Ever met or seen someone FAMOUS?

[Malvolio]

I've met quite a few famous people, mostly at comic book/sci-fi conventions. So let me see, which story should I tell here? Oh, I know. I had a Hulk Annual that I was about to have Lou Ferrigno sign for me. As I got to the front of the line, his assistant said, "Mr. Ferrigno charges $20 to autograph comic books." I nodded, put the book back in its bag and moved on to the next table where Terry Moore signed an issue of Strangers In Paradise for free.

[Scott Taylor]

There was this one time when I met Bebe Buell, in the 1970s. She was the November 1974 Playmate of the Month and Liv Tyler's mom. Lol! Me and my best friend heard that there was going to be a Playboy playmate signing photos downtown and so, unbeknownst to our parents, we took off for adventure and rode our bikes down there at the tender age of 11 and ended up getting free signed photos. Neither she or her manager or any one else who was there looked amused to see a couple of kids there! My signed photo is still around somewhere in my parent's attic.

She was gorgeous, by the way.

[AnthonyO'Brien]

Ever had a not-so-good meeting at a Con? I asked Corey Feldman at a Q&A about working on Gremlins. "I got paid" was his bitter, disinterested answer. He struck me as a troubled, damaged person...

[CliffHanger2]

Yeah you can meet a lot of celebrities living in New York. Met Geoffrey Wright and Alek Wek at a Brooklyn bar. Randomly walked into a girl power rally on Valentines Day years back and met Rosario Dawson.

[Riv86672]

I live in New York. Seen lots of famous people. At restaurants, on the street, in subways.

^^^Same here.
Hulk Hogan, Debbie Gibson, Ben Vereen, Don Johnson, Philip Michael Thomas, Vin Diesel, Madonna, Deee-Lite, Mayor David Dinkins, some I’m prob. blanking on, all were while I lived in NYC.

I’ve met a few Presidents/Veeps First Ladies and other politicians, 1-4 Star Generals, Sergeants Major, and a bunch of Foreign dignitaries due to my work in the Army back in the day.

Edit:
Ha, forgot Chuck Norris!

[SJNeal]

I've met many Star Trek alumni at conventions over the years. The best experiences, however, have been at comic cons and smaller sci-fi shows, as opposed to actual Star Trek conventions. The crowds/lines to meet them are much shorter, and they're usually charging less for autographs than they would at a dedicated ST con. I've probably met about a dozen or so of them, and they've all been lovely people - stand outs remain the ladies though (McFadden, Sirtis, Crosby, Farrell).

I met Wilmer Valderama, Danny Masterson, and Michael Pena all at the same time at a bar in NYC. It was 4am and they were all wasted (so was I!), so they refused to take any pics, but they were still hilarious and friendly. We chatted outside for a good 10 mins or so while my friend and I waited for our Uber.

After a Stevie Nicks concert in Las Vegas I had drinks with her band at the bar outside the venue. They bought me a shot of tequila and humored my tipsy fanboy gushing. I did get quite a few good pictures but they're all on a hard drive buried in a box somewhere. Around 2am Stevie herself came over (totally dressed down, no makeup, etc) and flagged her crew over. The drummer got her attention and told me to wave at her, which I did. She smiled and waved back from maybe 10 yards away. They all took off somewhere together and promptly forgot about me, no doubt - but it was the greatest night of my life (for the rest of the weekend at least ).

[Iron Maiden]

I should mention people I met at comic book conventions. I went to the first C2E2 in Chicago's old McCormick Place and met Jonathan Hickman during the early stages of his Fantastic Four run. I have a couple of comic books that he autographed for me. I didn't realize at the time that he had also done some dabbling in drawing comics. At another convention I happen to snag one of those blank covers from my LCS of his New Avengers run and he actually drew a Doctor Doom sketch for me because we had brief discussions about the character. Since that first convention I've gone to his section of Artist's Alley a couple of times after that but by that time the convention had grown so larger (it now draws about 150,000 over a 3 day weekend event) it had to be moved to the largest pavilion at the new McCormick Place.



This is the sketch cover he did for me





IIRC it was also the first convention where I met Mike Mignola and he was also very nice about answering my questions. As I've mentioned in the Comic Book covers contest thread a while back, I am a big fan of the graphic novel he did with Roger Stern, Doctor Strange/Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment and I brought my copy with me. He was kind enough to sign it for me. I had also brought along some pages of the original art that I had bought from a seller online a while back and showed them to him. He was surprised to see them and explained to me the process of how it was printed since the inking was done by Mark Badger on a kind of transparency and the coloring was done on a separate pieces of heavy grade art paper. I still have those stored away.

[Iron Maiden]

More comic con stuff .....

At the 2012 C2E2 convention I was able to buy a page from the mini series Avengers: The Children's Crusade done by Jim Cheung, one of my favorite artists. You get to interact with a lot of people in the Artists Alley of these conventions. He and inker Marc Morales were sitting across from each other. I found out that when they put their art up for sale, the penciller and the inker will split up the pages. Jim Cheung had the original cover art for sale for some of this books and these were usually much higher than an interior page. The inker gets some pages to sell and I assume they come to a mutual agreement as to who sells which pages. So I bought a page from issue #7 from inker Marc Morales, which he signed as did Jim Cheung

[Malvolio]

Ever had a not-so-good meeting at a Con? I asked Corey Feldman at a Q&A about working on Gremlins. "I got paid" was his bitter, disinterested answer. He struck me as a troubled, damaged person...

Yeah, had John Byrne yell at us as he signed autographs. His exact words were, "You people have no idea what it's like to have to deal with all of you!" My Mom was with me and after I got Byrne's autograph on my copy of Man of Steel #1, she said, "Well, he was rude." I told her, "Yeah, I've heard that about him. Now it's been confirmed."

[Iron Maiden]

I guess there is a reason why Byrne is never at any of the big comic cons I still admire his work and I love his Fantastic Four run and the early days at Marvel when he was partnered with Chris Claremont on Marvel Team-up and X-Men. There should be a book written about those two one day. I had read about his antics over the years and I don't think I could ever get the nerve to approach him if he ever was at a con in my neck of the woods. Chris Clarement will be appearing at C2E2 in December but I think my convention days are over. I've had knee surgery and even before that the convention floor gets very tiring. It is very crowded and you mostly have to shuffle from spot to spot because it's so packed. They got lucky last year and they were one of the few comic cons held last year since they had it from February 29-March 1st weekend. Emerald City was able to get theirs in too.

More chance encounters I remembered from my younger days...


Sometimes on my days off, especially if it was a week day, I wound catch the train into Chicago just to wander around Marshall Fields or the museums (Tuesdays were usually a free day) One day I was headed to Kroch and Brentano's book store on Wabash Avenue as just as I was about to go in, a limo pulled up and out came Chuck Berry and he went in ahead of me. When I got in the store, I saw things were set up for a book signing. I wish I had bought one but back then I was short of money. On another day I was around the same area but heading towards Marshall Fields when I saw a tall-ish guy standing on the corner looking around like he was lost or trying to decide which direction to go. He was dressed in kind of casual tennis style since it was summer. I am pretty sure to this day it was Robert Lansing because my Dad watched the show Twelve O'clock High and when you're a kid you always are at the mercy of your Dad's TV favorites.

[GOLGO 13]

Meh..............

[Kirby101]

I had lunch with Isaac Asimov and spent a half hour while Jonathan Winters entertained me and my brother with a continuous hilarious and thoughtful monologue.

[Iron Maiden]

I had lunch with Isaac Asimov and spent a half hour while Jonathan Winters entertained me and my brother with a continuous hilarious and thoughtful monologue.

Wow.....Jonathan Winters is someone I would have liked to have seen in person. Most of my celebrity encounters were not in a social setting. It was either seeing their performance or a chance encounter with no interaction.

We used to have a local theater that would get some pretty good bookings. Donna Summer was there opening act and later I went there to see Tears for Fears who were touring with Oleta Adams. I remember my mother was a big fan of Red Skelton. And when he was announced as one of the stars that was booked for a show there, I treated her. I have to say he was very entertaining and great at doing pantomime. It's almost a lost art these days.

[CaptCleghorn]

Years back, I did see a play in Chicago's Shubert Theater for a revival of the play "Sherlock Holmes" starring Leonard Nimoy as Holmes and Alan Sues (from the old Laugh In show) as Professor Moriarty.

I would have loved to see Nimoy vs Sues in a situation like that. Just by their usual characters, it's a contest rife with interest.

Played bridge against Omar Sharif and Benito Garozzo (the multiple Italian World Champion).

It was an open tournament in which mugs like me could play against wonderful players such as Benito G and Omar S.

My partner of the time wasn’t remotely starstruck, she said something like “I was hoping to play against Pietro Forquet, he’s a real dreamboat”. (He…like Garozzo was a multiple world champion.)

I am very envious. I am unfamiliar with most famous bridge players, but I do know Sharif was an excellent player who loved the game. The closest I ever got to a situation like that was playing bridge with one of Alger Hiss' lawyers.

[Iron Maiden]

I would have loved to see Nimoy vs Sues in a situation like that. Just by their usual characters, it's a contest rife with interest.

To be honest I think NImoy did get outshone by Sues in the matinee performance I saw. I was so used to seeing him doing comedy that it surprised me and maybe that's what made it more memorable. Of course, the villain role is frequently more bombastic that the protagonist role. Holmes can be "dry" but he can have his quirks too. Conan Doyle collaborated with British actor William Gillette on the play and to be quite honest I can't recall the plot.