Lewinsky stalking George, and then moving on to the POTUS.
Yes, it did fly in the face of the portrait some tried to paint of her as a poor little girl who was pursued by a big bad wolf. B-)
I’ve met some celebrities in my nursing career, but you know, HIPAA.
Haha - I read one of the posts above too quickly and thought that Monica was interested in Bob Dole.
I was thinking about this thread and going through some old puppy photos… and came across the photo of my puppy sleeping cuddled up with Capt. Sully Sullenberger’s puppy, one 11 weeks old and a poodle, and the other 12 weeks old and a golden retriever. That’s probably as close as I’ll ever get to a true celebrity.