Pajiba

I was standing in line at customs at the Cancun airport and i heard a VERY familiar voice behind me. Trying to appear casual, i whipped around to find John Cleese directly behind me with a few friends. I was to awestruck to say anything. To this day i wish i'd done something profound...like a silly walk.

My Uncle Jack appeared in the Shawshank Redemption as one of the "new fish" (he's the third naked man from the front of the line right after the de-lousing sequence), and he also contributed significant props- such as the infamous rock hammer, which belonged to my great grandfather, and currently sits in my uncle's apartment. Does an inanimate object count as a celebrity run-in?

I also stood ten feet away from Annette Bening getting her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

I once went to see The Crucible when Laura Linney and Liam Neeson were doing it on Broadway and my acting class and I were able to sneak into a question and answer period with the cast. Since Laura Linney stayed and answered some questions (where she said the basic theme of The Crucible was to "never fuck the nanny") we were able to meet her at the stage door. She comes out (so tiny!) and my brain turns into mush. "I love everything that you do!" She looks me straight in the eye and says with a beautiful smile, "Thank you. Thank you so much." I don't know what else to say and just smile at her while she moves on to my friend. I turn and out from the stage door comes Susan Sarandon and (the ginormous!) Tim Robbins. I'm so shocked I just shove my Playbill at a very bemused Robbins and a very gracious Sarandon. My friend was calm enough to have a conversation with Ms. Sarandon about the merits of the show. Laura Linney says one more thank you and smiles at us all and hops into a Lincoln town car off to her fabulousness.

This was one that happened to my friend:
As he was casually driving around the streets of Ann Arbor, Michigan one fall day, he stopped at a red light. As he was waiting for it to turn, he heard what he desribed as "the most disgusting cough i've ever heard". When he turned to see who the culprit was, it was none other than Michael Moore, in town for a showing of Sicko.

Last year I was on a small plane with Tommy Lee that went from Burbank to San Fransisco. He was very polite and was sitting with a model type.

Oh, and when I was a baby I threw up on Richard Simmons.

I was on a plane with Andre 3000 from OutKast on his way from ATL to New York the weekend he performed "Hey Ya" on SNL. I woke up from a nap before we landed and thought I was still dreaming when I saw him walk from the bathroom to his seat in first class. I got his autograph at baggage claim amongst the 4 Stankonia-World-Tour-Jacket-clad bodyguards. It's still on my bulletin board.

Also, Fred Schneider (B-52s) went to see my roommate's band play in Athens, GA. I chatted with him at the bar. Also, you can't live in Athens for 4 years without sighting/talking to/knowing at least one member of R.E.M.

My only movie star sighting was Paul Rudd (in his Clueless days) on the streets of New York.

Aw. I got nothing too great. I once sat a few tables from Patrick Stewart at a local diner while he was in town performing with the royal Shakespeare company, but the S.O. and I were too polite to harass him while he was eating breakfast. And I have Jim Rose's autograph from a show I saw in Scotland years ago, but I don't think he really counts as famous.

Harry Dean Stanton, owner of the most soulful eyes ever, kissed my cheek after I complimented his performance at a bar in Louisville, Kentucky (the ORIGINAL Uncle Pleasants--hey y'all to Mark, Dave, and JoAnn where ever you are).

I was backstage at a few of the early Lollapaloozas (in Los Angeles) back in the '90s, thanks to a sister who works in the music business. I met quite a few of the performers; the most memorable occasion was definately when Ice Cube bumped into me on the way back to his trailer and called me a "stupid white bitch". For some reason, that made me laugh, instead of making me want to rip his balls off and stuff them down his throat.

I also once swam in a hotel pool with Anthony Kiedis, and he bought me a sandwich. Nice guy, although now that I think of it, he may have been on the junk at the time.

My first ever celebrity encounter--and still my favorite--was backstage at a New Order concert (I'm old!), where Peter Hook offered me a beer (I was 14 at the time). Hee.

Fred Schneider is AWESOME.

Ok, I think that will the end of my posts here.

Not that I'm sure anything beats actual physical contact with Christian Bale (which Ms. The Odd will be dining out on for years to come), but just in case I offer up these items:

Don't know if this counts but I interviewed U2 for a school-based newspaper when they were but a local Dublin band.

In case that doesn't count, several years ago I checked in very late to a hotel in Minneapolis and was therefore given a room on the high-priced level because they had given away my booked room. In the elevator (where you have to insert your key in a slot before pressing the floor number to prove you belong on that floor), there were 3 male passengers. Two of them were very chatty and one of them informed me they were "playing here tomorrow night", to which I replied "what band are you with?". The third guy stared at me in disbelief and said "that's Cal Ripken you idiot".

I worked in a record store in the 80's, and had Alice Cooper and his band do an in-store visit and autograph session my first week at work. It was straight out of Wayne's World, with the guys all done up in the make-up, and manners straight out of charm school. Super nice guys. The fan's looked pretty scary, but were also extremely well-behaved- pretty much the only day we had no shop-lifting.

I was visiting a movie set that my stunt-man-uncle-in-law was working on and the deaf chick from Children of a Lesser God was there. She was giving me the bitchface. I smiled and gave her a head nod and she rolled her eyes and walked away.

I met D.B. Sweeney there as well and he could not have been cooler.

I volunteered for a university sponsored concert promoter my senior year of college so I ran into a few "rock stars" that year, but nothing really that note worthy. The most exciting to me was when I was the only backstage security for David Sedaris. As a side note, I'm 5'1" and back then only weighed maybe 115 pounds. He said that he felt very safe with me back there. And he gave me a Kit Kat bar.

I saw Allen Ginsberg read at Radford University. I waited in line to get his autograph after and he initiated a conversation about my (admittedly very cool) granny shoes and cloche hat ( I was seventeen and had a hilariously high opinion of my sense of style).
Alec Baldwin gave an anti-Ollie North speech at the gallery I was interning at in college and it was just me and a few other interns and him and his people for a half hour before the event. It was an old building and we forgot to tell him that when he went to the toilet he needed to be careful with the lock on the door or it would stick. He was kind of panicky getting out of there, we were huddled on the other síde of the door saying "Just jiggle it!" over and over, I thought he must have imagined we were trying to kidnap him or something. He had his thick hair slicked back and one piece kept falling down (awkwardly, not hiply) in his face, and his people had to go out for hairspray because none of us hippy chick interns had any for him to borrow. His assistent shared with us that Mr. Baldwin got his back waxed regulary.
I went to see the movie Jackie Brown with director Michael Almereyda and then we had drinks at the mall bar (Spinnakers or similar) afterward.
Best celebrity encounter: when I was a little kid I met Tootie from the Facts of Life. No, really.

I went to high school and summer camp with the Farley brothers (Chris, Tom, and Kevin), and canoed across parts of Ontario with Chris in 1979 (Also at that high school Francis Ford Coppola once stopped by to visit his nephew). I once had a long chat with Ray Bradbury when we were both stuck in a elevator in New York for about two hours, my number is in Troma Film's Lloyd Kaufman's rolodex (Don't ask. I was young and needed the money), and I know all the creators of Halo on a first name basis.

Not my experience but my uncle's, worth relating though...

His first trip to New York on business about 25 yrs ago, I suppose. Not used to the big city, tired and completely out of his element trying to get a cab at one of the airports. The bearded man next to him manages to flag down a cab and perceiving my uncle's ill-ease offers it up for him. My uncle climbs in and another guy jumps in beside him. His fellow passenger turns to my uncle and asks, "Do you know who that was?!?" My uncle still not settled replies with only a blank stare. The man then shakes my uncle and says, "that was Jerry fucking Garcia!!"

I'm not sure if this is exciting enough, but it is my only real celebrity encounter.

I sold a dart board and a jock strap to Massachusetts senator/former presidential hopeful John Kerry. On television, no less.

Back when he was running for president I was working in a sporting goods store in Downtown Crossing in Boston (For those of you who are not familiar, this is NOT a very ritzy part of Boston, which is what makes this all so strange.) One day, we're all hanging around during the afternoon slow period when a bunch of SUVs pull up outside. Then a bunch of guys wearing earpieces come in and start walking all around the store (which freaked our security guy out). Then here comes Kerry, one of his daughters, a cameraman and a guy with a boom mike. Apparently, this was his "Look at me! I'm a regular guy who shops where the regular people shop!" segment. He was very nice when I bagged his stuff up and shook my hand and was quite charming. I am told that this bit was mocked on the Daily Show, but I didn't have cable then and I missed it.

First story: At an outdoor Sonic Youth concert, I was standing with a few friends at the fringes of the audience near the roped off backstage area. One of my friends had been gone a wee too long on a trek to the port-a-johns, and I was growing concerned. Wheeling around to scan the crowd for her, I smashed right into this small man wearing an orange knit cap.

Me: Aw geez. Shit. Dude. Sorry.

Small Man in Orange Cap: It's okay.

SMiOC pats me on the shoulder and continues on his way. This all happened in a matter of seconds. My friends realized what had happened before I did, and they excitedly pointed out as SMiOC and his bandmates crossed into the backstage area that I had slammed my breast into Michael Stipe's shoulder.

Second story: In high school I sometimes worked as an extra. One summer I worked on some 1960's era Michelle Pfeiffer film. The wardrobe was scratchy sweaters and tights, and I was sweating my butt off in the VA heat. That morning I happened to be standing somewhere as Michelle passed by.

MP: Is it always hot like this?

Me: Only in the summer.

She smiled at me and walked on. I was struck by how tiny and fragile she looked with skin so pale it was almost translucent. Lovely, nonetheless.

Third story: Leaving a rehearsal in college, I saw Bruce Hornsby chatting outside our theater. This was Williamsburg and such sightings were not unusual. My mom was pissed at me for not getting his autograph.

As for myself nothing too significant:

Paul Martin when he was prime minister of Canada.

Jean Michelle Cousteau in Fiji.

Elvis Stojko during my friend's stag party- took us about 15 mins and a lot of arguing to figure out who it was. Helped that he walked past us twice.

when my best friend was a baby her parents stayed at a posh hotel in france. cary grant stopped them in the reception and cooed over the baby, kissed her on the forehead and called her beautiful. my friend has been kissed by CARY GRANT. i hate her sometimes.

as for me-i once licked jonathan rhys meyers cheek.and jude law caught me dancing and singing along out of tune to bruce springsteen, late one night in my office. (i used to work at an agents office).

Well.. there's a lot. I've lived in NYC and LA-went to NYU, and worked at MTV, so I'll keep the anecdotes to a minimum.

Alec Baldwin taught an acting class of mine. He was awesome to us. Really hairy and the most amazing blue eyes ever. Sad to think of now-but this was years ago and he just was gushing about how much he loved his wife and daughter (who was a toddler back then).

Camryn Manheim taught an improv class of mine. She's a super cool lady.

Saw Uma Thurman on the street and it was pretty frightful. She is REALLY tall and super skinny. She should thank GOD the camera adds 10 pounds.

Met Stone Gossard from Pearl Jam at a party- he was lovely, down-to-earth and funny. The most amazing celeb I've ever met. Period. (He even laughed at my dumb jokes.) :)

Jay-Z was the only hip-hop artist that seemed to take his job seriously. He showed up to the studios EARLY with ideas and a plan on how to make his show great. Very impressed with him. Not so much with DMX.

Busta Rymes was very friendly and pretty tall.

Method Man and Redman treated me very nicely even though I was just an intern. Redman called me an angel just for getting him a soda, and Method Man told me, "Girl- you got like the best eyes."

Korn were actually great guests. Jonathan Davis is surprisingly soft-spoken. Sat on the couch twirling his hair while the director fired questions at him.

That's all I can remember for now.

I was 16, waiting in the lobby of the Nederlander Theater before seeing Rent (the original cast) with my mother, when a young, gorgeous black man bumped into my side. As he TOUCHED MY SHOULDER and apologized, I realized that it was Taye "Melts Panties with His Smile" Diggs. Then he swept through the lobby and into the stage door and out of my life. I also met Anthony Rapp after he performed at a local college.

I saw David Boreanaz walking down Market St. in Philly (his father, Dave Roberts, is one of our local weathermen so I'm assuming he was in town visiting family).

I watched Andre Braugher and David Morse film a scene in front of my building (for Hack, their cancelled cop show set in Philly).

And I bumped into David Sedaris, but it was pre-book signing so it doesn't really count. When I did meet him later he was insanely sweet and laughed when I complimented his "fuck it bucket."

That's about it for me, although my parents have some good ones...most notably my Dad played golf with Samuel L. Jackson (he quoted to him, of all movies, his line "Hold on to your butts" from Jurassic Park) and my mother was asked out by that soccer player Pele (back in the 70's).

AdaHaze, I am insanely jealous. I ADORED Papa Ginzy and was heartbroken when he died. I have met Adrienne Rich, and that was pretty cool.

I also saw Ron Jeremy at my husband's grandmother's 90th birthday brunch. I lacked the guts to say hi, but evidently he eats brunch at that restaurant all the time because my MIL had talked with him before and thought he was a very nice man. She had no clue what he did for a living.

Besides some of the usual suspects of the convention circuit (including seeing a girl hiding from Anthony "C-3PO" Daniels because he chastised her for littering, which she did not do), the closest thing I can come up with is meeting Kim Porter and baaaarely missing out on meeting Sean "Diddy" Combs. My mother's neighbor has a daughter who is a pretty well-known Atlanta radio personality who knows quite a few folks, and she apparently was a close friend of Kim's. She happened to be visiting, and I went over to meet her. She was very nice, and I can't say I saw anything really negative about her. I left after a while, but I heard later on that Diddy did show up, and later, my niece and nephew were invited to his son's birthday party.

I sat next to Bale on a 2-hour flight, right before American Psycho came out. I didn't realize who he was until half-way through because I was so hung-over. I didn't try and talk to him.

I knew there was more-

Went to see Buried Child on Broadway and Bruce and Demi were sitting directly behind me. Demi Moore in person is quite simply the most beautiful person I have ever seen. She's tiny and just breathtakingly gorgeous. No diva attitude either, she waited in line for the restroom at intermission like everyone else and Bruce and me were at the bar complaining about the lack of service. I was trying to be cool but terrified I would have to order first, I wasn't 21 yet and was only there for mints. No surprise they served Bruce first, I shouldn't have worried. He was pretty impressive too, I believe he was filming The Fifth Element at the time and was all jacked up with the bleached blonde hair.

Years ago, I made out with Busy from Ready or Not at a rave (I have a photo as proof if anyone needs it =P )

And just last week I ran into Rick Mercer and his very busty entourage leaving my gym. (He wasn't going to my gym, just going into the building my gym is at.)

My mom used to work at the public library many years ago at my home town and once served a Road to Avonlea Sarah Polley.

Gave props to Public Enemy without knowing who they were at a party. A friend informed me after the fact.

i was in boston over march break many years back and had the great pleasure of having dinner at a table behind the one where mr. richard dreyfuss was enjoying his saturday night dinner with a slew of directors that i no longer remember. upon exiting the restaurant i looked in his direction, caught his eye and he gave me that "yup, it's me" kind of look. magical.

I haven't read all the comments. Damn, reading this site via RSS means I'm always late to the party.

Just about 10 years ago, I was a sales clerk at Powell's City of Books in my hometown (Portland, OR) and had the pleasure of flirting and selling a bunch of books and tchotkes to an amazing green-eyed blonde woman wearing a Motley Crue baseball cap, a white t-shirt, and bicycle shorts. Even though it was summer, she'd said she was buying Christmas presents.

It was only after she'd left, that my co-worker brought to my attention that I'd been lucky enough to flirt with Heather Locklear. I didn't believe her until we pulled the credit card receipt out and I verified that I'd been blinded by her presence enough to completely miss the actual name on the actual credit card, despite having "verified" her signature against the card.

Heather had been in town filming some awful USA-network movie with Timothy Bottoms. I never actually watched it. To this day, I'm certain that I was as smooth as I was because I did NOT know that I was talking to Heather Locklear. I'll never ever be that glib again no matter how long I live.

It was a long time ago. Don't ask me what she bought.

Russell Crowe and his motorcycle pals were outside a McDonald's in Ensenada, Mexico when he was filming Master and Commander. He was kinda chunked out for the movie and we weren't sure it was him until we heard him speak. We wanted to say hi but were too scared he might yell or throw something at us.

I have only a couple boring ones.

- On a college photography "field trip" to Chicago my friends and I saw Billy Corgan and the guitarist from Cheap Trick outside Harry Caray's. We took pictures from a distance, the Chicago press was everywhere. My friend grabbed Billy and got a picture. I wish I was more of an asshole and gotten one myself.

- At Lollapalooza this year my sisters and I were headed across Grant Park and barely dodged this out of control golf cart. Who was in it? Perry Farrell driving like a madman over to the kid's tent.

I was walking down the street in lower Manhattan with a woman I was then dating. A group came out of the building we had just passed. I looked back and said, "That woman is dressed like a stripper." She looked and replied, "That woman is Mariah Carey." And so it was.

I was at a lunch celebrating a co-worker's birthday at Bubbi's when one of my friends nudged me and, indicating the next table, said "Look, that's one of the Olsens." She was eating with a very pretty young woman and we noticed that not a whole lot of food was actually making it to her mouth. We spent the rest of our meal wondering whether this was the anorexic Olsen or the other one. As our dessert was arriving, the anorexic Olsen showed up, settling the debate. They both put on ridiculously large sunglasses and headed out.

The coolest encounter I had was with someone who's not quite so famous. I went to see Robbie Schaefer, the lead guitarist and one of the song writers for the fabulous folk-rock quartet, Eddie from Ohio. The show was very badly publicized, so while EFO shows regularly sell out when they come to NYC, this was...not. Counting me, there were 8 people in the audience.

He could have just said, fuck it and left but instead, he sat down among us, pulled out his acoustic guitar, and said, "what do you want to hear?" He played our requests for 1.5 hours and, when it was time for the next act, we all went to the adjoining bar and hung out for 2 more hours. I felt like I had won some kind of contest.

Finally, when I was working as a volunteer at a Nader rally at MSG in 2000, I met the man himself a few minutes before his speech. He's quite tall. I shook his hand and wished him good luck. He thanked me and went on his way.

I was walking down the street in lower Manhattan with a woman I was then dating. A group came out of the building we had just passed. I looked back and said, "That woman is dressed like a stripper." She looked and replied, "That woman is Mariah Carey." And so it was.

I was at a lunch celebrating a co-worker's birthday at Bubbi's when one of my friends nudged me and, indicating the next table, said "Look, that's one of the Olsens." She was eating with a very pretty young woman and we noticed that not a whole lot of food was actually making it to her mouth. We spent the rest of our meal wondering whether this was the anorexic Olsen or the other one. As our dessert was arriving, the anorexic Olsen showed up, settling the debate. They both put on ridiculously large sunglasses and headed out.

The coolest encounter I had was with someone who's not quite so famous. I went to see Robbie Schaefer, the lead guitarist and one of the song writers for the fabulous folk-rock quartet, Eddie from Ohio. The show was very badly publicized, so while EFO shows regularly sell out when they come to NYC, this was...not. Counting me, there were 8 people in the audience.

He could have just said, fuck it and left but instead, he sat down among us, pulled out his acoustic guitar, and said, "what do you want to hear?" He played our requests for 1.5 hours and, when it was time for the next act, we all went to the adjoining bar and hung out for 2 more hours. I felt like I had won some kind of contest.

Finally, when I was working as a volunteer at a Nader rally at MSG in 2000, I met the man himself a few minutes before his speech. He's quite tall. I shook his hand and wished him good luck. He thanked me and went on his way.

One more that comes to mind. My office used to be in Downtown Manhattan where they film all the time (got "rained" on once when they were filming Dark Water). Walking to the subway one Friday this past winter, I walked past a film crew staning around on Water Street. In front of them was a meatl cart with a huge pile of cash (doubt it was real). As I passed them, I realized the short black guy in the silly, lined cap with ear flaps was Spike Lee. Was not cold enough to warrant such a cap, but who am I to judge.

Oh yeah! I forgot my favorite. Met Josh Ritter after a show, and while my boyfriend and I were talking with him, two girls came up to flirt with him and gave him a Guinness, half of which he poured into my cup to fill me back up. He's the smilingest person I've ever met.

1. Donnie Wahlberg- signing autographs outside Key Arena...don't laugh, I was 12 and at a NKOTB concert. Just FYI he was the only 1 of the 5 to meet and greet, post-concert in the parking lot, during a chilly and rainy Seattle night.

2. Paul Newman - waiting for a cab/limo post-opera in Seattle. He was standing right next to me as my friend went to get our car. Very handsome in person but I clammed up and didn't talk to him.

3. Lou Diamond Phillips- stumbled across some godawful movie shoot he was doing in Venice Beach. Took photos with him, he was very handsome and polite. Turns out he beats his girlfriends...who knew??!!

I've seen a lot of celebrities on the street in NY: Dustin Hoffman, Halle Berry, Michael Stipe, others. I met Steven Tyler (and stood next to Chris Rock and Liv Tyler) backstage at an Aerosmith concert (long story). I've met lots of comedians and writers through work and social circles. But my favorite run-in was meeting Owen Wilson at a Borders bookstore (Dallas) that I worked in after college and telling him that I loved him in Bottle Rocket. (In that same job, I special-ordered a bunch of books for Don Henley, who wasn't a bad guy, but I'm not a big fan of his, so...)

Lots and lots of these stories, after living in New York for years. But here are the best ones:

- Saw Nathan Lane jogging in the park in a black sweatsuit and a pink sweatband. He was adorable.

- I was in the area where they filmed the abysmal Maverick with James Garner, Mel Gibson, and Jodie Foster. I worked as a clerk in a hotel gift shop. Saw a kid leaving the shop with a huge jacket and a baseball cap pulled low -- thought it was a shoplifter. The kid turned around and looked at me -- and it was Jodie Foster.

- A friend of mine was in line at the Greenwich Village post office when she smelled a horrible body odor stench. She turned around to see who it was, and it was Ethan Hawke. Ordinarily I'd say it was pretty rude to repeat that story, but I've heard several other similar stories from other friends. And c'mon, it's fricking Ethan Hawke. I'm sure his ego can take it.

I live in LA and work for a stylist so I've had probably more than my fair share. To this date I'd still say the most unbelievable would be Michael Pitt. Around the time The Dreamers was released he showed up around 1 or 2 in the morning at a party I was at looking mildly homeless with a few other mildly homeless looking scraggly guys (who it turns out were his crummy band). The whole party itself was pretty ridiculous, probably the most typically Entourage-esque thing I've ever been to, but he managed to trump all the other excessive douche-baggery that was afoot. I'm about 99.9% sure he and his whole lot were high on crystal meth, and he and his friends proceeded to also get falling down, slopping around on each other drunk as well. That said he was fairly nice and approachable, he came up to my friends and I and tried to tell us something about a song that was playing (at least I think that's what it was he was mumbling), and he fetched me a beer at one point when he went to grab himself another. At the end of the night on the patio he and his friends were scrounging together their money and asking around to see if anyone knew of any cheap motels they could afford. It was pathetic and made me sort of sad, but was sort of really disgusting too.

Also, Rosanna Arquette is a complete and total bitch, Meredith Baxter is a mega bitch, and Carrie Anne Moss and Eliza Dushku are two of the most down to earth polite famous people out there.

Oh, almost forgot this one. Mary Lou Retton, darling of the '84 Olympics--went to church with her in Houston a few years ago. We had babies dedicated on the same day. My baby was cuter but Mary Lou was cuter than I.

Was at Le Cox in the Marais (Paris) for happy hour, when Jean-Paul Gautier, decked out in leather, showed up with his entourage. I think he brushed up against me at one point....

A sad little brush with greatness.

It was the summer of 1997 and I was 15 years old. I was with my family for summer vacation on Martha's Vineyard and while in one of the 2 movie theaters I had the honor to meet, the one, the ONLY, DENNIS HOPPER.

The kicker? I met him in the theater for the South Park movie. He sat right in front of me and he appeared to love it.

O.k, I have got the celebrity run-ins to top all y'all.

1. Went to see "Mass Appeal" starring Eric Roberts and sat in the first row. He was so beautiful that I got an enormous erection that he noticed and winked at me (from on-stage). I went backstage afterwards but gave up trying to talk to him until, as I was leaving, he called out "You can't leave until I get a chance to talk to you." I froze, he ran up, and we spent the rest of the evening together. . . .

2. After a performance of "The Crucible" with Liam Neeson and Laura Linney, I rode the subway home to the Upper WestSide talking to Laura Linney who sat beside me and asked to borrow a pen so she could jot a note. She was incredibly warm, funny, and beautiful. She even laughed when I remarked that she could make me bat for the other team and joked that I "shouldn't change teams if I was having a successful season".

3. A glorious Spring day in Central Park in Manhattan with a new boyfriend when a shirtless John F. Kennedy, Jr. knocked him down trying to catch a football. He apologized profusely and joined us for Rum Raisin ice cream cones. Absolutely drop dead gorgeous and charming. What a tragic loss. His cokehead wife was absolutely insane to cheat on him. What a beautiful (inside and out) man.

4. I relutctantly went to a leather bar near the notorious decrepit Westside Docks but would not be admitted until the bouncer ripped the crocodile off my brand new Izod polo shirt. I was devastated because it was the first clothing purchase I had made in some time. I was shaking (probably from lack of food as much as anger) when, out of nowhere, Rock Hudson asked if he could buy me a drink. RH was notorious in NY for prefering the "Creeple People" so I was doubly shocked when he spoke to a skinny ballet dancer. We "talked" for several hours until the early morning.

5. And finally: I was crossing 76th (77th?) Street at Columbus Avenue when a red Corvette careened around the corner and screeched to a stop inches from me. I was ready to let go with a barrage of New Yorkese when Christopher Reeve (yes, Superman himself) jumped out of the car and literally swept me off my feet. He carried me to the sidewalk and held me as there was no place to put me down except the curb. We both ended up laughing uncontrollably when we noticed people gawking and staring. Building on the inherent drama he had created, he gently stood me up, gave me a hug and a kiss on the mouth before saying in a stage whisper, "Thanks for last night" and bounding back into the 'Vette. Much to the envy of every woman and man on the street corner. He was truly a super man.

As a teen, I won some award thingie, and had a meeting with my Senator (with a group of other award winners). We'd been double booked in rooms with Ted Kennedy who showed up to the delight of teens and parents. He graciously shook hands and took pictures before leaving to find another room for his event.

As a child at an amusement park with my parents, we noticed one family was getting to go to the front of every line. It was Evander Holyfield, world heavyweight champion (at that time). My boxing enthusiast father was beside himself with joy and only barely stopped himself from embarrasing him. My father eventually decided that as a fellow father, he could respect his desire to have a nice day at an amusement park with his kids without crazy middle aged fans invading it.

i met michael stipe after an r.e.m. concert (does that count?). my sister and i decided to wait for the traffic to clear from the parking lot, so we hung around with a bunch of people behind the hampton coliseum in virginia. there were a couple of buses parked back there and we did not even think that the band would be on them at that point...well they were. michael popped his head out of a window and offered everyone jolly ranchers. he looked at me and said: i remember you! you were in front of peter (we were in the second row...in front of peter)! i was so shocked, all i could say was "yeah!"

My ex almost ran Woody Allen over with his bike once.

I met John Wayne waaaay back in the very early 70's. I was on a Girl Scout trip, of all things, on Catalina Island. He was just meandering down the street and saw a bunch of us gathered in front of a store. "Howdy, gals" he boomed, stopped and spoke to us for a moment, wished us a nice day and continued on. His enormously fabulous yacht was moored near the Casino, dwarfing every single boat in the harbor. What a guy!

At the airport:
Jackson Browne
Coolio
Jesse Jackson in a Chicago White Sox baseball jacket. Tall, looking frail, slight limp.

1. My dad taught Patrick Swayze to fly a plane he'd just bought, while he was filming "To Wong Foo" in Loma, Nebraska. My sis and I were in high school at the time, and the visit we took to the set was quite an experience at that age. He was very nice, and had the folks around the set take good care of us. He had a cool dog. Ridgeback, name of "Jazz."

2. When a tyke of 7, my dad got me Mike Singleterry's autograph. I left it in my pants and put them in the wash.

3. Was at the Starbucks by Emory in a daze, as I was preparing to take my qualifying exams. I glanced up to see the guy who'd been sitting next to me get up and cross the street. None other than Salman Rushdie.

4. Had a brief and sweet romance with Bam Margera in the pre-Jackass days when he was still sweet and not weird and icky.

Man... there's really not much for me in this department. Neil Patrick Harris and Freddie Prinze Jr went to my highschool (ten years before I did...). And I'm pretty sure I saw Doogie in the mall once.

I also got to get an autograph from Sandra Day O'connor while interning at the Arizona Senate.

Having grown up in LA, I'm a wee bit jaded as far as "Celebrity" sightings, but these two are my personal favorites, even if they may not be the biggest stars on earth.

1. Summer 1997 (or so) my friend and I were walking around 3rd Street in Santa Monica (outdoor shopping-y place a few blocks from the beach... whatever). A few steps ahead of us was a relatively nondescript guy who to me a least, looked a lot like Steve Gutenberg. I said this to my friend rather loudly at which point the man looked back at us, revealing that he was in fact STEVE GUTENBERG. Apparently sensing my eerie fixation on Zeus & Roxanne, he started walking faster. We of course took this as a provocation and started walking faster too. I'm not going to say this culminated in a full out RUN at any point, but we trailed Speedy Gutenberg for at least two blocks only to finally give up upon realizing that chasing a D grade celebrity is a lot more fun than catching one.

2. Another good friend of mine had a sister who married Larry Gelbart's grandson. I got to attend the wedding and yes, I met Mr. Gelbart who was gracious, etc. etc., but the real catch was at the buffet. While filling my plate with snazzy "Hollywood" hors d'oeuvres, who should be standing next to me but the ancient (and apprently 8-foot-tall) Carl Reiner. Wanting to be cool, but not so much as to seem rude I nodded at him and said, oh so cleverly I might add, "Hi." In reply he went off on a 3 minute jag about hummus and pita. "What is this? They've got hummus and no pita? This is nuts! I could understand pita and no hummus, but this is terrible. Terrible!" He took "hummus" and "pita", two admitted silly sounding words (especially to an old school comic one would imagine) and just started doing crazy shtick for a couple of minutes. After all that, he just looked at me and wandered back to his table. Surreal and brilliant.

I've only had 3 run ins:

3) Stephen Lewis (former Canadian Ambassador/ UN special enovy/Canada's greatest orator/Bono's best friend) 3 seperate times.

2)Gabriel Byrne outside a stage door in New York. He was extremely nice.

1) Patrick Stewart also outside a stage door, surprisingly short fellow. Refused to sign Star Trek merchandise but was happy to sign play bills.

I got "flipped off" by Steve Martin as a 12yr old!

This was in 1980 right in the middle of the Wild and Crazy Guy days and the success of the The Jerk. You know, King Tut and the arrow through the head gag, etc. My parents and I had driven out to So Cal and were actually driving around the stars' neighborhoods with one of those ridiculous maps. We were at a stopsign, and for some reason I looked out of the back window of our Cadillac Seville at the car behind us--it was a green Mercedes convertible. Of course, being the very recognizable guy he was (and is) I freaked out, waving my hands at him screaming "oh my god--Steve Martin is right behind us!!" Well, we obviously were holding him up at the stop, so he gave me a sideways smile and flipped me the bird! Weird, huh?

Oh! I almost forgot my favorite story, although it's not my own.

My friend Kim moved to L.A. in January, and about a month after she moved there she went to a club with friends and spotted Elijah Wood. She was pretty drunk and had to pee, and to get to the bathroom she had to squeeze past Elijah and his entourage. He was nice enough to make everyone move out of the way for her, and as a thank you? She grabbed his balls. Classic. AND classy.

This summer I was working in New Haven CT when they were filming scenes for the 4th Indiana Jones movie. I was standing around watching filming because how cool is that? Seriously! Anyway, I saw Steven Spielberg from a distance. But the best part was when Shia LaBeouf walked by and smiled and waved at me when I sort of squealed a little and started waving like a maniac. Too cool. The next day he walked right by me when I was watching filming again, but there was no touching or eye contact unfortunately :(

my birthday last month, my favorite vegan restaurant here in Philly. My husband and I are late for our reservation. Having adopted the Philly motto of "the City that Shoves you Back" we blow past the inocuous bald guy who is dithering in the doorway. Upon reaching the hostess first, we turn and realized we totally just sideswiped Moby.

He went to the bar, was completely low-key and undemanding. So, chastened, I muttered,'Hi Moby" as we walked past him to our table. "hi?" he replies.

He was seated behind us. And he ordered the same entree as my husband. I stil have no idea what he was doing in Philly. But he has a cross tattoo on the back of his neck and is very very petite. That I can tell you.

I walked by Jeanane Garofalo in the East Village, NYC crying. Her head wasn't very visible but she was all hunched over her body shaking with sobs. Yeah pretty sad, huh? I walked by some guy who was on the Real World, I think New Orleans, that guy who was really blonde and was fairly religious and wouldn't have sex till marriage. Also in NYC in the East Village near St. Marks Place. I don't think he's terribly famous anymore though. Anyway, I have had precious few brushes with celebrity. I did meet Chayanne (Latino singer) when I was 12 at a Puerto Rican comedy show, and he gave me a signed picture of him. That's the closest I've come so far aside from the above and I don't even know if those count...

So many...where to begin?

I used to work at a high end gym here in NYC so I had run ins with a fair few celebs.

Eric Stoltz - I used to refer to him as my gym boyfriend because he always worked out on the weight machines near my desk, and we exchanged all kinds of grins, but I never spoke to him until one day when we caught the elevator at the same time and he said
"Your hair is really beautiful, it's so refreshing to see a really pretty redhead" to which I replied
"As opposed to all the fuglies out there?"
I have no idea what made me say it. He kind of stammered in confusion and then I tried to save the situation by laughing and saying
"I know what you mean, there are so few of us."
End of akward exchange. End of Eric-Stoltz-my-gym-boyfriend.

Philip Seymore Hoffman - Usually just nodded hello, then one day the magic elevator intervened again, and we had a totally easy conversation about the weather, living in New York and all that jazz. A really lovely person.

Nicole Kidman - Didn't say a word. Let her assistant pay for her training session and just stood by, glassy eyed in a Mickey Mouse t-shirt. Really as thin as you think she is.

Ethan Hawke - Shared my newspaper on the day the Staten Island Ferry crashed, seemed appropriately horrified. Needed a shave.

Kate Winslet - Came upstairs to pay for a training session, without a doubt, the most beautiful person I've ever seen. This is the only time I've ever been struck completely dumb, I couldn't say a word, I just tried not to look like a complete fucking idiot. She freaking GLOWS.

Mandy Patinkin - asked me for directions, was totally rude.

Billy Crudup - Saw him in The Elephant Man, then saw him on the street after the show, I was on the phone with my boyfriend at the time, who was the assistant to Billy's commercial agent, and he told me to say hi, so I yelled "Hey Billy" at which Mr. Crudup turned around and I told him that my boyfriend who was the assistant at ----- Agency said to tell him hello. He said "Cool" then sneaked away from the crazy lady.

I would relate the story abut the time Paul Sorvino hit on me, or when I saw Sara Jessica Parker asnd Matthew Broderick on the subway with their kid, but I'm tired, and I'm sure you are too. Thanks if you hung in there with this post.

the second half of my post:

maybe it will go through this time? please forgive me for this.

In Nashville you pretty much just boring, run of the mill country singer sightings. Three notable exceptions: 1) My mom smarted off to Tim McGraw because he wouldn't get off his cell phone while she was waiting on him at GapKids. (Tim and Faith came in a lot actually, and were very warm and polite otherwise)
2) My best friend in pre school was Crystal Gayle's daughter, therefore her birthday parties included the likes of Loretta Lynn.
3) As a child, Emmy Lou Harris's house backed up to mine.

Oh and when I was 7 or 8 my family ran into Robin Williams outside a Peets in San Francisco. Say what you will about his manic brand of comedy, but he was so humble and kind to my sister and me, I can't help but like him ever since. (It was right after Mrs. Doubtfire and as he was about to shoot Jumanji he had a major beard)

-Drew Barrymore, George Clooney and Sam Rockwell in Montreal on my 18th birthday... Drew sang to me 'Happy birthday to you, you live in a zoo'. They were celebrating someone else's birthday in this tiny restaurant so the song was directed at both of us.

-Ben Affleck in Montreal at Gogo's before I was legally allowed to be in the bar. He was enormous like the size of a door and I asked if I could buy him a drink but he said no thanks. When he left the bar he got into an escalade limo lined with models/strippers. He went directly to rehab after that stint in mtl.

-James Woods... I met him while I was working in Montreal on Crescent street, in a crappy shop. He asked me out and gave me his cell number and hotel coordinates. I was probably about 19 and laughed at his asking me out and said maybe it would be more appropriate for him to come over for dinner and meet my parents since they're closer in age. He said to me 'if I'm going to meet your parents then we should get married first to make it worthwhile'. something like that. my mom thought that story was beyond hilarious and emailed all her friends about it.

Lots more but those are the real good ones. Oh yeah: 2 Baldwin brothers and the red headed guy from True Romance, the friend in LA filming a movie outside the CEGEP I was going to. We asked one of the Baldwin's for a light, to light our joint which we were smoking between classes as was the thing to do at the time.

-Drew Barrymore, George Clooney and Sam Rockwell in Montreal on my 18th birthday... Drew sang to me 'Happy birthday to you, you live in a zoo'. They were celebrating someone else's birthday in this tiny restaurant so the song was directed at both of us.

-Ben Affleck in Montreal at Gogo's before I was legally allowed to be in the bar. He was enormous like the size of a door and I asked if I could buy him a drink but he said no thanks. When he left the bar he got into an escalade limo lined with models/strippers. He went directly to rehab after that stint in mtl.

-James Woods... I met him while I was working in Montreal on Crescent street, in a crappy shop. He asked me out and gave me his cell number and hotel coordinates. I was probably about 19 and laughed at his asking me out and said maybe it would be more appropriate for him to come over for dinner and meet my parents since they're closer in age. He said to me 'if I'm going to meet your parents then we should get married first to make it worthwhile'. something like that. my mom thought that story was beyond hilarious and emailed all her friends about it.

Lots more but those are the real good ones. Oh yeah: 2 Baldwin brothers and the red headed guy from True Romance, the friend in LA filming a movie outside the CEGEP I was going to. We asked one of the Baldwin's for a light, to light our joint which we were smoking between classes as was the thing to do at the time. We also got their autographs on our school books which I thought was hilarious... and I was wearing a neckwarmer on my head cause it was freezing. charming!

Corey Feldman hit on my friend and I at a taping of his long-forgotten TV Show, "Geeks" (we were there for a fundraiser). We were all, "Umm...we're only 15" to which he replied, "Yeah? And?"

C.C. from Poison hit on me and 2 of my co-workers in a pizza shop on Fairfax. This was pre-Surreal life, and he was LOADED. He kept saying "And what about a pretty girl like YOU" and then rolling his head in the general direction of whichever of us he thought was the most receptive.

The singer from Maroon 5 burst into this karaoke bar I was at and sang some Michael Jackson songs. I was really drunk and kept asking this guy, "Who is that again? He's the singer of what?" My friend recorded it with her cell phone camera, though, so I know it wasn't a whiskey hallucination.

I met Winona Ryder while working for a non-profit group, and had a very nice conversation with her that, nonetheless, allowed me to correctly predict she most likely had a pill problem. Less than a month later she was arrested for shoplifting. But you guys, she is freaking beautiful.

The only other tales I have involve folks in rehab and other such US Weekly type stuff, so I'll stop here.

Oh yeah... drew also commented on my curly hair, she said it was wicked! and then I said oh it's a mess cause I was snowboarding all day and I didn't have time to shower and she said 'oh you snowboard? Guys think it is so hot when girls snowboard!'

And we saw her making out with Sam Rockwell, and she apparently made out with someone's way younger brother at Sona later that night.

sorry for the double post!

Ooh, had to second the people who have met David Sedaris and adored him. I work in publishing and have to do a lot of author stuff and he is by far my favorite author I have met! So friendly, so quirky. Just as nice as he could be!

i was shopping at my local whole foods, rummaging through the sushi, when a nondescript fellow walks up next to me and grabs a couple of rolls (which come with not only your roll of choice, but also ginger, wasabi and soy sauce, which becomes an important point of fact). he looks up at the sushi chef, who is still rolling out the rolls, and he asks for more soy sauce. the sushi chef obliges by handing him (who i now realize is jason biggs) several more sauce packets. and jason biggs retorts in a most impatient voice, "dude, i'm going to need a lot more than that." and i was left to ponder how a guy who's clearly made a lot of money doing mediocre films couldn't afford to walk on over to aisle 10 and buy himself a gallon of soy sauce for $4.99...

I was interning on a film in Manhattan in the summer of 1997. (The film was bad; don't ask). Anyway, anyone who's ever interned on an independent film knows that the hours are 9am until whenever they unshackle you and let you limp home. So, by the time I collapsed onto the subway seat, it was around 2am. The car was completely empty, except for...wait for it...Andrew F'ing McCarthy. He was sitting across from me, wearing purple sneakers and that half-crazed, sweaty expression he always used to convey drama. Scared the hell out of me.

A few years back I was on a horribly long flight from London to St. Louis. There was talk that Tiger Woods was on the flight. I hadn't showered that morning, the flight was several hours in, and I had to use the (by now) smelly bathrooms. I stood in line for the restroom and sure enough Tiger comes walking right passed me. Our eyes met, he smiled, and kept on walking. I think romance novels start out this way. Actually, scratch that. I think I saw a Meredith Baxter Birney movie start out that way.

When I was a baby, George Takei came up to my dad and cooed over me, held me and kissed my forehead. I was cute, but I think he was hitting on my dad.

As a freshman in college, me and my suitemates met the band Eve 6 in a diner. They sat with us and the redhead shared my waffle.

Elie Wiesel taught one of my winter term classes at college. Also shook hands with Paul Rusesabagina after he lectured there.

I saw Corey Feldman at Disney World in April of this year with his family. Almost bumped into him on the way out of Epcot. His wife looked trashy.

Okay, so this actually happened to my friend's brother, but it's still excellent.

My friend was studying abroad in Ireland and a bunch of us had put together a care package for her brother to take over to her whilst he was visiting her on Spring Break. Well, my friend Katie thought it would be funny to throw in some furry handcuffs, as our friend in Ireland was very sexuall repressed. Anyway, John had no idea that there were handcuffs in the package, and had been stopped at customs in London for carrying a supposedly harmful items. As he was wandering around London, absolutely exhausted and completely fried, he ran into Senator John Kerry, flanked faithfully by his wife, Theresa Heinz-Kerry. He said his hellos, explained his situation, but because he was in such a state, he completely blanked on TH-K's name, so he resolved this by completely ignoring the fact that she existed.

I love that story.

The big fame brushes have all been covered...so I'll go with the most absurd:

1) TK - I was inches from running over Andy Dick with my car. Who darts across Highland in nothing but silver shorts at dusk? Andy Dick, that's who.

2) Sanja - Dustin Diamond lived in my neighborhood when I was growing up. At about 8 years old, trick-or-treating his house was something of a rush.

3) Not my best moment for street cred, but while working a temp job a year ago I mispronounced rapper "chamillionaire"'s name so many times his whole entourage burst out laughing. I finally got it right when he helpfully turned around and pointed to the spelling of his name--which was of course painted across the back of his jacket in huge shiny letters.

4) I am unintentionally stalking all of the minor, minor cast members of Veronica Mars (RIP). Saw Tessa "Jackie" Thompson in front of the UCB theatre, sat down the bar from Theo "I had Kristin Bell throw ninja stars in my garage" Rossi, and talked about the shows impending death for a good half hour at a bar with Kevin "I stole the poker money and I'm the butler's son" Sheridan. In that last instance, it is worth noting that I don't approach even the most minor of actors when I recognize them (its just so awkward). My friends on the other hand scoff at such conventions and flagged the poor boy (who was totally drinking alone) down with a shout of "Hey Veronica Mars day player!" He was absurdly nice and even shielded me from a bar fight at one point. I have no doubt it was the first time anyone had recognized him for anything...ever.

I recently worked with Mark Wahlberg on the set of a new Shyamalan movie. Though I saw Zooey Deschanel's back as well as John Leguizamo, I only spoke with Wahlberg.
A while back in New York, I saw a woman crossing the streets I'm positive was Nicole Kidman, and I saw a woman who looked a bit like Meg Ryan in Cannes over the summer.
Also, I ran into Willie Garson(Sex and the City) at a wedding. he was the best man and he and I talked.

i gotta know... what does "ranylt richildis" mean?

That's sorta like asking, "What does Jane Smith mean?" Just two proper nouns tacked together. Maybe one day I should consult a Welsh name etymology guide, now that you mention it... --RR

Met John LeCompt and Rocky Gray, both formerly of Evanescence, on two different days at the amusement park I work at. Had a short convo with John and his kid about the ride they'd just been on, which they thought was awesome. (The ride, not the convo.) Rocky, I didn't talk to aside from suggesting he take his hat off if he didn't want to lose it.

Also, met and got an autograph from Bret 'The Hitman' Hart at an airport in Paris a few years ago.

The best thing I've got actually happened to my husband. Years ago he was working security at Islands of Adventure at Universal Studios in Orlando. Being the biggest guy there, he had to lead an "extraction team" to get Michael Jackson out of a gift shop that was being mobbed by rioting Brazilians. They formed a wedge that resulted in Wacko Jacko being pressed right up against my husbands butt as insane touristas snatched away pieces of his clothes and hair. Yuck! They finally got him out an employee entrance and into a waiting van. Evidently Jacko took the whole thing in stride. I guess he's used to it. Oh, and my husband said that he doesn't even look human from up close.

Sat next to Jane Krakowski at a movie, saw Dr. Phil in a deli, saw Jessi from "Saved by the Bell" in SoHo. NYC, never a dull moment.

Man, all I have is really bad stories, and stories from other people.

A couple of years ago my school took a trip to Universal Studios Orlando. When a couple of friends and I went into the Hard Rock, we saw this very short "goth" guy. My friend was convinced it was the guy from Good Charlotte, but we didn't believe her until the waitress told us they were just eating there.

Me and my family saw Snoop Dog in his pimp mobile coming out of an area of town known for being a place to buy crack.

My dad was working at a bar as a light guy downtown where Bon Jovi was playing. He drank a beer with the band and Heather Locklear. He tells the story to everyone he's known longer than 20 minutes.

Lance Bass - Standing behind me in line to pick up my Wicked tickets at the will call window on Broadway. They didn't have tickets and the show was sold out, but his friend kept urging him to "tell them who you are." They got denied and I giggled about it for 10 minutes.
Jon Voight - Was at the Philadelphia airport last December the day before Christmas Eve. It was about 1 in the morning and he looked pissed. Of course, I had just loudly said to my SO "Hey, that old guy looks like Jon Voight!"
Chris Noth - Saw Mr. Big walking down 5th Ave. I never thought he was handsome on TV, but he was in person.
The oldest brother from Blossom (wow, I'm reaching here)- He must have lived in/near my old neighborhood in Chicago, because he was jogging. I stared at him for a long time trying to figure out how I knew him (high school? a bar?) and I think he was uncomfortable being spotted while working out.
I will not include reality TV "stars" as they are certainly not celebrities. They do seem to flock to Chicago, however.

Sorry about the double post.

Met Pearl Jam bassist, Jeff Ament, back stage in Montana in 1995 and then, a few months later, ran into him coming out of a used book store. As my friend re-introduced me, he at least *said* he remembered me.

Almost ran into Jamie Lee Curtis in a grocery store in Ketchum, Idaho. She was hilarious.

Eddie Vedder walked right past me in the concourse of the Key Arena in Seattle at a Nader rally. He's small.

My sister and I crossed the street in Boise, Idaho with Sting. He's quite tall.

Oh, and I was in the same movie theater (small town Idaho) with Bruce Willis. It was Nacho Libre and he didn't laugh much at all. My friends followed him into the bathroom when the movie was over - he used the stall.

I was visiting LA for the first time over Easter weekend with some friends from college. We were looking for vintage tee on Melrose, and somehow ended up at Urban Outfitters. I was buying a t-shirt that said "Natty Light" on the front, when I noticed a woman off to my right. In a newsboy hat, I could not really see her face but she looked up just enough for me to see her mouth. Once I saw it, I knew who it was. Then she looked up. It was Scarlett Johannson. It was the first time I was ever starstruck. I had seen other celebrities earlier that day in Beverly Hills (Jaleel White, James Spader, Stacey Dash, Raven Symone, Seacrest, Rhea Perlman; hell, even Sumner Redstone). But I was super excited to see her but could not get up the nerve to bother her even though a few minutes later she was in line behind me. The funny thing to my friends and I at the time is that we had been talking about her the night before.

I work at a pretty un-sensational bar in Boston, so was pretty surprised last summer when we hosted the wrap party for some movie that I never heard of again, starring Joey McIntyre. He's so tiny. He sent his (girly) cocktail back I think three times, and sang karaoke to a New Kids on the Block Song. For realz. But I won't hate because he's a hometown hero or something. Eliza Dushku was there as well... being dull, but she looked good.

I got to see a preview screening for "The Mighty Ducks 2" at my local O.C. mall and got signatures from many of the kids including Joshua Jackson, but then Emilio Estevez appeared in the hallway. I asked him to sign a random paper in my hand just as a crowd noticed him. He suddenly got anxious and stabbed my hand with the pen in the middle of the signature and ran into the men's bathroom. I didn't sue. And I still have the autograph with a hole in the middle.
I also went to elementary school with Milo Ventimiglia. ALL the girls had crushes on him, but he was nice to everyone, even the dorks & dweebs. He helped me limp down a hill when I twisted my ankle. Sigh...
I went to see the Upright Citizens Brigade in L.A. a few years back (before Amy Poehler got on SNL). I was on the curb in between shows, and Jeff Conaway comes up, asks me for a light and what the big fuss is about at this little theatre. I had a HUGE crush on fucking Kenickie growing up. I kept my cool and told him all about the show.

I went to school for many years with Stephen Colbert. He's one of the nicest guys in the world and has always been very funny.

Also, I schtupped Ted Turner's son once after a night that included too much Jagermeister. He had the skinniest member I've ever seen - and what it lacked in girth was not compensated for in length. Gah!

Met Art Monk (any Skins fans?) at a bank promotion and got his autograph and a hand shake.

My parents met Al Gore (my mom had a friend on Capitol Hill who was having a birthday party) a few years back (maybe a year after his election loss). Apparently they chatted with him for a good stretch of time.

Oh! One more! I went to this club in San Francisco to see The Avalanches. My best friend (who was DRUNK) points out that we are dancing close to Claire Danes. He then does his best to dance closer to her - which was awful in his state. I did my best to calm him. But the worst part was that she kept turning around and smiling at my fiance. I swear, she likes other women's men!

Oh, and I was with my family in a bakery in Northern Michigan (Stonehouse Bread, they're awesome) and noticed a very large, very orange man sitting in the corner as we tried to buy foccacia - Mario Batali. We chatted with the baker, and he came up to the counter, wished us all a "Merry Kringle and Happy Whatsidoodlde" (it was near Christmas) and walked out. Kind of surreal.

One of my good friends took a part time job as a featured extra on the Ben Stiller/Jason Schwartzman movie The Marc Pease Experience. Anyway, the cast was sitting around waiting for the crew to re-set something and he struck up a conversation with another guy who was waiting around. Ten minutes later someone came up to him and told him he had been chatting with Jason Schwartzman.

After graduating from high school a bunch of my friends and I went to Europe and stumbled upon the Paris premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean 2. I ended up standing on my ex-boyfriend's shoulders to get a look at Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp. Johnny was cool and went straight from his car to the door and signed a few autographs, but Orlando Bloom sauntered around for a good 10 minutes posing with Japanese tourists.

I have 3 - Met Bruce Hornsby when he came to the paper I worked at at the time to look at old hs pics of himself and friends playing bball. (Most embarrasing part was how many people suddenly needed to be in the library and bothered them. sheesh)
Met Magic Johnson at the office when he came by on business. That dude is HUGE! Beautiful smile and great personality. Took time out to shake hands, hug and just chat with all us little people.
Met Henry Rollins after a spoken word show in Norfolk, VA. I was too dazzled to say much, plus my friend offended him by telling him he looked a bit like Ollie North. (True, but did he have to say it???)
Rollins isn't tall at all but man he still has a kickin body! Woo!

I worked on a film with Hugo Weaving...bummed a cigarette off of him. I still have the butt pinned to my bulletin board. Jack Davenport was in it too, I told him I'd seen a short film with him in it that I loved. He seemed mildly suprised that it had turned out well.

Gabriel Byrne - he was shopping for CDs with his son at Amoeba Records in San Francisco. My brother later worked on a film with him and reports that, in addition to being completely gorgeous, he incredibly nice.

Okay. I've had a few brushes in my time, and a few through my parents who ran with some actors in the 70's who ended up to be famous.

This story, though, is my favorite.

My little brother and I were in Italy this summer for two weeks. We were staying in Rome, and I was headed back from a restaurant when I saw a familiar-looking man coming out of a restaurant with his girlfriend. I thought... "Gee. That looks like Mr. Universe from Serenity." You know. David Krumholtz. I went back to the hostel, and told my brother.

The next day, we went to Naples to visit Pompeii. After spending the first part of the day at the ruins, we went to the Archeological museum in Naples. Who did we see in the gift store? You guessed. David Krumholtz. My little bro confirmed that it was indeed him, and asked if we should take our picture with him or something. I said we should just let him have his vacation, and we continued spending time at the museum, wandering around Naples, getting lost, etc.

At the train station, yup, you guessed it, there he was. Three run-ins in two cities, and I couldn't help myself. I introduced myself, and we ended up chatting for about five minutes about Italy. He was really nice.

Oh, also, Adam Baldwin (Jayne from Serenity) was taught by my mom in high school. He held me when I was a baby, and she paid his way for his first audition.

Between Texas, California and New York I've met a few celebs. Some of the encounters were cool, others not so much. Here are a few:

Alan Rickman- California, amusement park. He was in line in front of me. I knew him first by his voice. I think he was giving a few tickets to a kid who didn't have enough to get on the ride.

Keira Knightley- California, boutique. One of my least favorite encounters. She was talking to an older gray-haired lady about how Americans are either too fat or too skinny. She'd pick somethin up and put it down on a completely different table or rack- all over the store.

Edward Norton- New York City, a park (Sorry, I've only been the once so I don't really know which one I was in). He was just walking down the street and talking on his cell in...an Asian language? It was soft so I want to say Japanese. He's really handsome in person.

Rosie O'Donnell- Calfornia, walking down the street. Very nice, helped me pick up my stuff after my bag gave out.

Sandra Bullock- Texas, driving down 121. Traffic was jammed pretty badly and she cut a bunch of people off.

I've got one that is going to sound unbelievable, but is sadly true.

Through a brilliant stroke of luck, I was able to get tickets to go to the 2005 World Series in Houston. We got there ridiculously early to see batting practice, and I wanted to see if I could get any autographs from the players. Long story short, I end up right by the field with a sharpie, and Matthew McConaughey signs my program. He'd been dragged out on the field by some of the park employees to do interviews with all of the press that was there. In and of itself, an good run-in. He was not hard on the eyes, and seemed nice enough. He did know his baseball, though, which I found impressive.

Cue up one week later, one of my friends finds a two page spread of pictures of me and McConaughey with the eye-catching title "Matthew's Superfan" that continued on to have an article detailing how this "adorable young woman could hardly wait as Matthew scribbled his name on her program." There were then captions and arrows all over the pages with such gems as "I'll never wash these eyes again!" and "Wishing ill on Penelope Cruz!" It is without a doubt THE most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me, and it has been show at my work and to all my friends and family. I can only hope that none of them read this, because I got a bad enough time about it the first time around.

I worked as an intern for the entertainment reporter at the NBC affiliate in Chicago one summer. I met various people - local reporters, including Bill Kurtis for all you A&E true crime show fans and celebrities - members of the Chi-Lites if that counts. I got to go to movie screenings that included Siskel and Ebert and no they did not sit together. Ebert was the more chatty of the two although he only said a quick "Hi," to me to acknowledge my presence but I did meet his future wife Chaz. I also sat across Gabrielle Carteris from "Beverly Hills, 90210" during an interview. The most exciting events were meeting and shaking Jerry Seinfeld's hand at the opening of Niketown Chicago and meeting and begging director John Hughes (Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, etc.) to sit down for a live interview that was to begin in two miunutes that was supposed to take place with Walter Matthau. They were in town searching for a boy to play Dennis for the new version of "Dennis the Menance" that Hughes was directing and the interview was supposed to be with Matthau and the local boy who eventually got the role - Mason Gamble. Long story short, Matthau was not going to make it. John Hughes did not want to do the interview but I believe he changed his mind was he saw the panic in my eyes because we were going live with two chairs and only one person - a kid - sitting for the interview. The interview went off without a hitch with director and star of the upcoming movie, my boss did not know the drama involved until much later, and Mr. Matthau asked me after the interview if he was still needed and I said, "no, sir," and got a pat on the back for my troubles.

Aww, I don't have anything very good. I met and had a brief conversation with the frontman of my favorite band, but from what I can tell only about forty other people in the US listen to Voxtrot, so that doesn't really count.

OH! But this year I was eating lunch at my older brother's club at Princeton and suddenly they realized that Al Franken was sitting right behind me at the next table. I couldn't bring myself to turn around and look ... but he was right there.

I'm not sure if Al Franken is "international" - but probably the best I've got.

Way back in the mid-90s, I was a contestant on a teen game show called "Click." The host? Ryan Seacrest.

If you want to jump in the way-back machine with me, I also know some of the guys from 60s band Paul Revere and the Raiders. My dad played with some of them before they became Raiders.

One more: Evan Marriott, a.k.a. the original Joe Millionaire, once ran into me at the mall. Like, literally almost knocked me over, with nary an "Excuse me" or "I'm sorry." What a douche.

This didn't happen to me, but my grandpa used to drive taxi, and once drove hometown boy Bing Crosby. Apparently he was cheap and kind of an ass. My dad worked in Vegas during the 70s and waited on all kinds of celebrities, including Frank Sinatra.

This past May I had the chance to converse with everyone's favorite awkward teen, Michael Cera. I, of course, knew him from Arrested Development, but now everyone and their mother could pick him out of a line up thanks to the propaganda machine that is Superbad.

Anyways, I was at the 24 hour Human Giant takes over MTV thing with my friend. We had decided to go on a whim, because neither of us had seen the show before, but Will Arnett was supposed to be there so we thought what the hell. Through a crazy turn of events I ended up seated on the floor next to the chair that Micheal Cera was sitting in. It is a little hard to explain, but for those of you familiar with Clark Duke, Micheal Cera's BFF, we had been chatting via myspace since about Oct. So during one of the commercial breaks I was like, "say hi to Clark for me." to Micheal and he was like how do you know Clark and Blah Blah Blah. So we had a little three minute convo during commercial breaks. And on TV you can see my foot next to his chair and when the show comes back from commercial one time you can see him looking over at me. He was very nice and said it was nice meeting you when he left. He is just like George Michael in real life, complete with awkward pauses for effect. After that we also brushed past Will Arnett and John Krasinski, who are both giant beautiful men, in the hall, but no words were exchanged. All in all I decided that now I can die happy.

I have to say this is my best one....Jodie Foster and her SON! at the Santa Barbara Zoo. I usually don't approach, but its Jodie freaking Foster! She was a nice as could be.

I was at a party with Julia Ormond...it was right before she had her baby ( she was due within the week!) She was absolutely stunning and very kind.

While walking around San Fransisco on a visit I sort of ran into first Elliot Gould and 5 minuteslater, Don Johnson. Gould is pretty tall, but I was amazed how absolutely minute Johnson is. He's probably shorter than Prince.

And Paul Verhoeven is a regular at the restaurant around the corner of my house. (I live in the Netherlands) I once wanted to by him a drink, but my girlfriend was embarrased and wouldn't let me.

I was at a club in Vancouver and I went for a ladies room break and when I come out of the stall, all these girls are standing by the sinks and staring at the girl waiting in front of my door. I realize it's Kelly Osborne. She is fucking short. I said, "Oh, hi!" She smiled and said hi back. Then I held the bathroom door open for her. God, I'm classy.

She was SURROUNDED by big beefy men in the club, but at one point, she was sitting on a chair right behind my little brother and myself. He goes, you dare me to tap her on the shoulder and ask her to dance? I said, of course! He did. She did. It was awesome.

Alex Trebek. For exactly the reason you think.

I shook hands with a very sweaty Sir Paul McCartney in a shop in Zanzibar, whilst casually ignoring his one-legged wife of the time.

Working in a garden centre in London one year I sold compost to jonathan pryce

So while it was technically due to seeing him in Guys and Dolls, I did get to meet Ewan McGregor after the show, which is still the highlight of my life (I thought I might pass out at the sight of him)... the only thing that could come close is the aforementioned Christian Bale encounter. I also proceeded to run in to (literally) Christopher Eccleston the next day, but he was in a rush and I didn't really get to say anything to him. People all over the street were turning around, asking each other: "Was that Dr Who?". A good two days for me, ha ha.

And for the literary crowd, I've managed to chat with both Irvine Welsh, and James Kelman. Very cool stuff, if you happen to have a weakness for Scottish literature...

My mum met Gerard Depardieu at a tiny airport in the north of Norway (he was filming there), she took a picture with him, then lost it I think. My sister and her husband met Rod Stewart in Paris, but he refused to take pictures with them. My sister went to a concert and found herself standing next to the crown prince of Norway.

Me? I had breakfast with a Nobel Prize laureate (physics) when I was spending my summer at CERN. Because I'm just that nerdy.

I met Bruce Campbell when he was in Grand Rapids, MI for a book tour/Man With a Screaming Brain screenings. I was wearing a shirt that said "I'm blogging this" and not only did he laugh at it, we ended up talking for a bit about what he though of blogging and the generation gap. I just about melted.

There was also one time in NYC when I saw Moby singing karaoke. That was funny as hell. If I remember right, he was singing "Train in Vain" by the Clash.

Does Fabio count?

Rereading my last comment I'm starting to wonder if he even can count...

Royal Court theatre bar - at the end of my sofa are Edgar Wright and Ron Howard, talking to Matthew McFadyen (Mr. Darcy). Edgar Wright was very enthusiastic and bouncy and quite pleased at the way his career was going. Also that same day I walked past Tim Burton who was eating ouside a restaurant in Fitzrovia, London.

Private view of Mark Fiennes's photographs: I meet Joseph and Martha and Ralph was there too.

Ricky Gervais often gets his bento box from the same place I do.

One morning, I accompanied my mom to the gynecologist's office (I must have really been bored). I sat in the waiting room while my mom was in the back getting her hoohah examined. While sitting in the waiting room, I noticed someone familiar coming into the gyno's office, wearing a huge fur coat and hair all over the place.

That woman was Diana Ross.

Good God, she looked awful.

Dammit, I am so pissed at myself for forgetting to check Pajiba yesterday...now I'm all the way at the bottom!

Here's my short list of celebrity encounters:

I lived in Orlando in my early twenties, at the height of the boy band/generic blonde teeny bopper period. I worked at Gap in Pointe Orlando, which was a big tourist trap. Anyway, one day I was taking a break and standing outside the store, sort of in the doorway. My co-worker punched me in my shoulder and shrieked, "Look!", so I did. It was Justin Timberlake, probably about 18 years old, carrying shopping bags and accompanied by an older woman. He was sporting those horrible cornrows (remember those?). He paused and smiled at us, said, "Hi, how are you today?", we gawked, and he moved along, hopping onto an escalator. I felt very brave all of a sudden, or perhaps I was overcome with extreme stupidity, and I shouted his name. He turned back, and I hollered,"Hey Justin, what's going on with your hair?" He answered, shouting equally loudly,"I think someone attacked me in my sleep, because I woke up with it like this!" Yeah, I'm an idiot, but at least J-Tim shouted at me!

I also had the experience of bowling in the lane next to A.J. McLean of the Backstreet Boys and helping Mandy Moore with her purchase at Gap. She was probably 15 at the time and had her own Amex card. I remember being extremely jealous.

I have a few:

I was an extra in a movie a couple years back, called "Cheer up", which later was released as "Man of the House" with Tommy Lee Jones. It was filmed here in Austin at the football stadium. Anyway, we got to meet Tommy Lee Jones. Well, he came over and waved to us all while we were in the stands. Anyway, later on that day I was taking a break on the grass, over near where a lot of the crew was standing. I turn over to my right, and only about 7 feet away is Quentin Tarantino, sitting with a group of the other extras. They were all sitting on the grass in a circle. He had nothing to do with the movie, but apparently was visiting Austin (which isn't too unusual here.)

Also, I got a flight to Ireland back in 2002, and Janet Reno was one of the passengers. We saw her in the lobby reading a guidebook.

My most recent one occurred in Manhattan last summer- I was there with a friend. We were walking down a busy street, and I almost bumped into this sharply dressed man who was walking with a buddy. I said "excuse me" and he gave this genuinely friendly smile, then continued walking. Just then it struck me that I recognized the guy as Bradley Whitford (from THe West Wing/Studio 60, etc.). I remember turning to my friend and saying- "I think that was somebody famous!" I couldn't remember his name at the time.

I was in O'Hare airport once, walking to my gate, when a short, rather stocky bald man caught my attention. I kept staring as I walked passed, and he gave me a rather cold stare and nodded, as if to say "YES, okay? Yes. It's me." It was Dennis Franz. Then, in high school, I was going up the stairs at my health club (in Evanston, IL) with a friend when a guy in a big rush brushed passed me, knocking his wristwatch into the back of my hand. I stopped climbing the stairs and looked up at my friend, then at the man's retreating back. It was Chris O'Donnell, who's from the next town over. Oh, and I saw Jeremy Piven in July at the Chicago Old Town Art Fair. Really short, on his Blackberry, very nice, with a tall brunette. Said hi to my friend and she wouldn't shut up about it for the next 2 weeks.

Another Ottawa gal here and I just want to say how great it is to not only see Canuk representation on Pajiba, but representation that's actually in the town I live in (instead of say Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver).

Anyway, the movie "industry" has started to bubble up some more in Ottawa. We get a crapload of Lifetime movies shot here and I've worked on almost everyone of them. In the past few years I've seen the celeb list slowly move from D to C-list.
I've been on set with a variety of people from the Young and the Restless (for those who care, Phyllis is actually incredibly nice), Tom Green (we were warned before work started NOT to ask him for an autograph... uh, OK), Paul Gross, Tori Spelling (I was around for the whole Dean McDermott thing), Mike the plumber from Desperate Housewives, Lois Lane from Smallville and, just recently, Jeanne Garafalo.

In sixth grade back in '93, our reward for doing well at a school fundraiser was to have a "concert." It was some crappy boy-group that sucked royally. After their performance, all the girls got book-covers with the pictures of the boys dressed in acid-wash MC-Hammer pants. The girls were going crazy over the blond boy's picture. I was not impressed. Years and years later I realized we saw one of the Backstreet Boys first performances. Still not impressed.

I was almost run over by Steven Baldwin driving a custom golf cart at the Luis Palau festival in Minneapolis a few years back. I kinda wish he had, that would have been a better story.

A couple years ago I was shopping in the Chloe boutique on Madison Ave in Manhattan.
I'm debating whether or not to ask an SA to grab one of their bathing suits out of the case for me to try on...all of a sudden I see a sea of paparazzi raping the door & windows of the boutique & who goes strolling past me but Lindsay Lohan herself. This was before she lost all that weight, she was looking kinda cute but wow her hair in person was such a fake red color it was atrocious. Plus she was wearing a hideous pink fur coat.
She stole my thunder & none of the SAs paid any attention to me once she entered. So no bathing suit for me.

Getting out of the boutique was a true ordeal. Thoses paps don't budge!
But Lohan's security gaurd was very, very nice & helped me push out the door & wade thru the sea of paparazzi. How nice!

After she left Chloe to continue her stroll down Madison is where/when the paprazzi shot that photo which ended up being the "Just My Luck" poster - she was snapped winking & holding her sunglasses up while in that wretched pink coat.

I have kind of a wierd one. I was given an award in high school for being an exceptional leader or something. A few us went to a convention with bigshot business people, and we got to have lunch with Dave Thomas of Wendy's fame. This was ten years ago and I was surprised how old and frail he looked in person. Amazing what editing can do. He was so nice and grandfatherly though!

Oh! And I forgot. What was once MC Hammer's huge mansion is in the foothills of my hometown, and he and his huge posse used to show up at the mall. I apparently (I was a kid) pointed at the one posse member with blue hair and exclaimed loudly. My mother was mortified.

One of my sisters used to babysit for Pierce Brosnan & his first wife, before he left London for Hollywood. Sadly, I never met him, though he lived only a street away for quite a while. My mum loved him though, as he came from a place in Ireland only a few miles from her birthplace, and he liked hearing her Irish-isms!

I've met a lot of Tv actors, but since it was at conventions, I'm not sure that counts...
Anyhow, one of my more memorable convention encounters was with Ron Glass.(I know, not internationally famous as per the rules - but on this Firefly-friendly site, I'm thinking you'll know him!)

I was a volunteer at a convention, guarding the door of the main hall & watching Jewel Staite doing her Q&A session on stage. A fan asked her if she'd read any fanfiction which had embarrassed her. She said she had, and mentioned in particular a Kayleigh/Book erotic tale.

Unbeknownst to me, Ron had come in & was standing right behind me. When Jewel mentioned her shock at the Kayleigh/Book, he leaned over and whispered in my ear, 'What's so wrong with that?'
I was still giggling minutes later...

got made fun of by jason mewes for dropping a comic in jay & silent bob's secret stash in LA.

bumped into dave matthews & (i think) tim reynolds couple weekends ago downtown chicago. not a fan haha...

Ok, I've had a few good ones:

- I went to Duke in the mid-90s, and one night we were drunkenly wandering around campus and stopped in this one building to get a soda. There was Al Franken, also getting a soda. Turns out he was there with his son, who was in high school and doing a school visit. He was very friendly, and we chatted with him for a few minutes.

- I'm a meeting planner now with a big non-profit, and in 2006 Al Gore came to our meeting and gave his speech soon before An Inconvenient Truth came out. They weren't allowed to tape or let anyone extra in since much of the info was copyrighted I guess. I briefly met Al and Tipper-he was nice, she was not.

- Went to a wedding in Sacramento in 2005 and sat near Chris Rock at the airport. Was very tiny. Some old man sat next to him and started chatting him up, totally unaware of who he was.

- I grew up in Canton, Ohio, so a lot of football players go through there every year for the Hall of Fame game. In high school, I went with a friend to see Mo' Money (a poor choice). I noticed all these huge dudes coming into the theater, and realize it's Randall Cunningham and the Philadelphia Eagles. I happened to be a huge Cunningham fan, and was very excited. When we left the theater there were also a bunch of Dallas Cowboys around.

This was my husband's encounter, but I was extremely jealous!! He was in Venice Beach in the spring, and saw some guys playing some kind of weird tennis-type game, where the courts were small and fenced in (I'm sure someone knows what this is). Anyhoo, he realizes that one of the pairs is Will Arnett and John Krasinski. He took a bunch of pictures of them. I love those pictures.

I worked at an athletic club in San Antonio about 6 years ago- 2 stories:

#1 Many of the Spurs (NBA team) used to come in all the time. All were very polite and friendly (especially Avery Johnson and David Robinson, and Steve Smith). Once while working out, I was resting on a bench (laying down) getting ready to bench press. When I opened my eyes, Tim Duncan was standing directly over me looking down (from 7 ft), and asked if I needed a spot. I was so flustered that I said that I would be alright. About ten minutes later I realized that I shouldn't have passed that up and called him over to spot me on incline. After my set, he called me on it- "you didn't need a spot, man", smiled, and went back to his workout. But hey, Tim Duncan spotted me, so I was happy.

#2 got a call from dave matthews band's manager reserving raquetball courts, so my friends and i (ridiculously huge dmb fans at the time) reserved the same courts right before him... he was a couple hours late (we had all taken off work to be there). as we were heading out (heads hung low) we bumped into them around a corner. we hurried back and got on the court next to him (after gawking for a while). a few minutes later his tour manager came onto our court and asked if we knew how to play squach. i volunteered that of course we did (bs), and he asked if we could teach "the guys on the next court" (dave and a friend of his). i made up some rules (based on the raquetball rules i had just learned), and dave called me on something that didn't make sense. he was really nice and took pictures with us after he finished playing (3 hours later). has was drenched, and said "you guys are probably thinking i'm a funky fuck right now". he was surprisingly good at squash, and surprisingly big. stefan lessard (the bass player) was also there and was a tool.

also walked by Hulk Holgan (extremely large man, of course, and he was rocking the yellow bandana), flanked by two yound guys half his size and age (does he have sons?) in a Miami airport and later that same day walked by Al Franklin in the Chicago airport

oh, also met jason mraz (while visiting a friend at vanderbilt a few years back) after an on-campus concert. he was very drunk, and very horny (trying to get my friends girlfriend and any other attractive female to come into his trailer)

One of the coolest celebrity run ins ever.

I've met quite a few celebrities in my time; Judd Nelson, Gregory Hines, Ice-T, Tim Roth. I must say that the coolest encounter with a celebrity was my encounter with my favorite 80's rock star, the one, the only, Billy Idol. This is a bit of a long one and has a bit of a back story so bear with me. It is by far my best celebrity story.

When I was a kid I lived in Thailand. It was a favorite vacation spot for lots of the rich and famous for obvious reasons. So it was about 1989 and Billy Idol came to Bangkok for vacation. During his stay at the Oriental Hotel he spilled some "orange juice" on the Oriental rug. The hotel of course wanted to bill him for the cost of a new rug and his position was "If I'm paying for the rug, I want to take the rug with me." The hotel and him didn't agree on that logic so they contacted the American Embassy where my father worked. One of his duties in the Consular section where he worked was to help out American citizens when they disagreements with the locals. So he ended up meeting with Billy Idol and arranged for him to keep the carpet.

Later that night or the next night my sister was at the red light district where all the kids hung out called Pat Pong and she ran into Billy Idol. When they meet during the conversation she says "You know my father." He gives her a puzzled look and she says "Mr. Parsons." Billy Idol goes "Oh yeah. He's a cool chap. He took my to all the titty bars in town!" She gives him a shocked look and he says "I'm just kidding around with you."

That weekend me and a bunch of friends of mine went to this little beach town called Pattaya. So we're down there cruising around and we look into this restaurant in the early evening and who is sitting at a table right by the door? Billy Fucking Idol! So we pop in and go up to him and awkwardly approach him and go "Hey, you're Billy Idol right?" Now he is shit house wasted slumped over the table and he lifts his head up and goes "Yeah." In that awesome punk rock British accent. I say to him "You know my father." He sits up a little straighter and asks incredulously "Mr. Parsons?". I say yeah and he goes "What the fuck!?! Has that chap got kids all over the fuckin globe!?!" Of course I lost my shit laughing at that.

So we realize that the girls we were supposed to meet up with would be super pissed if they didn't get to meet Billy Idol so we go to grab them up the road and bring them back. Billy is still slumped over his meal tanked out of his gourd. I'm telling you it was so much better that he was wasted. It seemed to agree with him, almost like an accessory or something. So we go in and go up to him and approach table and are like "Uh...Mr. Idol?" He looks up and he's like "Yeah?" We're like "These girls are really big fans of yours and..." Before we can get the next words out he jumps up, stumbles out of the booth, wraps one arm around my shoulder and my other friends shoulder and shouts "Pictures! Pictures!" as if we're all about to pose for a group snap shot. Of course none of us even has a camera and tell him that. At that point he drops his arms to his side with a disappointed look on his face, then reaches down to his table and grabs the bread plate off the table and throws it out the front door of the restaurant so it shatters on the sidewalk just outside the door. I shit you not it was one of the coolest things a 9th grader who is just starting to listen to punk rock could ever see.

I'm not done yet.

So then he sits back down at his table and we get him to autograph our shirts because that is the only thing handy that we can have him sign. They weren't even Billy Idol shirts, just shirts. So he signs this girl Gabby's shirt "NICE TITS! Billy Idol" she was also in the 9th grade. Again how cool can this get? Then he looks as my James' Exploited t-shirt and goes "Now that's a cool fucking shirt!" Then grabs all his chains puts them on the inside of his shirt, takes off his $100 designer original shirt and goes "I'll swap ya." Of course James has his shirt off in like one second flat and is like hell yeah. Billy then signs his shirt and we leave. By far the coolest celebrity encounter I will ever have.

On a bit of a side note about 10 years later I'm telling this story to my girlfriend at a party and her friend who I had just met overhears the part about the shirt swapping as she's walking by and she stops and asks if we're talking about Billy Idol. I say yes and she asks if we're talking about the interview from VH1. I'm like "No. We're talking about the time that I met him." Her jaw drops and she tells me that she was watching an interview on VH1 and in the interview he tells the interviewer a story about a boy he met years earlier who he swapped shirts with in Thailand. True story.

Once got a shoulder rub from Oliver Stone (he was standing behind me while I was seated at a table in a restaurant and he was leaning on me while he talked ot the person across from me).
John Waters got me drunk (we were at a bar with him and people kept buying him drinks he didn't want so he kept giving them to us).
Went to a party with John Landis.
Spoike Lee rounded a corner and nearly ran into my chest when I was coming out of an elevator. That is one short man.
All of this was while I was in the Film Society at Texas A&M.

My better half, our daughter, and I were wandering around the bowels of Chicago's O'Hare airport baggage claim, searching for our L.A.-export friend when I happened to nearly force my eyeballs out of my head at Adrianne Curry and her husband(?) Christopher Knight as they brush by. I sputtered it to my hub, who didn't believe me,'It's that girl, from vh1, and her mean boyfriend? You know, that pretty one?' In retrospect, I understand his doubt. So we followed them to their baggage carousel destination and since I had my camera ready to document Annie's arrival and fun to be had, I forced eye contact with Adrianne and raised my eyebrows and camera questioningly. She grinned, nodded and nudged her Brady, who peered out under his cap at us. I snapped. She winked. I'm embarrassed to say, my heart fluttered. Email me for the evidence of my mediocre photography skills.
And:

Also in Chicago, this time in city proper, my husband and I were lurking along the set of the falsly-titled 'Rory's First Kiss' (the new Batman film, 'The Dark Knight'), gamely searching for celebrities.
We brush past a gaggle of workers, hanging out by the food setup, past a very trim and almost-petite man in a green cap, wander around until asked politely to leave, because they were, well, filming. As we're about to head down the stairs, I look over at the sinewy green hatted man and happen to make eye contact. It was Christian Bale, and at that moment, whose daughter came running up to him from the watchful eye of his wife. He hugs her and holds her with her head peeking over his shoulder. He had been waiting for them. I whisper, probably very loudly and obviously, to my husband who the man behind us is. The three started down the steps a few paces behind us, chatting about seeing Oprah and other things to do in the city. When we reach the end of the steps, I notice my boot's untied (really!) and duck over to lace it back up. Christian's daughter, still peeking out from his back shoulder area, waves and smiles to my husband, who calls out, 'Hello sweetheart!' Christian turns to us, looks a bit confused as to whom we were speaking, and seems to accept my and Mike's charming Midwestern grins before turning back to his conversation.

I used to work for a hotel and we got all sorts of interesting guests. I once drove the guys from Inner Circle (they do that "Bad Boys" song...whatcha gonna do?) to Safeway for groceries when they stayed with us for a few days. I have no idea what they bought, but there were really nice.
Sally Struthers stayed with us when she was doing a show in San Jose nigh on 7 years ago. Never heard a PEEP from here, and she stayed with us for over a month. I think I only saw her the one time when she first checked in. I don't even know if she actually stayed in the room.

However, the best was about two years ago. I was at work and my boss asked me and my coworker to go hunt down one of his peers to ask him something. We knock on said peer's door and just walk on in as always - right smack dab into Joe Montana. Yes. Former glorious quarterback of the 49ers, instigator of "The Catch" parts 1 and 2 - hanging out with my boss' peer in his office over coffee. You know, like normal people do. I guess this peer used lead movtivational conferences that Montana attended, and that's how they became buds. My coworker and I immediately blushed, stammered our apologies for our rudeness, and backed the heck out of there. Montana just laughed and smiled at us.

It's not every day you go to work and you meet a legend!!

• Met and got pics taken with Vince Carter on the day we both graduated from UNC. (This after drooling over him in line at Chick-Fil-A every MWF of my freshman year...)
• A friend of mine met P. Diddy at an Atlanta bicycle shop where Mr. Combs, full entourage in tow, was buying bikes for his kids.

I was an Air Force brat in the 60's, my dad was an officer & a respected surgeon, so we got to meet various celebs of the day who did USO work supporting the troops in Vietnam. I have a pic of my dad with Sebastian Cabot (the butler on "Family Affair") while Dad was serving a tour of duty in Cam Rahn Bay, for instance. I also have one of my mom with Mickey Spillane at a book-signing. But my claim to fame is having met Sharon Tate when she was in town promoting "Don't Make Waves". I was maybe seven years old and she was taller than I, very beautiful, and clearly loved kids. I got her autograph but it was lost in one of our moves. Only later did I find out that she was a tiny girl, like 5 feet tall. What later happened to her was reprehensible beyond compare.

I was at LAX going through security, and Queen Latifah was right in front of me in the line! I wanted to tell her I loved her and stuff, but she was already getting harassed by the stupid airport security people.
Also, I was down at Santa Monica in the shops reading one of those information signs, and as I turned to leave I bumped right into Richard Fancy, Mr Lippman from Seinfeld! I wanted to say "Top of the muffin TO YOU!", but I was too shy.
Also, I was on a plane from DC and that angry bald presidential advisor with the cheese-knot head was on board. The one who is on the show Crossfire, quite often. His name is alluding me just now. :)

I've got three.

1) There used to be an antique shop on Main Street in town. My friend an I were a young, and happy 14 years old and not as well informed as we thought we were of the world around us. Already, though, we had schemes and dreams of getting rich quick and being movie stars. My father would regularly visit this antique shop for their monthly auctions. 'Lo and Behold he comes home one night to tell me "You ever hear of a guy called Harvey Weinstien?" My ears perk, my brain races, and finally I get the idea. Together my friend and I hatch a terrible fucking horror-zombie movie script. We wait for him outside and bam... Its Harvey Fierstein... Well instead of hitting him with a terrible script I tell him I loved him in Mrs.Doubtfire and scuttled away.

2) Standing in Union Square waiting for the Mayday march against the new world order's rules towards immigrants when Sarah Silverman strides by. There I am, community college communications camera in hand, and my heart swells. She is hotter in person. I yell her name to no avail. She was wearing headphones. She moved closer and closer towards me and then my body lurched. I choked. I reached out and punched her backpack with all my might. Why? I may never, ever, ever know. She halted, nearly fell back, turned to me and just raised an eyebrow. I waved gently. She gave me an anger filled wave and disapeared into the crowds.

3) Days later I'm in North Carolina for a documentary film festival. Lo and Behold Danny Devito surprises everyone with a panel on the last day. The whole weekend my class had been interviewing people on their opinions of Documentary films. I thought Danny Devito would be a perfect addition. So watched his panel and jumped a balcony to shake his hand. In all the commotion I got him to sit down and have a half-hour interview with me. Then I stole his cheese.. Sorry Danny.

Also, my psychology professor is Will Ferrel's uncle.

I used to work at a bookstore, and the Doc himself Christopher Lloyd came though my line. He bought a $15.00 art magazine and paid with a credit card. Since I couldn't come up with anything not totally ridiculous to say, I kept the receipt (no, I don't think I still have it.) It did get me wondering about celebrities using credit cards, assuming the clerk pocketed the receipt, and then going through the chargeback process so that they get the thing for free. In the end I assumed that one couldn't pull such a ruse TOO often, and the Doc wouldn't waste it on a $15 periodical.
At that same bookstore I met Bill Clinton...he was signing his autobiography there during the '04 DNC. I'm not sure if this counts as it's partially a live gig thing, so I didn't mention it first. I did shake his hand and get eye contact though, which was really as amazing as I hoped it would be. It was about two weeks before his heart attack and he'd been signing books all day so it was sort of a limp fish handshake, but I got the eye contact which apparently most of my fellow employees did not. At any rate, he's the only US leader of my lifetime that I would put said life on the line for, and I got to shake his fucking hand. Marvelous.
Oh, and I once smoked pot with the grocery store clerk from In The Bedroom.

Shared a cab with Dee Snyder once after Schwarzenegger's gubernatorial inauguration. Dopily told him he sounded like Dee Snyder, because I wasn't sure. Turns out I was right.

Other than that...uh...my Dad once knocked down Paris Hilton's bodyguard after the Grammys because he mistakenly thought:
1) she was Britney Spears
2) I'd love nothing more than a voicemail message from Ms. Spears.

What I loved more was when his friend corrected him by saying "that's not Britney Spears, I've seen that girl on the internet"

Priceless

Is anyone still reading? anyway, once, I was walking past a restaurant in the West Village, and there are people eating outside. I just scanned them quickly, and did a double-take, because I had just caught the eye of Famke Jansen. When she sees that I double-taked (double-took?) she immediatly hunches over her food. My face forms an Oh-My-God expression, and the guy she's with see this, and whispers into her ear while looking at me. I just walked away thinking, "I just saw Jean Grey!"

I also saw Ron Livingston admiring a jacket at a street fair. That was pretty cool, but I didn't say anything to him because i just don't know what I woul dhave said.

Hmmm. Here goes:

1) Showed camera equipment to MC HAMMER in a mall outside DC when I was working as an electronic salesman in the early 90´s.

2) Showed video equipment to ACE FREHLEY of KISS at the same store.

3) Actually sold 2 video cameras to DAN ACKROYD and his actress wife, DONNA DIXON, when they were there buying Christmas gifts for her family that live in Northern Virginia.

4) Got BURT YOUNG´s autograph (Paulie in the Rocky movies) when I was a kid visiting NY in the 70´s because he was sitting in the row behind me at the Broadway showing of "Annie" starring Sarah Jessica Parker as the title character.

5) In a strange circle of life moment, I later got SARAH JESSICA PARKER´s autograph outside a Broadway theatre when I was visiting there with my sister in the late 90´s and SJP was starring in "Once Upon A Mattress".

6) Spent the Y2K New Year´s Eve on a small cruise ship circling around Manhattan with "GENTLEMAN" GERRY COONEY, the great white hope boxer who lost to Larry Holmes in the Heavyweight title match in the early 80´s. He was really nice and let me take a picture with him and he still was the size and as solid as a small building.

7) When I was a boyscout in the 70´s, I shook hands on camera with ROBERT ENGLUND (Freddy Kruger) at a local WV telethon for March Of Dimes when I presented a check to him as he was hosting it. Afterwards, I got his autograph. This was before the Nightmare On Elm Street movies made him really famous. At the time, he was just playing the good lizard alien on the NBC series "V". I still get a little creeped out when I realize I shook the hand that would one day become the razor bladed horror weapon that killed so many film teenagers.

7) But my favorite and proudest celebrity brush with greatness took place in the late 60´s when I was an infant. I was held, played with and kissed by JANIS JOPLIN (she probably saw me naked too). My uncle was a drummer who knew one of the memebers of her band Big Brother And The Holding Company. They weren´t super famous yet and were touring some small clubs across the country. They came to WV to play somewhere and they had no place to stay one night when it was getting late on their way into the state. They called my uncle (who lived 3 hours away) and he told them to stop at my home and my parents would put them up for the night. They did and now I can officially say I was given a rasberry on my tummy by JANIS JOPLIN. How many other people can make that claim?

I ran down Jason Bourne once. Ok, considering that he can run a half a mile in high altitude before his hands start shaking, I knew I couldn't really run him down so instead I headed him off at the pass.

I was sitting in Battery Park one balmy summer when one of my friends perks up, points over yonder, and goes "That's Matt Damon!" We all turn to look, and lo and behold, there is is, jogging along the pier. He was about 500 yards away (or so - I really have no sense of space) running along the water front. Anyone who knows me knows that I love Jason Bourne. I mean, who wouldn't? He is so the perfect boyfriend.

The path along the water curves around the grassy area where we were sitting so I took off running in the opposite direction to get on the path, anticipating that we would eventually cross eachother. Boy was I out of shape. But I caught him! Not at all stalker-like, I came out of the hedges just as he was coming by and I walked right by him. My heart melted as we even made a little eye contact. Loser extraordinaire? No doubt. Good thing this is anonymous.

I was twelve at the time, and on a family trip to Italy, staying in a hotel in Torino. We were to meet a taxi driver outside the hotel for a visit to a friend, but it was pouring rain outside, so we waited in the lobby for the car to arrive. There was a man waiting as well, pacing steadily and hoping for the storm to subside.

I sat with my dad, watching the man walk back and forth, back and forth, smiling at us as he passed.
He was small (no taller than my dad, who was about 5' 7") and just beginning to go grey...but exceedingly handsome. My dad leaned over and asked, "do you recognize him?" and of course I couldn't name him even though he looked familiar, so I said that I didn't.

It was Marcello Mastroiani. Eventually he and my dad exchanged some small talk about our trip and relatives in the city, etc...he was just really friendly (completely unphased by what must have been our staring, he put us at ease). We said goodbye when our taxi arrived and we didn't see him again, but he's still one of the nicest memories of the trip.

Oh, I almost forgot -- I also ran into Robert Musgrave outside a coffee shop in LA a few years ago (2000-2001, I only remember because The Royal Tennenbaums hadn't been released yet).

If you can't place the name think "Bob Mapplethorpe" from Bottle Rocket. I actually called him "Bob Mapplethorpe" when I introduced myself to him. He was a very nice guy and humored me and my wife for a bit even though he was already there with a few friends.

chicago gold coast: i was standing with my mother admiring the cars in the BMW store when we literally bumped into bob dylan coming from the other direction. apologies went all around and then my mother said, so which car do you fancy best? bob said, all of them. we laughed awkwardly and then moved on. about 5 feet away, i said, wasn't that dylan? my mother smirked and shook her head yes.



sensei restuarant in the bellagio in LV: my friend's fiance is the executive sous chef at sensei and had invited me and my little sister to dine at the restuarant. we arrive and sit at the bar to have a martini while we wait for our table which is currently occupied by Lisa Marie Presely because it's her birthday. while downing fresh berry martinis, a large party is headed to the exit-it happened to be lisa marie presley. my sister started crying when she realised who it was (she was young and silly, still is.). so i got up, walked past the burly bodyguard to Lisa Marie. i wished her a happy birthday and told her that since i grew up listening to her father, she was almost like a sister to me. she hugged me, thanked me and then walked on. i stood there dazed. i couldn't believe the bodyguard hadn't body slammed my brazen ass.

Twenty three years ago, on a trip to Kenya, a movie was being filmed at one of the camps we stayed at. Sitting around a fire, sipping brandy at midnight with, I shit you not, John Rhys Davies, Maud Adams, John Voigt and Charleton Heston. The made for TV movie was wretched, I'm sorry to say.

John Cleese spilled his drink on me during a cocktail party at the Palmer House in Chicago after a lecture he gave on the importance of mistakes.

Waited on Joan Cusack at a jewelry store in the Chicago area. She has the flattest ass I've ever seen.

Chatted up Bill Curtis at a charity event at Saks.

Met then-candidate Ronald Reagan at my high school. Do politians count?

My husband told me to look around the corner aisle at the Toys R' Us in Vancouver - I figured it'd be a little friend of my son's out there - so I made an exaggerated fist clenched, super sneaky, stage walking tip-toe out around the corner - right into Elvis Costello. I died inside. It was awesome.

Also - on Halloween I saw Angie Harmon looking mighty fine. Me: "You're Angie Harmon! Hi! Just look at you, all Angie Harmon like that!"

It's a very good thing I've never met Jeff Goldblum. The head would explode from the hotness.

I had a nice conversation with Pete Townsend about the nuclear power while riding in an elevator. He then asked where he and his wife could go to buy Levis by the case. Apparently they were hard to get in England in the early 80s. When security at the hotel decided to eject me from the lobby, they pushed me right into Roger Daltry, who gave me a kiss on the cheek and an unrequested autograph. Heady stuff for a teenaged girl.

I did summer theater with Tom Everett Scott. Hell of a nice guy. Deserves better than he's being offered....but I'm biased.

I used to hang out with Brandon Lee. Still miss the cocky bastard. He had the best smile.

Recently bought coffee for Jamie Bamber, followed by a nice little conversation -- and later that evening managed to say something that sounded like complete fan-girl stalking but really wasn't. Yeah, I'm still recovering from terminal embarrassment.

Jim Belushi FED me sushi.

yep.

sorry 'bout the spelling, I'm drunk.

I saw Maggie Gyllenhaall (sp?) in a bookstore in Sunset boulevard in February 2006. She wandered around for a while, then she asked the clerk if they had any books about pregnancy.. I couldn't get the nerve up to talk to her though

Back in 1987 when I was still only a baby being pushed around in a pram, my parents were out for a stroll in Stephens Green - a park in Dublin - when they were stopped by Tom Cruise (those were his Top Gun days - before he went crazy)and Mimi Rogers, who cooed over me and played with me before telling my parents I was "the cutest baby they'd ever seen".

Also bumped into Gabriel Byrne a few times - his mom lives near me - and Colin Farrell and Bono and stuff; seeing as I live in Dublin this isn't unusual and you never see anyone bothering these "celebrities" - the most people do is nod.

Also ran into Sporty Spice and Baby Spice in the Spice Girls days. They looked so much older face to face...

I'm probably a little older than many of you, but I have some good ones.

I was brought up in London in a place called Ealing where the Rolling Stones first played (in the intermission). My girlfriend used to go out with Mick Jagger so we went around with them for a while.

Went to see the Yardbirds when Eric Clapton et al was with them. My friend was being crushed in the crowd and Eric Clapton jumped off the stage to rescue her.

Rode the elevator with Robert Redford in New York. I asked him "you are, aren't you?" - he replied, "yes are you?" This was some time ago and he was gorgeous.

I do have more, especially about those early days in London --

oh wait, I almost forgot! She's not really famous per se, but I'm sure some people know who she is--I chatted with Grace Park from Battlestar Galactica on the subway once! I told her I loved the show, she was super nice, very pretty--but skinny! And taller than she looks on camera.

My grandparents used to live in Wilmington, North Carolina where Dawson's Creek was being filmed. The town can only be reached by small planes, so I have had the opportunity to ride on a plane with both Pacey (Joshua Jackson) who may I say is way better looking in real life than on film, and the now ubberfamous Katie Holmes.

I have also met a ton of older actors and actresses because my father works in film restoration, but most people do not really care about those run-ins.

Over the years I've run into a goodly number of well-known actors, singers, politicians, TV reporters and athletes while traveling or shopping -- it's easy if you spend time in N.Y.C., L.A., or D.C. It's true, many celebrities turn out to be a lot shorter than you expect.

But my best encounters have all been second-hand. For instance, my late mother-in-law knew a lot of legendary gangsters, a cousin of mine was friendly with John Lennon, and a woman I shared an apartment with dated a man who later became U.S. President.

A friend of mine was invited with her father to the premiere screening of 'Sunshine' with Ralph Fiennes in Budapest. As they were close friends with one of the producers they went also to the after-party. There they were introduced to R.F. and he asked my friend for a dance. Her dad was really worried as Ralph was much older and she was around 20. Anyway, lucky girl :) He is supposed to be really charming...

First off: This was a deliberate encounter.
I was studying abroad in London this August and found out Orlando Bloom was in the play "In Celebration" (He had about ... 10 lines, not worth the 50 bucks) So I was able to meet him afterwards where the burly security guards were a little rude. They insisted fans only get programs signed but I managed to hold up my stiletto and ask him to sign the arch of it. He laughed and obliged.

It was beautiful

i'm so late to the game but i've got another one. was walking down the street in galway, ireland and i saw jimmy fallon coming out of a music store. i was (very rudely) staring at him, trying to work out where i knew him and he stuck his tongue out at me! i was amused.

met david boreanez at some function. his breath smelled like whisky which scandalized my 14-year-old self.