famous people

genkaku

Borrowing shamelessly from @Federica's trip down memory lane on the occasion of her birthday, I wondered what anyone thought of "famous people." What makes them famous? Have you met some? How did that work out?

My own view of famous people parallels an observation made in a radio interview by former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins when he was asked about meeting a favorite author. "Meeting your favorite author," Collins said, "is one of life's most reliable disappointments."

I have met or had brushes with Walt Disney, Dr. Benjamin Spock, writer Truman Capote, Helen Keller, writer Carson McCullers, former vice president Hubert Humphrey, folk singer Pete Seeger, writer Tom Clancy and a bunch of others. Only the Dalai Lama ever gave me a playful wink.

Maybe "fame" takes on a whole new coloration as time passes.

What's your take?

person

Many years ago Jessica Lange came to our dharma center for a time. I found myself tripping over myself in an effort to simply talk to her. Once in selling a book while working behind the counter and once just explaining something brief within a group discussion. All in an effort to bask in the radiance of her fame and in a hope to capture some of it for myself.

What an aweful place to be in if anyone you talked to only wanted to get a piece of your fame.

Dakini

Famous people are just people. It's difficult for them, because people do kind of trip all over themselves in front of them, or are simply dumbstruck, in awe.

I had occasion to host a famous author who agreed to do a benefit lecture for a project I was organizing. I arranged for faculty members at the university to have dinner with him, and we had a reception for him in one of the uni departments. I also arranged for him to speak to students at a local school. I never anticipated the faculty reaction to this person's presence. No one could speak. At all. I would toss out topics of conversation relating to the author's talk, and no one would respond. Everyone sat there, mute, immobile. The entire time. (Heaven knows how the dinner the night before went--I wasn't there.) The Chair of the Dept. got kind of giggly and said something silly. I thought, how sad--this poor man! This is what much of his life is like. No wonder celebrities tend to socialize only with other celebrities. The principal of the school I arranged for the author to visit, though, was quite relaxed and personable. Such a contrast to the others.

I felt quite comfortable talking with the author, because we had a number of interests in common, but when a friend without warning introduced me to actor Wes Studi ("Geronimo"), I was caught by surprise. My jaw began to drop, but I caught myself, and managed to retain my composure.

@genkaku I don't know what your comment means: "Maybe fame takes on a whole new coloration as time passes." Could you explain?

federica

OK, more claims....
i sat next to Jenny Agutter on a RyanAir flight (of all places!) from Perugia to Stansted... lovely chatty lady....
i saw Juliet Stevenson while she was being given a personal tour of an historic location again, in Italy....our eyes locked, but i realised in that split second, she just wanted to be left alone - and rightly so. I just smiled and carried on with my tour....
I once served Ronnie Corbett at a garden centre, and i ball-girled for Pancho Gonzales...
i met Colin Firth again, at an airport... he had also just come home from Italy - his wife is Italian....
Oh and i too met HH the DL.
He's such a sweetie!

"I danced with a man, who danced with a gal, who danced with the Prince of Wales...."

zombiegirl

One of the jobs my uncle has done in the past is to tour with bands. He has done a lot of different things in the film industry, but for this particular job, he usually does the camera work in the pit for the screens displayed behind the singer/band. I've met a few celebrities this way, but the coolest was when I met the sisters Martie and Emily from the Dixie Chicks. I was backstage with my aunt, waiting for my uncle to get back to us and my aunt had my little cousin with us at the time, who was a baby at this point. Nothing attracts women like a baby, and the two sisters came over and started playing with my cousin and I was... dumbstruck. I played it as cool as I could at 15, I suppose. But I really do like quite a bit of country(shhh) and the Dixie Chicks are my favorite country band... plus, both of those sisters are incredibly beautiful. It was rough, but even at the time, I thought it was cool how down to Earth they seemed... just chatting with my aunt as mothers, not mega celebrities. I also saw Natalie Maines (the lead singer, famous for her protests against Bush) backstage but she didn't stop to chat like the others. She appeared to be getting her make-up done and I imagine, was in a rush.

I met the members of Nsync (Justin Timberlake, etc) too... but um. That was less exciting for me.

vinlyn

In the school where I was principal, in the Virginia suburbs of D.C., we actually had a fair number of famous parents. Senator Strom Thurmond actually came to back to school nights each year...although at his age I'm not so sure he was fully aware of where he was...he always acted as if he was campaigning. Dan Quayle's kids started at our school, but transferred to private school when he became VP. He never came to the school, but his wife did...with her feisty reputation. Lynda Bird Johnson came to the school most days to pick her daughter up and I got to know her fairly well...surprisingly shy, but very, very nice...I was impressed. Her husband, then Governor Robb (or was he Senator then...can't remember) came to school once to pick his daughter up, but she was sick and crying, so instead of driving her home, loaded her on the bus while he drove to Richmond. And quarterback Joe Theisman's kids...I was not impressed.

genkaku

@genkaku I don't know what your comment means: "Maybe fame takes on a whole new coloration as time passes." Could you explain?

@Dakini -- I guess I meant that when younger, people in the spotlight seem to be miles out of reach ... utterly wonderful or awful in their press clippings at a time when there is more willingness to believe what is read or seen or heard.

I am always awestruck, for example, by the disconnect between what those who have won the Medal of Honor (the highest U.S. military award for heroism) have to say and what those who insist on awarding the medal portray.

Or the people whom my kids seem to roll over and play dead for. Who in their right mind can take a person like Kim Kardashian or George W. Bush or Daniel Tosh seriously? The answer is, quite a lot of people ... so obviously I'm out of synch.

Dakini

What about you, though? Has your reaction to fame changed at all over the decades?
Kim Kardashian, GW Bush, hyuk hyuk! I see your point. But that's not a matter of age, but taste and politics, I think.

genkaku

@Dakini -- I used to elevate people for all sorts of reasons ... including in spiritual life. Now I am a little less wide-eyed -- not cynical (that's too facile), just less prone to the wowsers I once enjoyed.

Dakini

@genkaku Gotcha. Thanks.

ThailandTom

I have quite a strong opinion when it comes to famous people. I dislike how the general public goes crazy for these people, who are they? Mere people. Some of them have a heap of money because they kick a throw a ball around for a few minutes each week, or they show up on a TV/movie screen. All of this fuels the capitalist wheel through 'the look', what to buy and how to function as a human. There are a small minority of famous people who are famous for the right reasons, Ghandi, Mother Teressa, errrr lol I can't think right now but you understand I guess.

People care and know more about famous people than the sufferings in this world, the starvation, the extreme poverty, the list of numbers is endless but in the west people choose to idilize these famous people, who at the end of the day are only people. That is my 2 cents worth.

RichardH

The only famous people who got me flustered were Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher... Reagan wanted to be loved by any and everyone... he was an adoration sucker.. I encountered them at a G8 ( G7 at the time I think) summit when I was in a tux carrying fancy cocktails.. They made me sweat. Long time ago.

Me and my old girlfriend somehow ended up coked-up in our pajamas at the wrap party for the film "Amadeus" .

I danced the Polka with John Candy... in an episode of Second City.

.... gotta say.. Famous people don't especially fascinate me.. but it would be cool to meet David Bowie.

ThailandTom

I guess my views are pretty extreme compared to most then. Yes okay a percentage of famous singers have talent, but still what have they done to derserve so much many and so much respect compared to doctors, nurses, life savers, people of infinite compassion? 99% of famous people are gravitated by greed, and people are gravitated to those people, blah :grumble:

RichardH

I don't have a problem with famous people... There are people who's fame is appropriate and I respect that.. In Canada authors are famous.. and they contribute from that fame. Margaret Atwood is playing an important role opposing a fool of a Mayor here who wants to decimate public libraries. There is a famous scientist called David Suzuki, who is the Environmental conscience of the country..

Fame has to fall on some people and that's OK IMO. It is the celebrity culture of reality TV.. the Octo-mom style famous-for-being-famous culture that is facile.

vinlyn

I don't have a problem with famous people, either. If they are interesting, I'd like to know them. If not, forget about them.

ThailandTom

I don't hate the people and in everyone there are admirable qualities, I just think that most of the time they get too much attention and distract people so their care/energy instead is focused on something somewhat trivial.

Also you can look at the money aspect of it, I recenty read that the Two richest men in Ireland have enough money to bail out their country easily so the economy would have a mass positive effect. Sports starts, pop stars, movie stars, they have all of this money for doing something again so trivial where money is being lost in the working-middle class for a poorer way of life.

I also find it weird how people will go so far and do so much to meet famous people. SOmetimes I can understand, for example if you say like the acting and moviesof Donny Depp, then you may be curious to know their real personality, but there are people who just want to sponge off of someone who is famous, that it may rub off of them contributing to their ego.

That is just my opinion, I never really been ino the whole celebrity thing, meh

etherea

I worked for a security company in the 70's and 80's and we covered a lot of rock concerts and the like so yeah, I've met a lot of people. I treat everyone the same.......... You're polite, I'm polite. You're a twat, I don't give you the time of day.

genkaku

You're a twat, I don't give you the time of day.

@etherea -- Thanks. I hadn't heard the word "twat" in a long time and never in that context. Because I enjoyed it so much, I hope it wasn't a typo for "twit."

etherea

No typo my sweet

RichardH

I worked for a security company in the 70's and 80's and we covered a lot of rock concerts and the like so yeah, I've met a lot of people. I treat everyone the same.......... You're polite, I'm polite. You're a twat, I don't give you the time of day.

Was Bowie a twat?

federica

According to a famous chat-show host here in the UK, there are/were three people who left a decidedly bitter taste in his mouth.
Behind the scenes, they were unpleasant, rude, demanding, impatient bad-tempered prima-donnas, and decidedly not the type of people he would willingly, as he put it, "share a lifeboat with"...
and this guy has met - a lot - of people....

Robert Mitchum
Arnold Schwarzenegger
David Cassidy.

Dakini

I treat everyone the same.......... You're polite, I'm polite. You're a twat, I don't give you the time of day.

This.

According to a famous chat-show host here in the UK, there are/were three people who left a decidedly bitter taste in his mouth.
Behind the scenes, they were unpleasant, rude, demanding, impatient bad-tempered prima-donnas, and decidedly not the type of people he would willingly, as he put it, "share a lifeboat with"...
and this guy has met - a lot - of people....
Arnold Schwarzenegger

Good to know. Arnie's toast, anyway, after messing up his marriage to Maria Shriver in such a tawdry way.
(MG! What was she thinking when she married him, anyway??!!)

federica

Oh, he's slipped a bit in the popularity polls, has he?

Apparently, when Rob Mitchum appeared on the show, he was absolutely blind drunk - but wore it well....
:rolleyes:

He described David Cassidy as 'someone who has sadly, over time, been unfortunately affected by the trials, tribulations and vagaries of fame... being in the public eye has obviously not been something that had changed him for the better...fame has truly, not done him any favours..."

and Arnie?
"Oh he was horrible. Just horrible. Horrible, horrible horrible...."

vinlyn

Of course I only saw the result, but when I was young I thought Sophia Loren and Lana Turner were the two most beautiful women in the world. Late in her life, I happened to see an extended interview with Lana Turner. Talk about the cliche of a "dumb blonde"! My youthful idolatry was shattered! :eek:

Dakini

and Arnie?
"Oh he was horrible. Just horrible. Horrible, horrible horrible...."

lol! ^_^

federica

I don't think he'll be back....

etherea

Was Bowie a twat?
No, he was ziggy stardust

RichardH

Was Bowie a twat?
No, he was ziggy stardust

Ziggy played for time. Jiving us that he was voodoo.

etherea

Well,Richard,you are now going to get the blame for that being todays "I can't get that song out of my head"! If I catch myself singing it out loud in public I will hold you totally responsible

federica

They're thinking of making it a crime, in Congress.... hell, they're trying everything else, why not this?

etherea

Federica, I just got "I don't think he'll be back". Slow or what?

federica

better late than never, dear heart....

I've only just got it meself!