Celebs both well known and obscure that you have met

[quote="otis" post=396950][quote="Paul Massell" post=396940])
Weirdest encounter: Don Imus.
[/quote]
______

Paul... what is the wierd story about Imus ?[/quote]

I posted it on here fairly recently. Within the past year I think. I'll try to find the link.
 
Vince McMahon.
Lawrence Taylor.
Peter Gammons.
Jay Bilas.
Len Elmore.
Bob Ryan.
Joe Thornton.
Dominique Wilkins.
Mo Vaughn.
Walter McCarty.
Everlast.
Moose.
 
I left out the KGB station chief in New York City who was posing as the Polish trade delegate. I forgot his name.
 
[quote="Delaware" post=396969]Met Donald Trump twice. Complete asshole.[/quote]

That's shocking. Not.
 
Also, Dylan McDermott and Catherine Keener's son was on my son's first soccer team. Dylan was great from the start and become our team appointed ref. It took a while for mom to acclimate to the parent's group (it was at the height of her fame and oscar contention period) but by the end of the season she was yelling at the refs and rooting on the kids like the rest of us. Both ended up being super nice.

Owen and Luke Wilson's nephew as also on the team. Owen was seen a couple of times watching from afar but this was right after his suicide attempt so he never got too close.
 
Didn't take long for the Trump bashing to begin. As Chris Rock would say "that train is never late". FWIW I worked in Manhattan real estate from 81'-92'. My boss for most of those years was very close to Trump. Yes he could be an asshole ( I didn't know one single big real estate guy who didn't have an asshole side), but he could also be warm, engaging, generous, loyal, etc. I didn't bring his name up before because I knew what would happen, but since some of you guys did, just thought I would chime in.
 
Last edited:
Here are a few random ones well known and a little obscure that I ran into outside of their normal environment. Some of the St. John's guys are not celebrities
Dwight Gooden - thought he was genuine
Ron Darling - friendly
Pete Rose and Gary Carter on the Metro when they were both playing in Montreal - I was young and they seemed nice.
Manny from Modern Family and his sister leaving a Cheesecake Factory in Los Angeles - seemed surprised I recognized him
Tara Reid - I helped her make a difficult left turn in Hollywood and she gave me a really nice smile.
Marc Gastineau in Penn Station in the middle of the night - I think he wanted to fight me when I went up to him. Very scary encounter.
Rob Werdann - drinking at bars. Nice guy.
Felipe Lopez when he was in high school on my plane with his Rice teammates - cracking jokes.
Al Roker - he ignored me when I said hello. He was rushing to catch an Uber
Al Sharpton - before he lost the weight. Another strange encounter
D'Angelo Harrison - at the Fresh Meadows movie theater. A real gentleman
Clyde Frazier - funny guy.
Joey Delarosa and Amar in a Bayside Duane Reade - Talked to me for a while about St. John's basketball. Mostly Joey talked.
Jack Kaiser - wonderful man
Gwen Stefani when she was in her mid 20's - she stayed at the same bed and breakfast that I did.
Congressman Hakeem Jeffries - played intramural basketball against him in college.
Vince Daniel - only character in the Big Short that has his real name used.
 
[quote="Andrew" post=396979]
D'Angelo Harrison - at the Fresh Meadows movie theater. A real gentleman.[/quote]

This is off topic but that fresh meadows AMC kicks ass. Saw so many movies there during my four years at SJU. Miss it already. That theater felt like home. A lot of good memories
 
Cool One: Me and a couple of buddies were introduced to Bryan Cranston a month or two before the finale of Breaking Bad. At the time it was all of our complete obsession and I don't think there was anyone in the world we would have been more excited to meet in that moment. Very generous to talk about the show with us for a few minutes. Oddly enough we were also introduced to Catherine O'Hara (pre-Schitt's Creek) at the very same moment who I love but we were all so flustered seeing Walter White that I'm afraid we might have given her the brush off. I'm sure the moment we left they rolled their eyes and resumed whatever they were talking about before being interrupted.

Weird One: Losing a staring contest to Bill Cowher.
 
Whitey Ford was the guest speaker at our Little League Awards night many times
Also living in the area - Perry Como, Sandy Becker, Alan King the McEnroes and Mary Carillo
 
Last edited:
[quote="Andrew" post=396979]Here are a few random ones well known and a little obscure that I ran into outside of their normal environment. Some of the St. John's guys are not celebrities
Dwight Gooden - thought he was genuine
Ron Darling - friendly
Pete Rose and Gary Carter on the Metro when they were both playing in Montreal - I was young and they seemed nice.
Manny from Modern Family and his sister leaving a Cheesecake Factory in Los Angeles - seemed surprised I recognized him
Tara Reid - I helped her make a difficult left turn in Hollywood and she gave me a really nice smile.
Marc Gastineau in Penn Station in the middle of the night - I think he wanted to fight me when I went up to him. Very scary encounter.
Rob Werdann - drinking at bars. Nice guy.
Felipe Lopez when he was in high school on my plane with his Rice teammates - cracking jokes.
Al Roker - he ignored me when I said hello. He was rushing to catch an Uber
Al Sharpton - before he lost the weight. Another strange encounter
D'Angelo Harrison - at the Fresh Meadows movie theater. A real gentleman
Clyde Frazier - funny guy.
Joey Delarosa and Amar in a Bayside Duane Reade - Talked to me for a while about St. John's basketball. Mostly Joey talked.
Jack Kaiser - wonderful man
Gwen Stefani when she was in her mid 20's - she stayed at the same bed and breakfast that I did.
Congressman Hakeem Jeffries - played intramural basketball against him in college.
Vince Daniel - only character in the Big Short that has his real name used.[/quote] My buddy has a podcast with one of his friends and Dwight Gooden literally was just their guest and aired yesterday.. Said he was awesome

Couple others
Billy Baldwin Chyna Phillps- my friend is best friends with him since college

Matt Lauer and Katie Couric. My old assistant her husband was their limo driver for nbc actually for a lot of them back long time ago and when her husband passed away years ago Katie and Matt came to the funeral and Katie gave the Eulogy and couldn't stop crying because my assistants husband was their driver way back to when her husband had cancer and passed away. They were both unbelievable friendly. When my assistants husband passed away they even mentioned it on the today show. Actually Howard Stern mentioned it on his show too because he was Howards driver before Ronnie.

Lester Holt. He sold my assistant his used truck and few years ago I'm in Denver on business and walking around and Lester is going the evening show that night from downtown and I bump into him before they started shooting and I mention her name and his eyes light up and we spent some time bs'ing. He is super nice guy to and great sense of humor

Also for you yankee fans long time ago we used to hang out once a week at this place in Garden City called City Cafe for happy hour ( now some cuban place ) and Joe Pepitone used to hang out. My friends who were older were star struck each time but he was friendly but in a reserved way. Pretty much stayed with whoever he was with but when it wasn't crowded he was approachable

Brian Cashman- he was guest speaker at my office annual event and as my office doin their annual biz speakers he comes and his in backroom waiting with someone and my buddy and I walk out of meeting and go say hi and first thing my buddy tells him is we are huge met fans. lol He was great. Surpisingly open and honest ( cant print what he said about Arod at the time it was so bad ) that was in the middle of the whole mess that Arod had created for himself. But we spent pretty much the entire time hanging out with him until he went up to go speak. He had some great Steinbrenner stories too

All the Jets during the Testaverde-Chrebet years used to go once or twice a week to this place in Carle Place where PC Richards is it was either Catalina Seafood Company or Blue Tequila. Both names were the same place just not sure which it was called back then. Most were pretty cool. We got blitzed with some guy on the team not famous one night there. His name was Chad Chascadden or something like that. Good dude

My ex compliance mgr is Billy Joels wife. He is nice guy.
 
Last edited:
2 other extremely nice celebs I just thought of:
Burt Young(lunch 2 years ago)
Dave Righetti(cocktail party when he was a Yankee)
 
Strange, wordless encounter at a golf club near Miami: Flanking me left / right at the fancy urinals were LT and Jimmy Brow. They chatted past me / over me, whatever. (I had a 'silent' role.)
LT was a tall block of granite, and Jimmy Brown, solid as a brick oven.
 
Another favorite of mine was when we were on the plane moving to Los Angeles. We had my 3 month old daughter with us and the looks we got from our fellow business class travelers ranged from sad to downright angry.

Sitting directly behind us was Steven Collins, this is pre sex abuse in the 7th Heaven days. He was also traveling with his daughter back to LA, she was little but old enough to know better. We exchanged a few looks, his of desperation but nevertheless we persisted. Everyone recognized him but most, including me, couldn't grab his name off the top of our head (no I didn't watch 7th Heaven, I'm sure you're all shocked). Then the in flight movie starts (pre streaming) and it's First Wives Club where Collins plays the ex husband of one of those famous first wives. After the movie it was line of folks getting his autograph so I gave him a look like I felt his pain.

Well I would claim my daughter was an amazing traveler, but don't take it from me. Mr. Collins chatted with us after landing and told us how worried he was seeing such a young infant seated so close to us but that she was the best behaved baby he had ever flown with. We exchanged a couple other pleasantries and my family and I went off to a new life in the City of Angels.

PS saw Arnold at breakfast the next day and my wife was like, "Do we see celebrities every day in this city?" LOL
 
Circa 1988 - 89, Donald Trump, the Jersey Casino guy, pitched his doomed Taj Mahal Casino deal to the Merrill Lynch Bond Department to launch the ML-underwriting.
He was full of himself, every other word (I exaggerate a little, lol) praised his deal, the future of Atlantic City as a Casino Destination Resort, and himself.
I recall being totally turned off but--to be fair--it seemed a common trait among corporate CEOs and Big Time Investment Bankers,back in the day. Gordon Gekko wannebes I suppose.
And to be fair one mo' time, 'selling one's charisma' charmed buy side clients most of the time on road shows, before the harsh reality of making good on 14% debt proved futile in many cases.
 
Last edited:
I just remember the most recent.

SI Ian Mckellan lives in our neighbourhood. My wife used to see him all the time while on maternity leave. Two weeks ago he walks up to my wife and 18 month old and says good morning Harrison how are you. He remembered my sons name from Kira introducing them during this past encounters.

There is also a 30% chance that it’s no Mckellan and just another nice old man, but Simon Cowell, Beckham and Jimmy Page all near in the mansions nearby so good chance it was actually him.
 
Last edited:
[quote="otis" post=396919]OK .... let me attempt to lighten things up a bit during the COVID down time.

Another Big East basketball message board I peek at from time to time has a lengthy thread where posters posted about their meetings or brushes with celebrities which provided a number of interesting stories.

So, let me ask you; have you ever met or crossed paths with a celeb and was the celeb nice or an a-hole ? Thanks.[/quote]

Great topic - thanks for posting. Had to rack my brain a little. I am only 50 but there have been some hazy days.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top