On Sunday, during the live Oscar blog, we talked about which celebrities that we’ve seen in real life. Camera Obscura said she saw George Clooney on a plane. I’ve seen Dolly Parton at the Pierre Hotel for high tea. I used live in the same building at Dr. Ruth, so I saw her all the time. I sat in a restaurant next to Matt Lauer and Bryant Gumble. Steve, who works in Times Square, sees everybody, including Tony Danza three times. Once, Danza was pressing his face against a window in a restaurant and making creepy faces. 
Question of the Day: Which celebs have you seen? Where?
Apt. 11d 
I assume that since I’ve lived in Los Angeles for an extended period and even worked on studio lots, I shouldn’t be allowed to play?
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So much of it is having a sharp eye for them — if you are in NYC, they are everywhere.
Let’s see — Cyndi Lauper and Mike Myers on the street, Jill Clayburgh on an airplane (in coach!) Diane Sawyer and Mike Nichols going to a play on Broadway.
A really long time ago, I was in a Soho restaurant — Lucky Strike — and Madonna was there.
My friends just had a great one — they were in the locker room at Chelsea Piers gym and Nicole Kidman was there! And SHE was eavesdropping on THEM!
Since I’ve worked as a journalist, I’m not counting celebrities I interviewed or saw at press conferences, etc.
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Last year, I bumped into Sean Penn, Judge Law and Sieana Miller (sp?) at a bar in New Orleans. Law didn’t have much interest in Miller. No surprise he was doing the babysitter. I saw some other starts on the set, but I don’t think that counts.
I saw Sammy Hagar at a club in New Orleans. He was fat.
In grad school, Dave Matthews often hung out at my favorite bar, where he used to be a bartender. Not very impressive.
Do politicians count? When I lived in DC, I saw plenty of famous people.
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I’ve had dinner with my favourite pop star (no, I’m not telling who, and don’t out him, Laura). I sat at the next table to Pierce Brosnan at an Indian restaraunt in Santa Monica. I met Richard Thompson on a shuttle bus at LAX — and dared to speak to him. When I was in grad school (in LA) I was introduced to Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) because the leader of the Muslim Student League lied me a lot, and thought I’d like to meet a fellow Brit! Oddly, I was already a big fan of the first three.
Oh, and I taught Mark McGuire (is that how you spell it? — the baseball player) at USC. And Paige Adams, who is now a famous maker and wearer of jeans.
This is getting embarrassing so I’ll quit.
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New York is so great for this. Highlights:
I saw James Gandolfini having coffee with someone (a reporter?) at the coffee shop in a building I once worked in.
I passed Lewis Black on the street in Chelsea.
My husband once saw Jerry Orbach in the subway.
I ate a business lunch at a vegetarian restaurant in midtown, and Paul McCartney was eating there too (in the same dining room).
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Lots of celebs where we used to live in NYC…since we moved to California.. nothing…cause we are in the OC where celebs never go.
NYC highlights
Kevin Bacon with his cute children constantly for a short period in the early 1990s on the UPW typically during the day. (I would be out at odd hours because I was in grad school) Got to the point where we started saying hi. He must have lived near me.
Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon in line behind at us the movie theatre. I wouldn’t have noticed but she yelled “Sean” in that distinctive voice of hers.
Woody Allen and his daughter/wife cooed over my child in front of Barney’s. He was surprisingly pleasant.
Penny Marshall once slammed into me on the street in front of my building. She is a big woman. It hurt. Laverne apologized.
We sat next to Johnny Depp and Kate Moss at Lucky Strike (dating myself)`
I must stop now, I sound like a qawker stalker and I have to get back to work.
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I used to live in southern California and would regularly go to the Century City Mall and see tons of celebrities. Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Madonna, Harry Hamlin, Malcom McDonald, Richard Simmons, various music people who aren’t terribly famous and my all time favorite was when a newly famous Cortney Cox asked me where I got my sunglasses. That’s not my story-
My story is my friend, Charlie. Charlie has a knack for spotting psuedo celebrities. Like people who were once on NYPD Blue or in a Folger’s commercial. The coolest thing about Charlie is that whenever we would see celebrities together I would always lose my cool and start talking and laughing too loud, but Charlie plays is it super cool. He gets this pissed off expression on his face and if the celebrity walks past him he looks away like he’s embarrassed for them.
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I don’t know about the NYC environs, but in L.A. the little peoples’ favorite game is to completely ignore celebrities in public (unless it’s a “hey, look at the celebrities” event) and then play “can you top this sighting” with their friends.
My only other gen-u-ine sightings (as opposed to Six-Degrees ones, like I had a baby in the same hospital as Mr. & Mrs. Boxleitner) are:
1) I used to run in to Maureen McCormick all the time at our favorite pizza joint in Westlake Village. This was about the same time as her aborted foray into country music, I think. Cute kids. Good pizza, too. Only place I could afford to eat in where I could get a prosciutto pizza.
2) I took a plane out of Burbank with Harry Shearer once. It was going to St. Louis (at least on the first leg…) WTF he was doing flying Southwest on a 6:30 am flight I’ll never know. I felt sorry for him; some gawdawfully earnest guy cornered him with an idea for something-or-other (L.A.’s full of them). At 6:30 am, in the Burbank airport, you think he’d have been able to avoid that sort of thing.
3) I took a plane from Chicago to L.A. with Doug McClure back in the mid-80s. Yeah, he’s dead now. BIG fella.
When Hubby first took his job in L.A., he was staying in a less-than-stellar hotel in Santa Monica while I was trying to sell our house in flyover country. One Saturday on his way up from the laundry room in the basement, the elevator doors opened at the lobby level and someone he recognized was standing there with a bellhop and luggage. He was in your typical “I’m hauling my laundry around and thinking to myself” fugue, and since she looked so familiar he just said, “Hi!” like you would to some acquaintance you run into while out and about. She said Hi back, looking kinda puzzled, and then because the elevator was small and he was toting a laundry basket and she had another person and luggage, announced she wait for the next elevator. He said okay and went on up to his room. As he was folding his laundry, he realized he’d just totally flummoxed Whoopi Goldberg.
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Yeah, I think New Yorkers tend to ignore them too. And in my case, I just never recognize them. In the only two (really, just 2!) cases in which I’ve seen celebrities, someone else spotten them first. I saw John C. McGinley (Dr. Cox on Scrubs) walking around in midtown, and Chris Noth in Barnes and Noble in Union Square.
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I saw Chris Farley a few weeks before his death, at River Shannon in Chicago. He was hammered beyond belief. (Poor guy.)
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Saw Prince in the Minneapolis airport. Little dude, very quiet.
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I used to work in television production so I’ve seen/met lots of celebrities. So I will just give you the slightly strange and/or funny C list sightings I have had, in no particular order.
Zelda Rubinstein – the small, creepy woman from poltergeist, in Starbucks in LA. That voice ordering coffee from behind you in line definitely wakes you up in the morning.
Tiny Tim – in a cheesy motel lobby in Wildwood NJ (this was a long time ago)
Rip Taylor – walking down the street in Aspen, wearing a fur coat. (also a long time ago)
John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten – At an Indian Restaurant in San Francisco and then again the next day at Fisherman’s Warf.
Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon and entourage – Also twice in the same day. At a park in Budapest and then that same night at the opera. They looked bored at the opera and left half way through.
Monica Lewinsky eating breakfast at the Grey Dog Coffee in the West Village.
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I thought I was going to have the first Nicole Kidman sighting (as I’m from Sydney) but the one above is cooler. Mine is standing next to her in a toilet queue at the theatre (15 years ago before she was famous outside Australia).
But I’ve also seen Patrick Stewart at a Christmas Eve midnight service at St Paul’s Cathedral, London.
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Oh and Russell Crowe walking with his new baby in Sydney’s Botanic Gardens – it was the first time I’d seen a Bugaboo pram so I almost didn’t notice it was him.
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Danny DeVito. Came to see his daughter in a school play. (She was great, btw.)
Jane Fonda. At “Campus Dance,” a big event before commencement. She spent way too much time making out with Ted Turner.
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Among others, Michelle Pfeiffer at the hardware store. My goodness, she is tiny!
Lotsa celebs (Ahhnold, Demi Moore, Bruce Willis, Clint Eastwood, etc etc), in Idaho (Sun Valley) both summer and winter. It’s kind of fun, looking and not looking. And my kids shared a snowboard instructor with Somebody Famous For Acting I Won’t Name…cause That Person was totally down to earth, and That Person (as we waited for our kids) talked about wanting the kids to have as normal a life as possible.
The nicest one surprised me: Ashton Kutcher. He was having a not-good snowboarding day, but still posed for a picture with two girls I know, TOTALLY making their day. AND he is reported to be a good dad-figure to Demi’s girls.
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We see celebs all the time during the summer theater festival but for the most part they tend to be very down to earth, so we don’t bother them. During a visit from my sister-in-law, she mentioned that she was excited about a particilar celeb that was in town at the time. I joked about the fact that we stand next to big time famous people at the grocery store all the time. Later that afternoon we were in the grocery store and guess who’s standing behind us? Yup, her favorite big time famous person!
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Couple of years back I was in line at Starbucks in the LAX terminal, early in the AM. Ted Danson got in line behind me, remarking about how many people needed a shot of coffee in the morning. I asked him if he was who I thought he was, & he replied “I used to be.” Not bad!
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Forgot one — in 1989 I was in Leningrad (as a tourist) and the cast & crew of “The Russia House” were staying at our hotel. Rode in an elevator with Michelle Pfeiffer, who was trim to the point of emaciated and not about to talk to any of the hoi polloi. Saw one scene being filmed downtown where Sean Connery came out of the Dom Knigi (state-run bookstore) and walked around a corner.
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Is it a sad sign of parenthood that the celebrity sighting that most excited us was when we saw one of the kids from Zoom in a restaurant?
Yeah, I know it is.
I saw Christopher Reeve once in a Vermont ski lodge when I was a child, with his previous partner and the two children by that relationship.
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Here are mine:
Donald Rumsfeld. Seriously. In line behind me with his wife at a Potbelly sandwich shop in D.C. a few months ago. Both he and his wife struck up a conversation with me about the menu, and their grandchildren, who love Potbelly. Surprisingly charming, outgoing, and funny – you know, for a torturer.
Paul Krugman. On a metro platform in DC after a talk for a Princeton alumni group. I introduced myself and thanked him for all his great columns. He was pleasant but clearly nervous about the attention he was getting on the platform.
Alison Janey. In front of me in line at a Citibank ATM on the Upper West Side. The skinniest person I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
Natalie Merchant. Seated next to me in a restaurant in Tivoli, NY. She very petite, small and thin, and was pretty quiet throughout her meal.
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