Your "Brush With Greatness"
Unknown User
Joined: 12/31/69
#0Your "Brush With Greatness"
Posted: 8/22/06 at 3:33pmDavid Letterman used to pull people from the audience to describe their Brush With Greatness: A random encounter with a celebrity that lead nowhere and meant nothing. So, tell us, what is YOUR BRUSH WITH GREATNESS??
Unknown User
Joined: 12/31/69
#1re: Your 'Brush With Greatness'
Posted: 8/22/06 at 3:36pm
I'll start. I have TWO Brushes With Greatness, both with Oprah.
I saw her once at a very upscale grocery store in Chicago. She and a servant were at Fox & Obel's filling two grocery carts with every kind of chips. It came to well over $500. She looked very natural-- sweat pants and no make up.
Also, in the audience for Oprah's Christmas Show (Liza, Tony Bennett & Michael Bolton) Oprah fell on me. She was walking behind my row and her heel stuck in a crack in the risers and she went over my shoulder and landed in my lap.
Those are my BRUSHES WITH GREATNESS
#2re: Your 'Brush With Greatness'
Posted: 8/22/06 at 3:38pm
1982, after seeing Joseph, the crowd parted and Liz Taylor and her entourage walked out, right by me...the crowd was silent. I asked "did you like it?" She said "it was great!"
Turning the corner after a bad day of work, I almost smacked heads walking into Sondheim. I must've given him a stalker stare, cause he looked scared and practically ran away.
"In Oz, the verb is douchifizzation." PRS
vmlinnie
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/19/06
#3re: Your 'Brush With Greatness'
Posted: 8/22/06 at 3:38pm
Harvey Fierstein in Vegas right after a performance of Hairspray,
I've also met lots of famous people that have nothing to do with shows, so I won't go through them all.
deep-delving, dark, deliberate you would say
browsing on spire and bogland; but today
our sky-blue slates are steaming in the sun,
our yachts tinkling and dancing in the bay
like racehorses. We contemplate at last
shining windows, a future forbidden to no one.
Derek Mahon
"Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets."
Arthur Miller
#4re: Your 'Brush With Greatness'
Posted: 8/22/06 at 3:38pm
I sold a sausage on a stick to Jeff Chance at a county fair. I had no idea who the hell he was and still don't to this day.
eta: Oddly enough, that was the same day I saw Rue McClanahan in a local Target. What a day.
Updated On: 8/22/06 at 03:38 PM
#5re: Your 'Brush With Greatness'
Posted: 8/22/06 at 3:47pmRobert Englund bought a book from me a couple of years ago. He's a very soft-spoken and friendly, and we were having a lovely conversation until a group of teenagers saw him through the window and came in yelling, "Hey! It's Freddie! Take my picture with Freddie! Blah, blah, blah Freddie!" Off he went...
peach
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/29/05
#7re: Your 'Brush With Greatness'
Posted: 8/22/06 at 4:15pm
I was introduced to John Heard after a performance at Vassar College.
also spoke to Alan Ruck later that week. He told me (and some others) that after "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," he worked in the back lot of a Sears store.
~Dirty Rotten Scoundrels~
~Curtains~
~A Tale of Two Cities ~
#8re: Your 'Brush With Greatness'
Posted: 8/22/06 at 4:21pm
When I worked at Blockbuster Video in Buffalo, I used to rent video games to Johnny Resnick of the Goo Goo Dolls. A very nice man.
Also, I am often in line behind Ani DiFranco at Walgreens or some other store. She lives in Buffalo so I see her alot. She's always very nice.
neddyfrank2
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/23/05
#9re: Your 'Brush With Greatness'
Posted: 8/22/06 at 5:24pmI walked into Chris Rock at Paramount Studios, then was j- walking and almoust got run over by Johnny Knoxville. Not Greatness I know, but two in one day!
#10re: Your 'Brush With Greatness'
Posted: 8/22/06 at 5:45pmDuring intermission of a preview performance of "The Well Appointed Room" at Steppenwolf, I talked about the play with Terry Kinney, who was directing it.
#11re: Your 'Brush With Greatness'
Posted: 8/22/06 at 6:40pm
During intermission of the performance of SOUVENIR I attended, Rue McClanahan exited the ladies' room stall that I then entered. I defy anyone to beat that.
And please, no vulgar "Golden" Girl references, y'all.
#12re: Your 'Brush With Greatness'
Posted: 8/22/06 at 6:49pm
And please, no vulgar "Golden" Girl references, y'all.
Well, not after you beat us to the punch!
neddyfrank2
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/23/05
#13re: Your 'Brush With Greatness'
Posted: 8/22/06 at 6:50pm
Oh wait I have two more.
When I still lived in LA I ran into Steven Spielberg at the Hospital. Also, he was with his wife who was preggers, and they weren't married yet. I could have sold that to STAR for a million!
Also, my mom saw John Travolta at a movie theater when she went to see Saturday Night Fever, and sent her bf to go pee next to him at the urinal, and he didn't wash his hands (ew). This was a long time ago, before she met my daddy!
Updated On: 8/22/06 at 06:50 PM
#14re: Your 'Brush With Greatness'
Posted: 8/22/06 at 6:51pmNorbert Leo Butz at a show, John Ritter at Disneyland.
<^>BROADWAY is LOVE<^>
<^>RENT is LOVE<^>
<^>WICKED is LOVE<^>
<< Me and Norbie. I look icky becuase I was FREAAAAKKKIIINNNGG out.
DG
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/2/05
#15re: Your 'Brush With Greatness'
Posted: 8/22/06 at 6:53pm
"And please, no vulgar "Golden" Girl references, y'all."
Ok. Well then, to paraphrase 'Ralph' from Priscilla, Queen of the desert, "Are you telling me I'm looking at a McClanahan turd?"
#16re: Your 'Brush With Greatness'
Posted: 8/22/06 at 6:56pm
>>Norbert Leo Butz at a show<<
Is that what your avatar's from?
#17re: Your 'Brush With Greatness'
Posted: 8/22/06 at 6:58pmSince when do celebrities use the bathroom? Wow, Im learning lots today.
#18re: Your 'Brush With Greatness'
Posted: 8/22/06 at 7:09pm
hehe Rath, and boy do I want to comment.
I have several
1. A drunk Robert Morse was a "bit too nice" to me on a plane once.
2. As a kid I pooped my pants in front of Nanette Fabray
3. I almost wet my pants when Reichen walked by me in Paris, so close I could have....er, ah....kissed him.
but the best,
4. I had the honor of meeting the last Empress of Austria, Zita of Parma in 1972 in Switzerland. It was a brief few seconds, but as she is the only one of royal blood I have ever met, I was entralled (my father worked for the state department).
It was quite sad in 1998 when I visited her coffin at the Kaisergruft in Vienna
#19re: Your 'Brush With Greatness'
Posted: 8/22/06 at 7:10pmI would assume we are not including porn stars we have...er...ah "known?"
#20re: Your 'Brush With Greatness'
Posted: 8/22/06 at 7:14pm
I'm no fool, WW.
And DG, I'll have you know she flushed. AND washed her hands. She is one classy broad!
#21re: Your 'Brush With Greatness'
Posted: 8/22/06 at 7:16pm
Too many "celebrities" to count because some of them were people that I have directed or gone to school with.
Since "greatness" is such a subjective term I'll say Queen Elizabeth II.
I directed a command performance of a folk opera and she was brought on stage to meet me and the cast at the end of the production.
Unknown User
Joined: 12/31/69
#22re: Your 'Brush With Greatness'
Posted: 8/22/06 at 7:18pmWhen I was stationed at Pease AFB in NH, I got to ride in the cracker box and be part of the motorcade to pick up then Vice-Pres Bush at his Kennebunkport home( I saluted him and got to shake his hand :O)...was a big deal for me at the time lol
#23re: Your 'Brush With Greatness'
Posted: 8/22/06 at 7:21pmpab, which folk opera?
#24re: Your 'Brush With Greatness'
Posted: 8/22/06 at 7:28pm"The Legend of Sammie Swain"
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