Who is the most famous or infamous person you have ever met?
Famous: Mario Andretti, William Shatner, Lou Gerstner – CEO of IBM. All were speakers at Conferences, so I got to meet them. All were gracious and nice. I ate dinner many times with Chet Hanson, assistant to 5 Star General Omar Bradley. I worked with his daughter at IBM. I was a personal friend of Gina Smith, of Good Morning America, and the author of iWoz. She worked for me before she became famous.
Infamous: Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google. I also met them at computer conferences. I put them in the infamous category for what they’ve done to people. I would have avoided them if I could, but the situation forced us to be together.
Regarding Bill Gates, I worked on the same hall at IBM with Dave Bradley, the inventor of Ctrl-Alt-Del. At the 20th anniversary roundtable of the introduction of the IBM PC. Dave said he wrote the program during his speech, but Gates made it famous. Everyone but Gates laughed.
Although I didn’t meet them, I was in line next to Muhammad Ali at LaGuardia. He was in the late stages of Parkinson’s, so I left him alone. I saw Joe Frazier and Marvin Hagler in Vegas, but I didn’t bother them. They were smaller than I thought. I ate dinner at the table next to Bo Derek right after the movie 10 was released. I was surprised at how small she was. I wasn’t surprised at how hot she was. Joe Namath and I checked in together at the same hotel in Boston. He was also smaller than I thought. We just talked like guys do about sports. Dan Marino was a star at the time, and we talked about his quick release.
I got stared down by Ann Coulter at an airport for way longer than normal. It was almost like I reminded her of someone she had looked so long, and she was trying to figure out who I was. I knew who she was, but couldn’t figure out why she would look at me. I smiled, and so did she. It was one of those smiles a girl gives you when you’re the one, not a hello, how do you do smile. Then we went to our flights and that was that.
Famous people are tough to deal with. They come with a squad to keep people away. Everyone wants a piece of them, so I just walk on by.
I had to schedule famous speakers for events I ran, but I rarely talked to them. Their handlers were difficult to deal with, so by then, I didn’t want to deal with them.
Fame is a curse. You can’t go anywhere without being mobbed. and your private life is removed forever. I’ll take the peace and quiet.
Delusions of Adequacy 
Prob’ly Gerry Ford . . . at the Hawai’ian Open.
I was carrying a placard for a coupla pros who hadn’t teed off yet, so we were standing along the ropes on the 1st tee at Waialae.
A SS agent behind us said, “Be sharp, guys . . . President Ford’s up next.” And sure enuf he hit a low screamer into the rough which came close to a few people.
He walked over and spoke to us, saying ‘Thanks’ for our volunteer service (not knowing nearly all of us were active duty military in civvies) and apologized for almost hitting us with his drive.
Oh, one of the guys in my group that day was a very young Fred Couples, who was nowhere NEAR as nice when the cameras were off as when he knew they were on him. He has since mellowed considerably.
Another time I was in a bar in San Francisco (back when it was a great place to be) when Juan Marichal (the Giants pitcher, who was a really BIG guy) mistook me for someone else and announced his intention to kill me. Some of his pals convinced him I wasn’t who he had thunk I was.
Also ran into Joseph Cotton in Long Beach back in the early 60s, drunk and staggering in a jewelry shop along the main drag. I was there to get the setting fixed in an onyx ring I’d broken in a fight. City cop put him in a taxi and sent him away.
LikeLike