28 Times People Met Someone Famous And Had No Idea Who They Were

Not EXACTLY… but fun memory. I was studying in the park at Washington Square in Manhattan. Two GORGEOUS women, one a blonde and the other a super tall black woman, just stunning and OBVIOUSLY both models or something, walk by pushing a baby stroller and sit in the grass nearby. I notice everyone staring at them and all I can think is “[darn], people [be bad], just gawking at these two women who are just minding their business playing with their baby.” At one point a guy passes on his bike, nearly crashes, stops and literally takes a picture. [why?]? Anyway… The blonde starts walking over to where I am smoking a cigarette and studying my flashcards. She asks if she can borrow my light, and sits on the wall next to me. I am friendly of course, wanted SO bad to chat with her, but didn’t want to join the ranks of these other clowns that I’m SURE she saw gawking, that day and every day. She does this a couple times over an hour and a half or so, obviously getting away from the baby to smoke, so we chat a little here and there but I leave it at that. On the way home, I’m sitting across from my roommate on the subway, telling her about this crazy attractive blonde I “sort of” met in the park, laughing a little wondering who she was. Then my roommate opened the paper and there she was, a full spread on the back of the paper. Cameron Diaz! I didn’t have a clue, lol.

It's actually worse than that. I had a friend who ran a shop called Judith Stiles Pottery. At the time, I was about 26, barely surviving in NYC, working as an actor in experimental downtown theatre pieces. I never had money to buy any of Judith's pieces, but I lived in the neighborhood and used to hang out at the store. One day, she had some errands to run and asked if I would watch her ten-year old daughter. So I'm talking with her daughter, who tells me she wants to be a movie star. Having been rejected multiple times auditioning, I tell her that while that's a wonderful goal, it's very very hard to do, and maybe she should find some other things she likes just in case. She got very indignant and told me she was going to be a big star. Yes, I spent the better part of an hour being patronizing to Julia Stiles.

Not exactly, but in the early ‘80s I took up fencing (the sport) and was chatting to a new fencer to the club at the bar of the “leisure center” (public sports facility) where the club met. I asked if I could buy him a drink, as we were all very friendly to newcomers. His face kinda said “Oh FFS!” and I don’t remember exactly what happened next because it wasn’t at all memorable. I may have bought that round, but his expression stuck with me. Then, when a group of us fencers were sitting around one of the tables, a couple of girls also in the bar came up to him and asked him to sign their jeans. I leaned over and said to him, “You don’t work in an office, do you? What do you do for a living?” Bruce Dickinson (lead singer of Iron Maiden) warmed up a bit to me after that. He always beat me in a fencing bout, though, he was quite good.

I was drinking in a bar on a private island in the Caribbean over the Christmas break and Keith Richards walked in and sat down next to me. I’m 22 at the time and Keith is one of my idols but I was also nursing a terrible hangover. About 12 hours earlier, after blacking out at Welcome to the Johnson’s on the Lower East Side, I came to on the floor of a commercial jetliner with the disembodied voice on the intercom requesting a doctor for one of the passengers. To my utter embarrassment that passenger turned out to be me. When I arrived on this tropical island I discovered that I’d mostly packed winter coats and no cigs for some odd reason. Anyway, Keith seemed to have an endless supply of smokes so we got to chatting and next thing I knew we were about 6 drinks deep. This was half a decade before he fell out of the coconut tree and he was still raging pretty hard. He had a dry wit and was quite the raconteur just as I’d always imagined. At some point in the night though as the alcohol crept up on us the banter seemed to take a dark turn. After correcting him about something that seemed totally asinine he started poking his boney finger in my face and shouting, “do you know who I am, kid”. I kinda thought he was joking cuz I clearly did know who I’d been talking with for the last 2 hours so I responded by asking if he was the star of that Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Long story long, he basically threatened to cut my head off and stormed out of the bar. The next day around 10am I ran into him in a gift shop and he told me he was gonna buy out the shop so I couldn't have anything. Then he asked if i was ready to start drinking with him again. The man was, and still is a true legend.

My grandfather John Thompson worked as a chassis builder for the Mclaren racing team in the 1960s, and he has repeatedly told me the story about how he got the job. Just for some context, my grandfather grew up in Richmond, London in the immediate post war years, when much of London was still rubble, and had left school at 16. Anyway one day he was wondering around the mclaren factory (he never specified whether it was feltenham or new Malden) in with no real reason to be there, just snooping when Bruce Mclaren walks by, and knowing he is out of place accosts him. My Grandfather asks him “who are you?” knowing full well who he was, but he was trying to bluff his way out of trespassing so eh. Then the following exchange happened : M: I'm Bruce Mclaren G: never heard of you! M:… Do you work for me? G: nah M: if you had worked for me I would have fired you for that. M:… do you want to work for me? And with that my grandfather got a job with mclaren, which was his introduction to the motoracing world. He would eventually break off and become independent, working for teams diverse as jaguar, ferrari and Honda in le man, f1 and touring cars.

I work in media production, and and in 2009 we were producing a corporate video for the big Walmart Annual Meeting. They always bring in a big star to host, and that year it was Ben Stiller. So Ben rolls into Fayetteville Arkansas with a modest entourage, and we quickly whisk him out to the local Walmart where we are shooting a little comic piece, with Ben playing a cashier. It was a very loose setup, and we’re moving fast, since the big show was the next morning and we had to shoot and edit this piece before we slept that night. We had grips and makeup people posing as customers, and Ben asked one of his traveling companions, an older guy named Jeff to join the fun and man the cash register behind him. Jeff suited up in a Walmart shirt, and we got the shots. As we started to wrap, the production assistant made the rounds and got signed releases from everyone that appeared on camera. She brought back the release from Ben’s friend Jeff The Cashier with her jaw practically dragging on the floor. It was filled out correctly and completely and signed…..Jeffery Katzenberg. We were all big film buffs and we worked in the industry, but you just don’t expect to see someone of that stature traveling under the radar, so NONE of the crew had recognized him. You can clearly see Mr. Katzenberg working the register behind Ben in this old picture.

Quite the opposite. Many years ago, during the holiday season when a store I managed on Fifth Ave. in NY was open until midnight, a young woman came in just before closing. She was soaked head to toe, wore flip flops, and a trench coat over what looked like pajamas. I thought she might be homeless and seeking shelter from the driving rain outside. She picked out about a hundred dollars worth of items and wanted to pay by check with no ID. When told, politely, that it wasn’t possible, she argued for what seemed like twenty minutes before finally accepting my offer to hold the items for her until she could return with ID. The next day her housekeeper came in with the check and her employer’s identification. The name on the check was Faye Dunaway. I was a fan of her movies and if she had just name dropped her own name, I would have seen it was her and taken her check.

Haha…one of two celebrity or famous person stories. Sat next to Sharon Stone in first class on a flight in 2012 or 2013 to Atlanta. I was the first passenger to board, or so I thought. I have 1C on an MD-90 with 2+2 rows and when I get on a well dressed attractive blond woman is seated in 1D. I remember thinking “this is weird, I didn’t see anyone board before me?” as I sat down and other passengers boarded. She’s totally into her phone, doesn’t look up or anything when I sit down. The flight attendant asks us if we want a drink before take off. I order a beer, she orders a mixed drink. When the attendant brings the drinks, the woman isn’t paying attention so I take the drink from the attendant and put it on the little center pull out drink thing. The woman looks up briefly, smiles and says thank you. When I see her she looked familiar but I can’t place it yet. So we’re waiting for boarding to finish and I’m thinking who does this person look like? She doesn’t look up but I catch a couple of glances and after a few minutes I’m thinking Sharon Stone. But Sharon Stone? Then I think back to my thought when I boarded first only to see a woman already on the plane...she might get celebrity treatment from Delta? So after boarding is complete, I get up to get my iPad from my bag in the overhead, at which point she takes off her suit jacket, underneath which was a sleeveless camisole type (and form fitting) silk top. She looks up and I asked her did she want me to put up her jacket and she smiles again and hands it to me. Now I’m about 90% sure it’s Sharon Stone. I sit back down and glance at her again as she thanks me again. 99% sure. The attendant brings another round and after a few minutes she sort of theatrically and provocatively props her feet against the bulkhead wall and crosses her legs. There’s maybe 30” from the seat to the bulkhead, so her legs are at about a 45 degree angle up from the seat and her rather conservative tweed skirt is riding up with well above her knees. She’s still into her phone and barely looks at me, pretty much catching me looking…which was really hard not to do…I’m about 100% sure it’s Sharon Stone. And yes the famous scene from Basic Instinct did cross my mind. About 30 minutes left in the flight, curiosity gets the best of me and I say to her “excuse me, anyone ever tell you you look like Sharon Stone?”. She smiles and says “all the time, what’s your name?” I tell her Don, she extends her hand and says “nice to meet you, I’m Sharon”. We made small talk the rest of the flight; she was on her way to NYC and thanked me for being courteous and not calling attention to her (although the legs crossed bit got every guy’s attention I’m sure in first class!). I handed her her jacket and got her bag out of the bin when we landed, we exchanged pleasantries again and were on our way. I walked behind her up the jetbridge and she kept her head down when we got into the terminal so no one would recognize her. A great story and good experience. She was as friendly as you could expect (given the number of…overzealous fans she probably runs into), a little flirtatious, very attractive (she was wearing very little makeup) and comfortable I think once she realized I was just a regular person. I’ve seen her in interviews since then and she seems the same as on that flight, pretty down to earth. I was on a turboprop flight from Seattle to Vancouver one time with Laura Bush around 2013. Totally different experience with the entourage and all the security & everything.