I’ll take care of it in the meantime. More stories about the good folks:
- My friend Cynthia left this gem in the comments section yesterday: “When I was a kid, my sister and I got into the elevator at the Fountain Bleu hotel in Miami. In walked Burt Reynolds. He was a HUGE star back then and I gasped. He asked me my name and he and his assistant told me that we could go up to the penthouse with them and watch Mr. Reynolds get interviewed by some of the press. We went up and when the door opened everyone stared at me and my sister and he said, ‘Those girls are with me. You let them have a drink and watch the filming.’ I will never forget it. Burt - you are the best.”
- My friend Ben: “Nicest celebrity I ever worked with was William Schallert. Not like ‘let me call your grandmother’ nice... but very warm and polite and a pleasure to work with. A real pro.”
- A precocious movie extra told me he saw Steven Spielberg in the Disney Studios commissary, and told Steven “Wait here!” The extra ran and grabbed his headshot, and brought it back to Steven, who stood waiting for him. Months later, he met Spielberg again, and Steven said, “Oh yes – I dropped the headshot off at the casting department.”
- My friend Kerry told me that during lunch breaks on the set of “The West Wing”, all of the cast brought their lunches back to their trailers, except for Martin Short, who insisted on eating with the extras.
- Growing up on Long Island, my friend Greg’s mom was a friend of Billy Joel’s mom. One day, Billy’s mom brought a teenage Billy over to Greg’s house, where he joined Greg and his brothers in their basement playing pinball. Decades later, thanks to Billy’s mom, the brothers were able to go backstage at a Billy Joel concert. Trying not to impose, they stood quietly in a corner. Billy noticed them, came over and introduced himself. Greg said to him, “You probably don’t remember, but you were at our house once when we were kids.” Billy thought for a second, and said, “You guys had a pinball machine, right?” He then caught up with them and took pictures.
- When my friend TJ was a baby, he began crying in church one morning, so his dad picked him up and brought him out to the lobby. A man came up, shook TJ’s little hand, and told TJ’s dad, “That’s a fine-looking little fella.” It was JFK.
