Great thread...I'm not sure I would consider Dave South a celebrity!
I worked in Hollywood behind the scenes (production asst, location scout) from 1989 to 1991 and met quite a few celebrities.
- I worked for Paul Rubens (Pee Wee Herman) at his Paramount Studios office. It was a very strange experience. Three or four times a week I had to go over the hills to Studio City and get him a 3-bean salad from a certain restaurant. One time I came back with a 2-bean salad and he fired me. I had to go to his house several times to run errands while he was out. He lived in a small house in the Hollywood hills, but he owned the entire hill - it must have been worth a fortune. In his living room he had a huge collection of action figures behind glass...really weird in a living room display. When I walked in the office he never said hi to me in the office then would call me in my office two seconds later to give me orders. When I answered the phone it would often be someone like Barbara Streisand or Liz Taylor. He was friends with those types of women.
- I worked for Danny Arnold who was the producer for Barney Miller, That Girl and Bewitched. This guy sued a company over royalties and was awarded hundreds of millions of dollars. I used to xerox his royalty checks every day and it was ridiculous. He bought thoroughbred horses like we buy hamburgers. He used to go out with his limo driver and hand out 100 bills to bums and w*h*o*r*e*s on the street.
- I sat next to Tom Cruise during one of the Addams Family movies. He was laughing loud and tossing popcorn into the air as he was eating it. The guys I worked with on set said Tom Cruise is one of the nicest guys you will ever meet. He often eats with the guys who drive the trucks instead of in his trailer.
- I worked on a movie called Auntie Lee's Meat Pies with Pat Morita (first Karate Kid) and Karen Black (Airport '77 if I remember correctly). They were both nice, but Morita was a bit of a creeper with the young ladies. This movie was crazy to work on. There were all of these "actresses" from the Playboy modeling company and they were always coked up and out of it. You would walk off the set and come back and one of them would be walking around completely naked for no reason.
- I worked on PsychoCop with Bobby Ray Shafer. He works in television a lot and is most famous for being the plumber on The Office.
- In my first cougar experience (Before they called them cougars...I was 23 or 24) I dated a woman who was famous for being on some commercial about soap. She was in her late 30s and still hot. I remember watching her in the commercials when I was a little kid.
- I dated Bess Armstrong's babysitter. Bess was in Married People at the time and later she was the mother in My So Called Life. I met her at her house a few times and I think she didn't appreciate me being there with her babysitter.
- I used to see quite a few celebrities at the studios. I remember seeing guys like Ted Danson and Danny Devito on a regular basis.
- I should have kept a journal of everyone I met back then. In LA you see so many famous people you sort of take it for granted. We used to hang out on the Sunset Strip. There is no telling who we might have been talking to back then and not have even known it.
[This message has been edited by Old Main (edited 4/29/2012 7:45p).]