Most everyone has seen someone famous, or maybe even shaken their hand. My husband shook John F. Kennedy's hand. I am upping the qualifications though. Have you had an actual conversation with a famous person?
Here is my list of famous people with whom I have had a conversation.
As mentioned:
(1.) Al Capp - cartoonist and creator of the series "Lil' Abner."
(2.) Barry Goldwater
(3.) William Kunstler - defense for attorney for the Chicago Seven
(4.) Phone Conversation with Mike Royko of the Chicago Tribune
(5.) Phone Conversation with Ben Stein
Those are the only actual famous people that I recall actually having a converstation. I went to college with Phil Jackson but he thought he was better than anyone else way back when, and he surely wouldn't have talked with me.
Would you pass this blog on to others? I am curious to see who has met whom and what their impressions were?
Monday, January 29, 2007
Name the Names
Posted by Liz at 6:14 PM
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11 comments:
I've met the folk singer Nani Griffith on a number of occasions.
The bass player in Willie Nelson's band once offered me a joint (I declined). Oh, I've met Willie Nelson too...
I saw Paul and Linda McCartney at a grocery store in Tucson once, but I didn't speak to them. Still, Paul McCartney!!!
John McCain spoke to my class in elementary school.
Lady Bird Johnson.
That's all I can think of right now.
Oops, that should have said NANCI Griffith.
Oh, another celebrity (in Presbyterian circles) -- Cliff Kirkpatrick! :)
You forgot performing with John Denver! And you were 11 years old!!
Alex and I have both met author Wendell Berry.
When I was a kid, I met richard Lam, former governor of Colorado.
Like I said in the previous post, I went to college with actor Maggie Gyllenhaal, but we weren't friends or anything like that.
I've met a couple of musicians including Billy Bragg, everybody in the band Nada Surf, and the main guy in the punk band Jawbreaker.
I once met film-maker Michael Moore at a Working Families Party meeting in New York.
Nobel Peace Prize winner (1980) Adolfo Perez Esquivel at another meeting in Buenos Aires.
I also met Mickey Mouse at Disneyland.
When I was a senior in college (fall of 1981) we opened a new theatre with a gala performance of "Camelot." Gordon MacRae (yes, the real Gordon MacRae, of "Oklahoma" and "Carousel") came and starred as King Arthur. And... I was Guenevere.
My brush with greatness.
Mags
Hmm...a famous person? We midwesterners don't tend to have much exposure to famous people (unless you live in say, Iowa, around presidential election times...).
The best I can come up with is an early morning conversation with Sen. Ben Nelson at an airport in Omaha, and meeting Br. David Steindl-Rast (a Catholic monk who is something of an expert on western & eastern spirituality).
Thanks to all of you for your input. Please check in with me as I am just getting started on my blog.
let me see- brushes with famous people or sit downs with famous people?
mostly just brushes for me...
my husband graduated from from college with Zowie Bowie (that means I attended the same school as Zowie Bowie for one year), he was known as Duncan Jones by college and I only met him once, briefly. It was actually a funny meeting. But this means I stood very close to David Bowie and Imam when they came to graduation.
i worked for a summer at the Carter Center and the one time I got to meet Jimmy i must have been really tired or something, because i didn't get much out of it. he rambled on and on, it sounded like he was mumbling. he was about to get on a plane to liberia and all i could understand in his speech was "Liberia" and "Roslynn". I did shake his hand and have a horrible picture of the two of us together.
I actually got to spend some time with the folk singer Fred Small (not so famous, but cool).
i've had other brushes with famous people, but nothing is coming to me at the moment. unless you count superstars of the PC(USA)... but I don't suppose that's what you mean!
welcome to the blogosphere!
Alex passed this on to me, and I hope you don't mind that I respond, even though I haven't met many people who would qualify as celebrities, just folks I met for my job, really:
Colin Powell - very nice, very polite, very warm. I was particularly impressed with how intently he listened to our local staff in Nepal, very junior people really. He treated them with much more respect than we usually see from visiting folks from DC.
Hilary and Chelsea Clinton - very fun, very happy, very warm. Not so impressed with the US Govt. advance team though, that insisted that the hotel in this very poor country replace the water in the swimming pool with bottled water. You can imagine how many bottles it took and how expensive it was! They were very interested in everything here, and very engaged and friendly to everyone, even wait staff, and so on. They created a great impression for our country among the Nepali people.
Eduard Shevardnadze (foreign minister in the USSR days, and later President of Georgia) - very smart - like REALLY smart. Wily and clever politician. Very soft, weak handshake which surprised me, but a total gentleman. He had a soft voice too, but very piercing eyes, which made him intimidating to talk to or negotiate with.
Kofi Annan - very gentlemanly and courteous, but less curious and engaged than I expected.
Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah - King of Nepal currently, though you wouldn't know him. Smart, smart guy, intimidating on one hand - guess it goes with the territory! but in more casual one-on-one conversations can be warm and engaging. Not what one would expect from news reports or pictures though!
Sorry I wasn't able to give more interesting celebrities!
Cheryl,
You are amazing! What a cool list!
I enjoy reading posts about people who've met famous people. I don't have interesting stories of meetings but I enjoy these.
Liz! Welcome to the blog world!
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