What famous people have you crossed paths with?

[Jethro Bodine]

Even if we ourselves have not had our fifteen minutes of fame (yet), we probably have crossed paths with those who have. Name the famous, or not so famous people you've crossed paths with in your lifetime...even in the littlest of ways.


Growing up I lived next door to a famous motocross rider. When he was a toddler I used to babysit him and his older sister.

When I was very young we lived next door to the girl who joined the Marines and made headlines when she posed nude for Playboy in 1980 and got kicked out of the corp. It was always interesting to see her in my dad's slide shows when she and her brother attended one of my siblings birthday parties in the sixties.

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

I was sportscaster for several years, spanning my 20s and early 30s. I wasn't good enough to get a call to "the show" with the networks, but I met some of the greats from the 1980s in baseball, football and basketball. Some observations ...

Reggie Jackson was a first-class, profane jerk.
Don Sutton was a class act both on and off the field.
George Brett truly was that good, and he was (and still is) a nice guy.
Cotton Fitzsimmons and the 1981 Kansas City Kings are the most overlooked miracle story in sports, probably because they didn't win it all, but they shouldn't have been close in the first place.
Sparky Anderson was truly a gentleman.
Mark Gastineau was a showboat, playboy and a great interview.
John Elway was a nice guy, but he acted ... well, he wasn't a gentleman with the women.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson were addicted to Gates Barbeque Sauce, original formula.
Jim Plunkett was the only guy I ever saw who, with a hangover, could throw for four touchdowns and 300 yards with a head that must have felt like the size of basketball.

I wasn't a Christian when I was in that line of work, but I knew them when I saw them. Don Aase of the Los Angeles Angels, Karl Malone of the Utah Jazz, Tree Rollins of the Atlanta Hawks, Dave Caspar of the Oakland/Los Angeles/Oakland Raiders, Don Mattingly of the New York Yankees ... those are just a few. I had a great time. But it was time to grow up.

 

[reba]

When we lived on the ranch in Carmel Valley our cats were related to Hank Katchim's cats! ( Katchim wrote Dennis the Menace)

Met Bubba Paris.... He is a mountain...

Went to high school with some of the real kids from Yours Mine and Ours... I only remember Mike and Rusty...

 

[reba]

Wow DIS that is some list....

I have always wanted to meet Gaylord Perry and find out IF he really threw the spitter

 

[DarkHorseRising]

Beezie Madden, Gina Miles, Laura Kraut, McLain Ward, Margie Engle, Will Simpson, Ian Miller, Beth Underhill, Kim Severson, David and Karen O'Connor, and Jill Henselwood.

Outside of the horse world, I saw the Spice Girls once.

 

[AirDancer]

Just off the top of my head....

* Jimmy Buffet.... great guy! marvelous music!
* all 4 original members of the 5th Dimension
* America (all members)
* Jonathan Frid (the original Barnabas Collins in the tv soap "Dark Shadows")
* Jim Stafford ("I don't like spiders or snakes....")
* Mickey Dolenz
* Grace Slick & Paul Kantner (Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship)
* Beach Boys... when Dennis Wilson was still drumming & alive
* Greta Alexander (renown psychic...now long dead)
* Genesis (all members..... all but Phil were super to talk with)

 

[Grazer]

I been fortunate enough to go to conventions that give people an opportunity to meet stars of TV, Film and Sport. Below are the photos and autographs from them:

http://photobucket.com/allmyautographs
http://photobucket.com/starsofscreensport

 

[Jethro Bodine]

I been fortunate enough to go to conventions that give people an opportunity to meet stars of TV, Film and Sport. Below are the photos and autographs from them:

http://photobucket.com/allmyautographs
http://photobucket.com/starsofscreensport

Your collection of snapshots and autographs of famous people you met at conventions reminds me of Spence in this hilarious episode of the King of Queens: http://youtu.be/nMig2ju1iWw


(1:16 "...pasty face opportunists...", lol!)

 

[Tri Unity]

Without dropping names (Sorry) ... My uncle won Wimbledon. My brother-in-law is a famous Australian racing car driver. My ancestor was a famous Australian bush ranger. One of my other relatives was involved in a famous law case (the first international case in Australia - It is alleged that she chopped her own head off). My other relatives were in another famous Australian law case (they were the first white Australians to receive the death penalty for killing Aboriginals). I have friends who are "famous". The whole 'fame' thing has little appeal to me personally.

 

[jasoncran]

john walsh.

 

[westtexas]

One of my other relatives was involved in a famous law case (the first international case in Australia - It is alleged that she chopped her own head off).

I mean no dis-respect because I know it's your relative but how do you chop off your own head??

 

[Mike S]

I don't know how "casual" a path crossing is intended here. I've met and shaken hands with a few fairly well known politicians - Bobbie Kennedy, when he was running for Senator in New York State in 1964, and George H. W. Bush when he waas running for President in 1988.

Also, for you football fans, I coached little league baseball where Dwight Freeney (Indianapolis Colts) was on our team as a young boy. He was the same age and class-mate of my daughter, and then attended Syracuse University with my son..

 

[Tri Unity]

I mean no dis-respect because I know it's your relative but how do you chop off your own head??

Sorry, she hadn't completely chopped her head off, but the court case had shown that some others in America actually had. They (the court) needed to establish if it was humanly possible to slit your own throat from ear to ear, as was done in her case. The defense brought in evidence of some Americans who had actually decapitated themselves. The accused was released, and the case is still a mystery as to how she died. BTW, I have never read the book, I only watched the movie. I think I was led to believe it was decapitation from the movie.

http://www.users.on.net/~fsteiny/verdict_whokilledhannahjane_tf.html

http://www.bookshops.com.au/isbns/0949764019

Chhinnamasta has some unusual paintings of her being self-decapitated - she is depicted as holding her own severed head in one hand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinnamasta

 

[Jethro Bodine]

I don't know how "casual" a path crossing is intended here. I've met and shaken hands with a few fairly well known politicians - Bobbie Kennedy, when he was running for Senator in New York State in 1964, and George H. W. Bush when he waas running for President in 1988.

Oh, you just reminded me.

I got to shake hands with Dan Quayle and Jeb Bush when Dad Bush's reelection campaign stopped in town. I took my 8 year old son and I managed to somehow get us in line to shake their hands on their way out. When they were real close I told my son to stick his hand out so he could get a handshake. He thought I said DON"T stick your hand out and missed out.

And I just remembered...I met Jim Irwin the astronaut and got his autograph in a copy of his book a friend at work had given to me to take to the church where he got saved as a youth to be autographed. He was speaking about his Mt. Ararat expeditions to find Noah's ark. I had him write something to my son because of what happened with Dan Quayle, lol.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

Chhinnamasta has some unusual paintings of her being self-decapitated - she is depicted as holding her own severed head in one hand.

IOW, she was beside herself.

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

Wow DIS that is some list....

I have always wanted to meet Gaylord Perry and find out IF he really threw the spitter

Geez, I forgot about him. He was with the Royals at the end of his career. Rumor had it that if he threw to you inside, it would splash you as it went by.
Also, John Wathan supposedly wore clear goggles and kept paper towels in his back pocket when catching Gaylord. :biglol

 

[handy]

When I was a little girl we lived in the same town as John Wayne and once we met him. Your's truly got to sit on his lap. The only thing I remember really is the tallest man on earth bending down and he had a very kind face.

When I was in my 20's I got to play photographer's asst. at a Celebrity Golf Tourniment.... which meant stood in the corner, held a camera bag and kept my mouth shut. Michael Jordan was there and he was a class act... so polite and hand's down the most gorgeous, perfect speciman of human male I have ever met in my life. I came up to his knee cap (OK so maybe a little taller)... to him, everyone was sir or ma'am and he treated everyone like they were special.

Alex Trebec from Jepordy was there and he was a real jerk. George Lindsay... Goober on the old Andy Griffth show was there and to him, everybody was his best friend. I kind of think he may have been a little drunk but he was genuinely friendly. Roy Clark... he was just a big slovely guy with a smile that never quite made it to his eyes....

It was a lot of fun watching the hoi-polloi...

Then there was the time that Jeri Ryan of Star Trek Voyager fame did a commercial for the computer company I worked for and came to the plant to see the production of the computers. She walked around and signed autographs but she was very professional and kind of distant. What surprised me the most was how "regular" she looked in person... I mean, just like another person that one would meet at work or at the store or something. I never, ever ask for autographs and didn't speak to her... but it was a pretty big deal down at the plant in Meridian, Idaho.

I mean... Computers Teck Geeks and Jeri Ryan... It's a wonder the girl made it out alive. ;)

 

[Jethro Bodine]

I grew up about 4 miles north of where Belle Gunness lived where she killed her husbands and boyfriends and buried them on her land. She killed her kids, too. We used to go to the basement museum in the county courthouse and see all the old pictures and stories about her.

My brother told me Aileen Wuornos, the infamous woman serial killer of the eighties, used to live in the trailer park right across the street from where I worked and where he lived for a while in the late eighties and early nineties.

(remember, I said famous and infamous people we've crossed paths with in even the littlest of ways...of which reba probably gets the prize for, lol.)

 

[reba]

Hey i knew some very rich folks in the 60s hehe Mrs Helen Potter Crocker Russel... own the ranch we lived on in Carmel Valley. In that time era the Crockers were the 4th richest family in the US... Sad bunch

Thinking of the ranch and famous people.... The ranch drive way left a trangle of land where it left the road ... Joan Beaz (sheesh the folk singer) lived in the house there.... She was running around spouting anticapitalism stuff every where... Us kids got a lesson in truth about her thoughts .... her black XKE would pass the school bus as she was heading home in carmel valley so much for honesty....

Earth Wind and Fire built up on the hill. They were not Elvis so i didn't care.
Debby Renalds still lives down the valley a bit... Lots of those folks live there...

 

[WIP]

My mom.