• A friend of mine (named Anne) was in high school in Fort Worth (Paschel, I think.) This fellow who had been a runaway dropout asked her out. Her father would NOT let her go out with such a young scoundrel. He later wrote a song "Leaving on a Jet Plane." His name at the time? Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. You might know him as John Denver.

• My grandmother was a struggling songwriter, as a young woman, she rode in a taxicab with Alfred Hitchcock, he asked her to come up to his office & star in his movie, she declined.

• On another occasion, Frank Sinatra’s manager followed her out of an audition and asked her to leave her husband & marry him

• when i was working in the accounting section of the department of justice in 1977, i was given a document to process and happily found that it was the order for the u.s. to pay the court costs in the legal procedings u.s. vs. john lennon. the u.s. had lost and lennon had won. i was never so happy with a simple typing job as i was with that one!

• i once sat on the park bench in central park dedicated by alan alda and his wife arlene. okay, twice. it's a nice bench!

• my late mother slept with the late elsa lanchester. it's not what you think! my mom was a kid and she simply slept in the same bed with the great actress. so she said, anyway.

• the tony-nominated british actor martin shaw almost trampled me once. i was in front of the broadway theatre in which he was starring in "an ideal husband" and looking down the street, facing west. the sun was in its most brilliant blaze of sunset and all i could see was this halo floating toward me. it turned out to be a head of curls, or at least strong waves, and he was almost upon me before i realized what was happening and stepped aside. he had such a funny little smile on his face! he must've thought i was starstruck, when in fact i was sunstruck.

• I rode the elevator at the Toronto Eaton Centre with Geddy Lee, lead singer of “Rush” carrying the gerbil cage he had just purchased.

• I once had sex with one-hit (It Just Occurred to Me) wonder and sometime host of the Miss Canada Pageant Peter Pringle.

• My best friend knows the guy who makes Rita McNeil ’s costumes.

• A few weeks ago Nana Mouskouri was right on my street after her final Vancouver appearance.

• I met Jim Kerr of Simple Minds in a café and disco icon Sylvester in a Toronto gay club.

• A friend of mine repeatedly saw Rudolf Nureyev at the gay baths in New York and once saw Barry Manilow in an absurd disguise complete with wig at a gay bar.

• My husband’s middle name is Dwight, after Dwight Eisenhower . His parents wrote a letter to Eisenhower and told him they'd given their son his name so he invited them to the White House and Ken peed in Eisenhower ’s lap.

• A friend of mine arranged a rental of a house for Orson Welles . He needed to have canvas screening hung all along the fences so he could have privacy while he swam in the pool.

• I had sex with a British Airways flight attendant who'd served Princess Diana and her sons on a royal charter flight.

• My hubby once flew Toronto-Seattle in 1st class with Celine Dion – she kept going in the bathroom, coming out for a moment, and going back in until finally the flight attendant went in after her…turns out she couldn’t leave the lav area until someone had gone in after her, because otherwise, if there's a mess in there people will say, “I flew with CD and she left SUCH a mess in the bathroom….”

• And we flew Qantas from Auckland to Sydney across the aisle from stick-insect Natalie Imbruglia . We ate the entire first class lunch spread and she ate: FOUR peanuts.

• One day a few years ago, myself, my mother, my cousin and her daughter went to Wal-Mart, wheree celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse was on a book-signing tour. We each met him and he gave my cousin (an aspiring chef) a cookie or something. As we walked out, she said in a dreamy state "I'm never washing my hand again." You would have thought that she had just met Liza Minnelli or something.

  

• At the same Border's bookstore about a year apart, I met Josephine Tewson (Elizabeth, from the British sitcom "Keeping Up Appearances") and Nicholas Smith (the jug-earred Mr. Rumbold on "Are You Being Served?"). You may say that I was in the middle of a British Circus of the Stars or something.

• One time as my family was driving through Loveladies, New Jersey, a family friend pointed out Billy Joel's summer house. As we drove by, through a big plate window, I saw someone climbing the stairs. It could have been Billy Joel. Hell, it could have been Christie Brinkley....at least, I think it was while they were still together.

• This is a case of being in the same place at the same time but without meeting. Pam Dawber (Mindy from "Mork and Mindy") and I think her husband (actor Mark Harmon) were shopping at the same flea market I was at.

• I went to school with the first cousin of actress Christine Taylor. Also, I think that as a child, Christine lived on the same street as my grandparents!

• I went to Sunday School with a girl who is Nancy Kerrigan's cousin. (Or so she said. They had the same last name, anyway.)

• My down-the-street neighbor drove past the motorcade of former U.S. President Bill Clinton and, supposedly Clinton waved at her.

• My boyfriend, who was working as a desk clerk at a Holiday Inn, once checked in Kenny Chesney. (This was before he became super-famous; I believe he had just started to become popular, but he didn't recognize him. My boyfriend also said that he -- Kenny -- was short.)

• My cousin supposedly met Pamela Anderson, "before she got plastic surgery".

• Back in 2001, I was working as a telemarketer (I know, but it payed the bills). At that time, I had to call long-distance customers in New York City and ask them if they wanted to switch to Bell Atlantic or AT&T...I can't remember. Anyway, the one name was Adam Sandler. I called and I'm pretty sure it was him. The guy that answered put on a fake-sounding Chinese accent and said that I had the wrong number. To this day, I'm pretty sure it was him. (I wrote down the number, but I can't find it.). And last year, working as a .... yeah, a telemarketer (I needed the money), I called Bill Gates for some business related thing, but they wouldn't let me talk to him withour proper authorization first. I guess he was too busy counting his millions to pick up the damn phone.

• I was once on the same cat-care internet forum with a woman whose sister was Nicole Kidman's hairdresser.

  

• I once gave a light to French film star Alain Delon.

• My Dad sat next to Cher at a fashion show.

• According to my grandmother, my great-great-grandfather once met Jesse James in a general store....as he was about to rob it.

• This next one isn't so much a brush with greatness so much as it's a brush with infamy. When I was in grade school, I used to ride the school bus with Brandon Basham, who was featured on America's Most Wanted after kidnapping and killing a woman. He's facing the death penalty, if I recall correctly.

• Bob Hope told me to "get the hell out of the way, you little bastard" at the 1977 Bob Hope Desert Classic when I was in high school. He and Gerald Ford were in a golf cart and wanted to drive it precisely where I was while taking a photo of Telly Savalas who was posing for me at the time. I guess that might count as three brushes with greatness.

  When is Bob Hope going to die, anyway?

• Another brush with greatness was that my first sexual experience was with the niece of Sammy Hagar (pre-Van Halen) also in 1977. In retrospect, 1977 was a pretty good year...

• My stepmother's mom (I call her my grandmother) sat on a plane next to Barry Manilow before he was very big, and she didn't know who he was. He told her some of the jingles he had written. My grandmother later told him, "I have a daughter your age..." Nothing came of it, but it was still pretty funny when my stepmother identified who she had almost been paired up with!

• Another brush with greatness is that my uncle played golf with Alice Cooper (I think it was in Dubai, although I don't know what Alice Cooper would be doing there.) It's still true though, you'd have to ask my uncle (As if any of you knew him).

• Lastly, my great-grandfather grew up in a house (and my grandparents still live there) that was catacorner from the house of Evelyn Nesbit, who later became a sex symbol after her jealous husband murdered her lover. My great-grandfather and she used to play together as children.

• "I used to housesit for a friend of mine on Charles Street in Greenwich Village in NYC. His next-door neighbor didn't want to pay for a parking permit for her car so she asked me, during the, day when she was at work, to move her car to it wouldn't be ticketed nor towed. She was Anne Francine, the actress who played the psychiatrist for Guiletta Massina in 'Guiletta Degli Spiritti' (Juliet of the Spirits) Federico Fellini's wonderful 1965 Technicolor film. She was a wonderful dyke and had a great one bedroom apartment of the back of a three-storey Civil War era walk-up with the living room facing a courtyard garden. When I met her, in 1979, she was playing the Wicked Witch of the West in a production of 'The Wizard of Oz' at Radio City Music Hall."

• "I was flying from San Francisco to L.A. in 1972 and was seated next to Anne Francis ('Forbidden Planet', 'Honey West' (TV 1964 - I mean who could forget her Emma Peel leather suit and the ocelot she had on a jewelled leash!), etc.). She drank alot during the flight and told me about her failed marriages and how tough it was to get roles 'if you've over 30'. I genuinely liked her. She had great blue eyes. If she could have put on the performance that she did for me on camera, she'd still have a career."

Bill adds: "That's it, except for times I ran into Zsa Zsa Gabor (1978 Beverly Hills) and got a signed 8x10 glossy from her, and another time I ran into Gale Sondergaard ('The Bluebird', 'The Letter', 'Anthony Adverse') in NYC and she gave me her autograph."

Although, we didn't have direct contact, we were in the same place(s) at the same time.

So, I'm at Tortilla Flats, a fun and fabulous Mexican dive in the West Village of NYC (West 12th and Washington). I'm there with my best friend, David. We stopped in before going to see Sandra Bernhard at the Jane Street Theatre. A waiter friend of mine says, "Check out the woman at the bar with the red scarf. It's Michelle Lee." Lo and behold, it was. Total random celeb siting. She was sitting at the bar drinking margaritas with friends. I pointed her out to David and said, "Wouldn't it be funny if she were going to see Sandra, too?"

Ms. Lee was in full face having obviously come from a matinee of 'The Algerist's Wife', that she is currently starring in. Lashes and all. Hair done.

So, we finish our pitcher of margaritas and go to see Sandy B. As people were beginning to settle into their seats, I catch a glimpse of a red scarf. Yes, sirree, Miss Michelle Lee was there. She had a fabulous evening, yucking it up the whole time.

Total random brush~

My remote brush with greatness!"

(Update: A visitor responds with a correction and his/her own brush: "I would like to let you know , Richard Ramirez was NOT the Hillside Strangler. Angelo Buono, Kenneth Bianchi were a duo , and together were " the Hillside Strangler. Richard Ramirez was The Night Stalker ........ I am also a friend of Richards .... so I know this first hand .. "

• "My cousin's stepfather's friend in college knew Bill Cosby's roommate. It's true."

• "My uncle worked in a hotel and carried Fred Astair's wife's luggage."

• "He also brought food to the Osmond family--none of whom would answer the door, he had to put the tray in front of the door AND they never tipped him."

• "I went to an art show in Las Vegas when we were there....I spoke to one of the artists and complimented her on her watercolors....she, it turns out, is the sister-in-law of Stacy Keach....does that count for your game? Does it disqualify the entry if the artist was Jane Seymour?"

• "My first typewriter was a 'hand-me-down' from my mother. Years before, she had loaned it to the lady across the street so her blind brother could write....he wrote a book about monastery life or some such thing (she told me I would not like the book) which was indeed published. Years later his sight returned and he did award winning research and wrote an award winning book which nearly cost him his life...."Black Like Me"....His name was John Howard Griffin....later on I did actually meet him, he was really tall, had really thick lensed glasses and for the life of me I could not picture him appearing black . . . ."

• "In 1979, while riding around in Jeddah (I, of course, was not driving) we came near the Sands Hotel....whereupon this GIGANTIC (at least 7 feet, I would say) man rather grandly sauntered directly in front of our car. He was indeed black, and his long white robe and sandals accentuated his over-all largeness. In his right hand he was clasping a small (in that hand it truly looked tiny) Kodak instamatic camera by its loop. As the brakes were madly applied, he looked directly at each of us while imparting a magnificent smile. He missed not a beat, however, of his indulating nonchalant movement across the street, or his gentle swaying back and forth of the camera. My then husband in utter amazement said, 'Gee-zus KAAA-wryst!!!! (sic...this is, after all, a Moslem country) Did you see how BIG that man was?' Whereupon I replied with the same explicative and 'Do you know WHO that was?' 'No, who?', he said. 'You nearly ran over Idi Amin DaDa!!!' He said, 'Well, I sure am glad I didn't...I would have been in jail right away!' 'Well, someone would have for sure been there to bail you out and probably been willing to pay you a tidy sum for the service.' (This was during the period of time when he was being relentlessly pursued and there was a price on Idi Amin's head)."

• Update 2001!!!: Gwendol has an additonal brush: "In the early 80's I spent the night in the same bed as Alan Alda . . . one night later . . . ."

• Update 2008!!!: Gwendol has more brushes: "Although I did not speak to him, when I was sitting around on the filming of "Foul Play" (Goldie Hawn, Chevy Chase, Brian Dennehy...) Burgess Meredith came into the area...I could have spoken to him, but I kept just sitting on the wall...he seemed to important to bother...

  So Brian Dennehy and I just sat there and kep on talkin..."

• "While attending college at SW Louisiana St. University I had a roommate for one semester who kept bragging about his father being a famous songwriter. Of course I didn't believe him. One day he took me to his father's home in Baton Rouge. In his den hung several gold records including one for "Indian Reservation" which was a big hit by Paul Revere & the Raiders back in the early '70s."

• "Recently on a business trip from Des Moines, Iowa to Chicago I was lucky enough to get a free upgrade to first class. Seated directly across the aisle from me was James Brady. The James Brady who was seriously injured by a bullet intended for President Reagan. The same James Brady who is the author of the famous gun control law named after him. Would you believe that they wouldn't allow him to enter the airplane in his wheelchair even though it was a collapsible wheelchair that could have been stored in a closet. Instead they made him get out of his wheelchair, his travel companion and I had to almost carry him to his seat. After all this man has been through it was evident that he was full of life and very friendly. He was friendly and cordial with all who approached him for autographs and photos. Not once did he complain about having to try and walk from outside the airplane to his seat. Truly a great American."

• "I have driven Myrna Goldsmith, sister to the incomprable "Velvet Fog" (Mel Torme), in my car."

• "And I thought of another . . . My best friend Carrie's mom was the cleaning lady for the woman who lived next door to . . . Andre Agassi! I got to go to his house and swim in his pool, but I never got to meet him. I only ever went there when he was not home. (Carrie's mom was friends with Andre's cleaning lady)."

• "And another . . . I who work with . . . Holly, star of MTV's new (loosely) reality-based show, FEAR!! (seriously, she works at the host stand in the restaurant at House of Blues)."

• "And another . . . I once rented a basement apartment that was formerly occupied by . . . Richard Ramirez, the notorious Hillside Strangler. And, to make things even stranger, this same apartment was also the former apartment of . . . . Dr. Demento, washed-up radio personality from the '70s!"

• "And yet another . . . I just bought a hi-fi (console radio) from a guy who was once roomates wih the best friend of . . . Mike Ness, lead singer of Social Distortion!!! (his one really IS a brush with greatness, as Social Distortion is one of my favorite bands.)"

or, how about this one...

My father went to high school with Glenn Gould, whose mother made him wear gloves to school even in the summer."

Back in the 30`s, being from Charleston, S.C., my Dad met Gershwin at a party given by some of the Jewish singles at Folly Beach, S.C.(afew miles from Charleston) when Gershwin was doing research work to write Porgy n Bess. Gershwin played the piano at this party. The Jewish girls from Charleston were really hitting on Gershwin.

"My sister's husband met and became friends with Larry Lam in high school who became Leonardo the Mutant Ninja Turtle martial arts stunt double in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies."

"My sister's husband had lunch with Arnold Schwartzenegger after a photo shoot when he used to do some modeling down in L.A. in high school."

"My younger sister got to meet Robin Williams when he narrated Peter and the Wolf Xmas concert with the San Francisco Youth symphony (she was in the orchestra), and she got to meet and play on James Gallway's flute in a 'workshop'."

"Some of the musicians my mother has gotten to meet and speak with during her years as a violinist with the San Jose Symphony have been Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, Andre Watts, and Paul Tortellie (I got to meet him too)."

Shelly also has a musical "Six Degrees of Separation" type brush:

"My sister studied with Barbara Larsen. Larsen studied with Ethel Leginska. Leginska studied with Leschetizky. Leschetizky studied with Czerny. Czerny studied with Beethoven."

"In July of 1976 I ran into John and Yoko on their favorite park bench in Central Park West near their Dakota home... baby Sean was in a stroller (pram) and they looked so happy on the day after his GREEN CARD reinstatement from Dick Nixon the nastyone... that I simply approached and thanked them for existing and left the park and the trees with my empty camera. Respect for humanity I call it."

• "Well, this might not exactly be "greatness" but I think everyone knows the slogan for the Hanes underware ad, "wait till we get our hanes on you". Well, my brother is good friends with the brother of the guy who invented that slogan."

• "And my mother was friends with the daughter of the man who invented saran wrap (yes, invented it!).

• "Ok, now for the "star" brushes that most everyone thinks are the real brushes...(since I live in LA I've actually had quite a few):
  • I've stood in line for popcorn with Tom Hanks at "Wag the Dog".

  • I sat behind Goldie Hawn in the movie theater at "Amistad".

  • And last April my wedding reception was next to Eddie Murphey's birthday party at the same restaurant (Sugar Ray Leonard among other well knowns were there also).

  • OH OH . . . . I forgot a good one . . . . I know a woman who used to be the nanny for Ann Archer ("Fatal Attraction"). We would go over to "Ann's" house and eat dinner and "hot tub" when the family wasn't there.

"My housemate's friend's housemate's friend, is Keri Russell, star of the TV show 'Felicity'!! Want my autograph?"

"My neighbor has a friend whose brother married Alan Alda's daughter. They had a small wedding, and not all family and friends were invited. They took a group picture in which all but the immediate family wore Groucho Marx' glasses/nose and moustache. That way no one would know who WAS invited, and thereby avoid family/friend problems. So, you too can claim to have attended an NO ONE will know!"

• While attending the theater in London, a very familiar face sat next to me and we had a lovely chat about travelling and plays and life in general. When he asked me if I attended much theater in the States, I stupidly told Herbert Lom, that "Oh, no, it's much too expensive there!" He probably thought he was sitting next to Inspector Clouseau's sister.

• My husband came home from a business trip in Atlanta GA, telling me about this very nice English school teacher that he had met. They talked at length,  for most of the late evening, in the practically deserted hotel bar. The next morning, by chance, he rode down in the elevator with the same man. When the doors opened,  they were greeted by a screaming crowd and police escorts. Casually, my husband asked me if I'd ever heard of  Sting ... that was the name the hotel clerk had given my husband when he made inquiries. He had  known his bar mate as simply Gordon.

"My dad is in the Christian (I know . . .) music business. (See the special thanks to for Bad and songwriting credits for The Color Purple) My dad called me one day and said, Nicole, I'm sitting in Steven Speilberg's desk. I'm supposed to meet Michael Jackson, but I don't want to, is that strange? I've got a ton of them, but that was the most memorable."

• My aunt's husband's brother's daughter is dating the best friend of Leo Dicaprio.

• My best friend's grandmother is a second cousin of Celine Dion.

• One time at my grandparent's cottage, my cousins and I walked down to the pier and there was a group of people by the water. One of my cousin's said, "Wow that one person kinda looks like Nancy Kerrigan." But we all thought it wasn't her until we noticed all the other people surrounding her were getting her autograph!! We ran down to her and not only did I get her autograph, but I got a picture taken with her too!

• Marlena Dietrich's daughter lived in my town (many years ago)--on ocassion, my girlfiend and myself would spot them shopping together in our 5 & 10. Both always wore babushkas and no makeup.... since no one else wore babushkas, they were easy to recognize.

• I once met Dom Delouise's sister and we walked up Main St. chatting together.

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