A Brush With Fame is generally regarded as an occasion during which someone Not Famous (ie, most of us reading this, I reckon) has an encounter of some sort with Someone Famous. For example, through a friend, I went to a barbeque at Paul Cook-of-the-Sex Pistols' house, in London, five years ago. (had an awesome time! :-) ) That's a total Brush With Fame. My dad shook Judy Garland's hand once, when he was in his 20s-- a classic Brush With Fame. Meeting your idol at a book or record-signing could also be considered a Brush With Fame, though the Amazingness Factor of your Brush goes way up if you accidentally bump into your idol on the street or meet him/her at a party or something.

But a Brush With Fame is not what I'm asking about, in this Forum. I want to know about your Brush With A Brush With Fame. To get us started, here's one of mine.
Harrison Ford's son, Willard, attended the same university I did, only Will was a few years behind me and was affiliated with a different college-within-a-college than I. At some point it occurred to me that Harrison would likely show up for his son's college graduation, and I toyed with the idea of going, myself, to see Harrison Ford up close, in the flesh. I wouldn't bother him, of course-- I'd just observe, and maybe take a pic or two from a distance or something. So I kept track of the years as they went by, in the back of my mind. When the summer of Will's graduation finally arrived, however, I talked myself out of attending it, reasoning that surely Harrison wouldn't come to the actual ceremony, because he'd be afraid of causing a scene and/or taking attention away from the graduates.
So I didn't go. But Harrison Ford did.
I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have seen him in person. I'll probably never know. It's not a regret or anything like that, just a "what-if/how would it have been" kinda thing.

Anyone else got one?

-- Anonymous, August 11, 2000

Answers

I had two, both took place at the same, day long, rock festival. Early in the day my friends and I were hanging out in the stands and I decided to go down on the field and do some crowd surfing. When I got back everybody had autographs from the bands Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Orgy, who had stopped by the press box we were sitting by. Grrrr. Later that night we met some guys who said their band opens all the time for one of the bands that was playing that day. They told us they could get us backstage. Welp, we followed them through mazes of people all over the damn stadium and when we finally got to the back stage entrance, we weren't allowed in because the guys didn't have passes for us. Siiigh..ah well. I'm not sure if either of these count, but they're the closest I've got so there ya go.

-- Anonymous, August 11, 2000

I know Orville Redenbacher's granddaughter. She was a grad student teaching Russian 101 at Purdue when I was a freshman. She was pretty wild, which is not the impression you'd get of the family based on the popcorn box.

-- Anonymous, August 12, 2000

I may be on Oprah. I'll know soon. Getting head shots was fun, being preened and waited on first thing on a Monday morning. And the makeup worked wonders, I didn't break the camera. "Smile, tilt your head, relax, GREAT". The only good thing about my sleep apnea since I am an atypical patient. I hung out with the guys from Bob Marley's band for a little bit once. They were very obviously after my girlfriend who had big breasts. It was short-lived however because they were on their way to St. Louis by private bus (it was a party bus, but they slept in bunks like a submarine, yuk) and a storm was coming so they had to leave. BTW, I'm in beautiful England visiting my brother and his family. My daughter and I were thrilled with the perks of an international flight for the first 15 min., then we were bored the remaining 8 hours. The free booze helped though. We did group cousin photos this morning (not an easy task with kids 7 and under) and hit a market. Stonehenge (sp) is coming up. I'm not at this email address, but my brother doesn't want me using his screen name. Tootles

-- Anonymous, August 12, 2000

Oh yeah, and my brother reminded my that he went to school with Brad Pitt. He is from Springfield, Missouri. Yee Haw.

-- Anonymous, August 12, 2000

Hey Vicki, my boyfriend's sister went to school with Brad Pitt, too! And my sweetie has met Steven Spielberg and Jay Leno. That's as close as I've ever been to "greatness."

-- Anonymous, August 12, 2000

My Dad was in LA on business a few years ago, staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel. As his taxi drew up to the hotel, they noticed there were about 23984293874 limousines outside and hundreds of photographers and screaming fans. They were having the Golden Globe Awards at his hotel. He ended up walking into the hotel -- dressed in Dockers and a polo shirt, carrying his suitcase -- behind Christian Slater and Tom Cruise, and all the photographers were like, 'Who the fuck is that guy?'

Anyway, he ended up getting to mill around the hotel with loads of stars. Off the top of my head, there was Bette Midler, Al Pacino, Paul Newman, Cruise & Kidman, Barbra Streisand, Jean Claude Van Damme (of whom my Dad commented, 'He's short and had a mullet. I think I could kick his ass')...oh, and he got autographs from Jay Leno, Tom Arnold, Sean Young, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick. He said Sarah Jessica Parker looked ugly and like a junkie, but that when he told her the autograph was for his daughter, she told him what a good dad he was.

-- Anonymous, August 12, 2000

I've never met anyone famous, but my mom walked right by Julia Roberts when she was in Chicago filming My Best Friend's Wedding. Nobody believed her until they saw her again filming at a White Sox game. My dad has met Jim Thome, Ray Romano, and this guy who threw a couple of perfeft games? On the Yankees? I don't watch baseball.

-- Anonymous, August 13, 2000

David Cone?

-- Anonymous, August 13, 2000

oh yeah!...I remember when Ray Romano was a local SF comedian and was regularly a guest on this very cool live radio morning show (The Alex Bennett Show) in San Francisco. I'd forgotten about that! The show had a studio audience every day, so I got to see a lot of comedians up close who later went on to bigger stuff.

I have another Brush With A Brush to share. In London that same summer I met Paul Cook, I totally passed up a chance to meet David Bowie, because I thought I'd be tongue-tied and have nothing coherent to say to him (I mean, he's, like, a GOD! ;-) ). He had scheduled studio time at Metropolis Studios, in Chiswick, and I knew the day he was starting there. So I could've gone and waited outside and met him...but I didn't. I don't really regret it, because I still have no clue what I'd be able to say to David Bowie, but dang, it would have been cool to see him up close in person.

-- Anonymous, August 14, 2000

I used to volunteer at the local NPR affiliate/public radio station that has an daily show where they have all sorts of guests. I walked in one day and there was the cutest little dog yipyapping around my desk. I ended up playing with it for 45 minutes,only to find out that it belonged to Whitley Strieber (writer--writes a lot of horror stuff, but is probably bes well known for that book Communion, about being abducted by aliens). Also fetched some bottled water for Spaulding Gray once. weee.

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2000

My mom and I were flying to Florida to visit my grandparents and all sorts of airline hijinks had ensued resulting in us taking a later flight, but with my mom being able to fly first class for free and me getting a free ticket to use later. My mom was happily reading away in her first class seat, when she noticed the guy across from her had the paper and there was an article she wanted to see. She leaned across and asked if she could borrow that section and realized she was sitting across the aisle from Woody Harrelson, who did lend her his paper. She said he was very polite and friendly. She waited until we got off the plane to tell me because she didn't want to cause a ruckus, so I didn't get to see Woody Harrelson. Oh well.

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2000

i once saw billly ray ciruss! i used to love that haert song!

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2000

Well, I was once quite drunk and fondled Dave Foley's hair. He came backstage to hangout with a friend of mine who had just finished playing a show. He had bleached his hair quite blonde, and well, I just couldn't help myself and had to touch it, many, many times. I'm quite sure he thought I was insane.

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2000

You touched Dave Foley?! Can I worship you? I have such a crush on him.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2000

I got to meet Gene Kelly when I was 16 (that was great, but I did cry because I was so happy to meet such a legend), and I went to a party a zillion years ago at MGM in Orlando that was being thrown for Bette Midler (she had the best smile and makeup.) I didn't ask for an autograph because I thought that would be so tacky (make note of my maturity level at that point in time.)

This year though, I fell in love with the comedian Eddie Izzard and damn if I didn't get to chase him down the sidewalk for a picture and get an autograph in NYC after one of his shows (note: maturity is not tied to your age, I guess.) Yes, that really sets the tone, begging for a photo. Then when I got to meet him in the line for the autograph, I could only think of idiotic things to say (so I can relate to the David Bowie story.) I guess celebs are used to it, but it makes you feel really funky when you know you can usually hold a coherent conversation. I guess I'm a little bit sad about it still.

Anyone else I've seen who's been famous, I've been pretty cool with. Oh well.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2000

Do not flame me, but I have just returned from being 10 feet from the President of the United States and that guy is really charismatic in person. It was way cool.

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2000

Brush with Fame, once removed: A (married) friend of mine was having an affair with one of John Wayne's sons - he would call my house to set up "dates" with her... Richard Chamberlain once asked me for directions... Danny Devito and Rhea Pearlman came into the movie theatre I worked at right after their first kid was born and he asked me for the number so he could call the sitter with it (before cell phones)... I ate pizza once with Ed Bradley - he was filming a "60 Minutes" segment focusing on a group I was involved with - everyone broke for lunch and I ended up sitting next to him (but he never talked to me). ----

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2000

This is a "brush with" as opposed to a "brush with brush with", but here goes. Last week, I shook Amy Van Dyken's hand and talked with her for about half a minute. Amy V won four gold medals in swimming in the Atlanta Summer Olympics, and she just won two more gold medals in swimming in the Sydney Summer Olympics. She lives in Lone Tree, CO, which is a tiny little town that I drive through every day on my way to and from work. I frequently grocery shop at the Safeway there. That's where I was one evening, when I saw her all alone down one aisle. I had seen her before, in a pet store years ago, but she was struggling so much with her dog that I decided not to bother her. But this time seemed good, so I walked right up to her, asked to shake her hand. I told her about seeing her at the pet store and we had a good laugh about it, and I left and told her congratulations, for which she genuinely thanked me. I didn't attract attention to her, didn't shout out her name, wasn't a gushing fan eager to share my entire life story or to hang the hopes of the free world on her shoulders, I didn't fish for some bond between us ("you look like my sister" or "I used to swim, you know"), nor did I linger. I made it as quick and painless as I could and then got away - I'm so sensitive to leaving celebrities alone that I have missed one or two opportunities to have met some of them in the past. This was very exciting. She's tall - I'd say at least 6' 0", very darkly tanned, and her eyes were very bloodshot. I decided her eyes were red from having been swimming in chlorinated water without goggles, or perhaps from the long and exhausting trip from Sydney to Denver, and probably not from smoking pot. :-)

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2000

I would really like to hear more about the Dave Foley scalp massage story....what did he say!!?!

-- Anonymous, October 05, 2000

This isn't exactly a brush with fame, but I just found this out last night and thought it was very interesting, considering the conversation going on in the Songbirds topic.

After watching Coalminer's Daughter last night my husband asked me if Loretta Lynn was the country singer from Virginia. I told him that was Patsy Cline, and he told me that his grandmother was Patsy's high school guidance counselor. I wonder if she told Patsy to keep on with the singing or give it up for a "real" job?

-- Anonymous, October 06, 2000

I was having lunch with one of my employees today and at the next table was former Denver Broncos placekicker David Treadwell (who now does the sports on the local Fox news, I think?).

Okay, here's an honest to goodness brush with a brush with fame. I am a regular at a restaurant which is apparently also popular with many Denver Broncos. The owner was just telling me last week that John Elway was a regular on Tuesdays before he retired, that Bill Romanowski and family are regulars, and that on at least one occasion Brian Griese and his dad, Hall of Famer Bob Griese, were there recently and he got to chat with them. Last year I found myself sitting two booths away from Broncos head coach Mike Shanahan and a bunch of other loud guys.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 2000

Here's my brush-with-(brush with)-fame story I've told three thousand times.

Once my friend Letty and I were at a mall in downtown Houston. It was pretty empty, like always. I forced Letty to go with me to Sound Warehouse and some guy was there signing autographs. He had on a cowboy hat and a long, loud, duster and conchos all over the place. And sunglasses. There were only three chicks there to see him. They were all happy as hell, but you could tell everyone was embarrassed that there was such a poor showing. "Who the hell is that?" Letty and I wondered. We peeked at one of the albums. His name was Stevie Ray Vaughn.

Later, we were on the bottom floor eating ice cream cones and we saw Mr. Vaughn coming down the escalator. Like the immature person I was, I screamed "HEY, STEVIE!" and we hid behind a plant and giggled when Stevie whipped around, looking for the fan he'd missed.

Later, when he died, I felt really shitty. I still sort of do. If I could go back in time to that day, I would have asked for his autograph or something.

-- Anonymous, October 09, 2000

In this year's Olympics, in women's soccer, Norway beat the U.S.A. in overtime, winning the gold and leaving the silver for America. The Norwegian who scored the game-winning goal is Dagny Mellgren, and I had dinner with her cousin last night. This is a Norwegian girl I used to work with, and a bunch of us got together for a few laughs. She's pretty excited about being related to a Norway national hero. :-) Of course, I had to break out my Amy Van Dyken story, but it just ain't the same.

-- Anonymous, October 12, 2000

Uh, my parents live across the street from Bobby Beathard of the Chargers. My brother-in-law is best friends with Richard somebody of the Minn. Vikings. My niece's ex-husband is cousins with Junior Seau of the Chargers. I've known most of the old surfing greats like Dick Brewer, Sam Hawk, Deweyb Weber, Paul Strauch, Jock Sutherland, David Nuhiiwa, Billy Hamilton( his son Laird is the big tall blond guy you always see surfing the huge waves in Hawaii on TV), my mother-in-law used to go diving with Jerry Garcia of The Dead when she'd go stay in Hawaii in her time share. She had no idea. A long time ago when I got out of high school we had Steppenwolf come to town and give a concert. I was in the venue selling beads and brass peace symbols and one of the band bought some of my stuff. I went to a Cream concert. I was in the Haight scene during the early 60's and saw "all" the great bands. I even saw The Great Society with Jerry and Grace Slick. Man I was so in lust-er-love with Grace. James

-- Anonymous, October 14, 2000

On a Royal Caribbean cruise several years ago with 2 friends and my brother, We walked up a flight of stairs just in time to see Phyllis Diller in the elevator with 2 bodyguards. She smiled, I said, "Hi, Phyllis!" And the doors closed. I looked at my friend Tim & said, Hi Phyllis, Like she KNOWS me?!?!? He just died laughing! She performed her comedic act that night. They wouldn't allow any video taping. I wish I could remember some of it...she was just hysterical! We laughed so hard we cried & our stomachs hurt! My sister-in-law is an airline stewardess & her first week out she met Carlos Santana (this year). My brother shook Paul Harvey's hand. My dad saw John Wayne in a Tulsa airport, said he stood head & shoulders over anyone there! He also played baseball with Mickey Mantle in Missouri when he was a young boy.

-- Anonymous, December 09, 2000

A few weeks ago we were having a party. Yeah, a Birthday party, for ME. I hear the doorbell ring and who walks in? None other than Jack Nich...Jack Dav....Jackson yeah, Jackson Browne yeah and all he did the whole time he was here was talk to my wife. Yeah, my wife,yeah, my wife ummmm Morgan Fairchild. Yeah thats the ticket...

-- Anonymous, December 10, 2000

I went to the same (alternative) high school as the girl who had sex with Rob Lowe on video tape. She was adorable and very cool when I met her, which was post Rob-sex.

I met Vicki Sue Robinson last year in Council Bluffs, Iowa and the same night got flirted with by one of the Trammps. I almost met Gloria Gaynor, but couldn't persuade the friends I was with to actually USE their press pass. I think the Trammp really wanted my friend, but I was right in there with the flirting. Vicki Sue was flamboyant and awesome.

And I walked right past Michael Stipe and his entourage on my way to a Morrissey concert in 1991. As everyone recognized him as he walked along, this wave of silence and stillness crept up the street, which added to the surrealism of the moment. No one tried to speak to him and he looked pretty uncomforatable. This was in Atlanta, where he is (or was) definitely revered as a musical deity.

Oh, and I met Arlo Guthrie at his show in central PA earlier this year. I gushed, and if I had the chance I'd gush again.

-- Anonymous, December 10, 2000

That's cool. If anybody has any photos of their "brush with fame," you can post them at PlanetHollywood.com!

http://www.planethollywood.com/photo_upload/default.asp?categoryid=8

-- Anonymous, February 19, 2001

Damn you, Lords of Spam!

Oh, and hey... if anyone has any yelling they wanna do at their monitors, they can go to http://www.gwentown.com.

-- Anonymous, February 19, 2001