I have met a lot of famous people in my time. So many that I really can’t remember them all. I met many as a pirate, of course. That seems to go with the territory. I vaguely remember meeting Max Gail who played Detective Stan “Wojo” Wojciehowicz on Barney Miller. He was thinking about becoming Davy Jones for the Seafair Pirates one year. I guess I don’t remember him because his sidekick at the meeting was Will Sampson. At 6’5″, Chief Bromden from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was hard to miss.
There were others, of course. Many others. Too many to even remember them all, from Seahawks who I partied with in Kirkland (a Seahawk was no match for a pirate, when it came to getting a lovely lass to go home with him) to famous hydro drivers, elected officials and “celebrities.”
No one could blame me for being starstruck, but I never am. It’s never really meant much to me. I have always believed that these folks should feel as lucky to meet me as I am to meet them. After all, we’re all people. They just happen to be more famous or wealthy (at the moment).
That’s the main reason I never actually talked to Jimmy Buffett or had my photo taken with him. I was standing five feet from him outside his recording studio in Key West. He was on the phone, lambasting someone with very colorful language and I was the pirate, drinking rum a few steps away.
We looked at each other, smiled that professional artist smile in each other’s direction, then I walked away, leaving him to complete his call in privacy.
It was good enough for me. He came to know that I exist in the world, and I got to lock eyes with one of my favorite entertainers. We shared a moment, which meant far more than having a photo opportunity. We were equals, not fan and star – professionals in our own rights – nodding and cordially acknowledging one another, as peers do.
I was glad he got to meet me.
I wish I could have met others in this way, I know that some people I’ve met thought I should think it was a great honor, but it never was. The Prime Minister of the Bahamas? Big deal! Ron Jeremy? I really didn’t want to shake his hands for obvious reasons, but I did tell him that I told everyone I was his stunt double for the sex scenes. He bought me a drink.
I do have to say that Anthony Daniels was really nice. For all you Star Wars freaks out there, you know who he is. My friend in Florida had arranged the meeting, me getting media credentials so that I could interview C-3P0 during the Star Wars weekends in Orlando.
True to Disney form, I was guided through a maze of secret passages and hallways to Anthony’s office, somewhere in the dim recesses of the Disney Hollywood Studios property.
Anthony doesn’t really have an office there. It’s a perk of being a “star.” It was a surreal encounter: Anthony sitting behind his huge desk and me asking him banal and often inane questions as a “reporter,” all because my friend thought I’d love to share her boner about meeting famous people.
When the “interview” was done, I breathed a sigh of relief. Then I had that Notting Hill moment when Hugh Grant shows up at a media event so he can ask Julia Roberts out and is mistaken as a reporter. He fakes his way through the interview with Julia as a member of the Horse & Hound reporting pool, before being shown out.
Only he’s not shown out. Instead, he’s ushered into another room with more actors from the space movie she is promoting. He doesn’t know it’s a space movie because he’s never seen it, and goes on to ask all sorts of stupid questions, like, “Were there horses in the picture?”
This day at Hollywood Studios was my Notting Hill. Though I managed to hold it together for what had to be Anthony’s worst media interview ever, I thought I was finally off the hook. But no. We go full Notting Hill. My Disney handler didn’t guide me back to the park, but further into the deep recesses of offices.
He opened the door to one and introduced me. There standing before me was a really short guy, like midget short. I had absolutely no idea who he was. Yes I had seen all the Star Wars movies (the first one 10 times), and I had a fairly good idea that he wasn’t R2-D2, but beyond that, he was just a short guy standing there looking at me (well, up at me) and I down on him.
We sat. I asked questions. I tried to ask them in such a way that I could figure out who he was in the movie, and no, I didn’t ask if the movie had horses. Finally, I figured out that he was an Ewok. I was getting close. Now which one? He finally said something about Wicket but I still didn’t really know who he was. The name Warwick Davis just didn’t stand out in my mind either. He was, after all, no Harrison Ford.
I wish I could say that Warwick was the end of this nightmare, but no, there were more offices to visit. The next held some actor who was a shopkeeper and actually had some lines in the movie; the rest of the offices were a blur.
After three hours, my hell finally ended. I was ushered back out of the maze of offices and into the area outside of the Star Wars attraction. There I rejoined my friend who I would continue to blame for hours afterwards for sending me on this fool’s errand to meet people who really should have been just as glad to meet me as I was to meet them, since we all put on our pants the same way (except, perhaps, Warwick) and all have jobs, albeit ones of differing levels of fame.
I have been careful since then to never get into a predicament like that again. I purposely shy away from such encounters because my DNA doesn’t allow me to fawn all over someone famous. I am pretty sure they are just as anxious not to meet me as I am anxious not to meet them. And that’s the way it should be.
In the Emerald City, planning not to meet any Seahawks or run into Macklemore in a bar tonight,
– Robb