Famous People I Have (Never) Known

Welcome to Vince's Blog, Namedropper Edition. I've run across numerous famous people over the years, and I thought I'd take this special time to tiptoe barefoot through the memories of just some of these illustrious personages (as if they'd care). I'm omitting celebrities seen in concert, since I've been to a lot of concerts and anyway it's not the same thing. I'm also skipping Broadway actors and actresses I met outside stage doors with other fans, since I saw a lot of shows back when they were affordable to ordinary humans.

The first famous person I ever "saw" was John F. Kennedy, though I wouldn't know this if my father hadn't told me at the time. We were stuck in traffic somewhere in Miami during JFK's presidency, and it turned out that the jam was because his motorcade was crossing the intersection ahead of us. All I remember is the roar of motorcycles and someone's arm waving from a convertible. I assume it was his and not Jackie's.

But that didn't make me a Democrat any more than this made me a Republican. In 1968, when the GOP arrived in Miami for its presidential convention, two conservative friends of mine who were volunteering for Nixon invited me to join them as a volunteer. I had no allegiances and no political leanings at all, so I said sure, why not? We went to Miami International Airport to greet Spiro Agnew's plane on the tarmac with a throng of other supporters. Agnew was Nixon's VP running mate (who, like the latter, would turn out to be a criminal just a few years later). He came down the airplane steps and stopped to sign the bumper stickers wrapped around our Styrofoam campaign hats. I didn't have a bumper sticker on mine, but I handed my hat to him anyway. His pen broke right through. I told him that was OK, the little wet blot would do.

When our family moved into a brand-new housing development in Hialeah a few years earlier, Dan Blocker of Bonanza fame signed autographs in the model home that served as the development company's office. I have no idea why he was there -- Palm Springs North wasn't exactly the Ponderosa -- but he was very friendly, and when he shook my hand it was like the Jolly Green Giant crushing Tom Thumb.

In the early '70s, I was one degree of separation from Sonny Bono. He and Cher were performing at the Deauville Hotel on the beach, and my girlfriend was working there when she saw him cross the lobby with photographers in tow. She told me later he was the most handsome man she had ever seen. (What did that say about me?)

When I moved north and worked and went to school in New York City, I ran into my share of famous people on the streets, a semi-common occurrence there.

I saw Otto Preminger drop a dollar into a blind man's cup. This was contrary to his reputation, and I took a good look to be sure it was Preminger. It was.

I was crossing a side street in the theater district, not watching where I was going, when I literally ran into Jason Robards Jr. coming from the opposite direction. Since we both had to keep from tumbling down, I decided it was too awkward a moment to ask for his autograph. Anyway, I had such great respect for him as an actor that I'm sure I would have been tongue-tied. (His cameo in Melvin and Howard is one of the greatest supporting performances I've ever seen.)

My wife and I were walking through Central Park when Welcome Back, Kotter's Robert Hegyes (Juan Epstein) and his wife stopped us to ask for directions. That was a defining moment, since I finally felt like a real New Yorker, having someone else ask me how to get somewhere. There was a memorable moment when I first opened my mouth to say I knew who he was but he smiled in a knowing way that meant, "Yeah, it's me, but please don't make a fuss." They were friendly, regular folks, and I hoped we didn't get them too lost.

I went to see The Steinettes in a little uptown club, where they'd made the move from street corner singing to cabaret. Glenda Jackson came in and sat a few tables away. I felt bad for the Steinettes, because after the show the entire small audience rushed to Jackson's table to touch the hem of her garment. (I mean, heck, they don't even rate boldface here.)

Since I've always been on the periphery of po biz, I won't mention the various poets I've encountered, except for two: Down in Greenwich Village, at Chumley's, a literary bar that used to be a speakeasy back in the 1920s, I went to see Marilyn Hacker read her works. Another poet, Marie Ponsot, was sitting beside her. What makes the moment so memorable is that just as Hacker rose to approach the front of the room, Ponsot tugged on her blouse and whispered that her fly was down. I was seated behind them and overheard this. I love Hacker's formalist poetry and had eagerly awaited this reading, but that's the only single moment I remember from that day.

I saw a dead ringer for George McGovern at Mid-Continent Airport in Wichita, Kansas, and was so tempted to walk up and say who he reminded me of, but I didn't. Sure enough, a couple hours later, I learned that George McGovern was in town to speak at Wichita State that evening. He'd been one of my few political heroes, and I'm still kicking myself. (With each passing campaign season, he looks better and better.)

Here's the strangest encounter I had: In 1976, I made a pilgrimage to Massachusetts to visit Winthrop and Wellesley, the towns where Sylvia Plath had lived first as a child and then as a young woman. I was an ardent devotee of her poetry (especially Ariel), and, as a fledgling poet myself as well as a college English major whose focus was on Plath's entire oeuvre, I felt compelled to be there. Call it a pricey field trip. Anyway, in Wellesley, I found the house she'd lived in through her school years and where she'd attempted the suicide that became the focus of her only novel, The Bell Jar. I was a cocky lad and went right up and knocked on the front door, planning to say who I was and what I was doing there and ask if the current owners had any thoughts about the house's famous former resident. Well, the door opened, and my voice curled up in my throat and took a nose dive into my stomach. Aurelia Plath, Sylvia's elderly mother, was standing there. It had never occurred to me that she might not only still be alive but be living in the same house. I stammered something about her daughter and my admiration, and she sweetly acknowledged that yes, Sylvia certainly was her daughter, all the while fumbling for a pair of white gloves from a table beside the door. I suspect this strange guy trembling in the doorway spooked her, because as she put on the gloves she apologized for having to go out and excused me if she didn't continue our conversation. I thanked her for her time and walked out to the sidewalk and right into a tree. I kept looking back at the house for a couple of blocks, and sure enough she never did go out. I didn't blame her.

Finally, my greatest celebrity memory, forever etched in the stone obelisk of my brain:

I finagled an interview with Liza Minnelli for my high school paper in 1970. She was staying at the Playboy Hotel on Miami Beach, and for some reason I'd thought she'd be fielding questions in one of the big banquet rooms. Instead, I was directed to a room on one of the higher floors, where she sat curled up on a sofa while six or seven legitimate journalists were engaged in mid-conversation with her. They'd evidently been at it for some time, as Minnelli's publicist (or whoever) broke it up shortly afterwards. She had two white poodles milling around, and when I stepped into the long hallway, one of Minnelli's poodles tore through the door and made a dash for the opposite end. The publicist came out behind me and called him back. Well, he came running back all right, but instead of following her into the room, he latched onto one of my legs and started humping away. This, folks, is my greatest brush with fame. Envious, aren't you?