by Gina Cariño
Home >> Brushes with Fame
I would never have a quick view of Lauren Bacall from the middle of a squealing crowd outside the Hotel MarÃa Cristina during the San Sebastian International Film Festival. Hoi polloi celebrity-sighting doesn’t count. Nor does watching Lauren Bacall perform as Woman of the Year on Broadway in the early 80s. This weekly is about sighting celebrities when they are not meant to be sighted. It’s about catching public persons in private moments.
But seeing Lauren Bacall from across the street as she prepares to walk into Dakota Mansions doesn’t count either. That’s the scary-looking apartment building that is her home, and that was John Lennon’s too (I spotted Bacall standing on the exact spot where Lennon was shot). Nearness is of the essence. For a brush with fame to happen, you have to have the person up close.
James Mason (what a large man!) sat at the table next to mine in Café San MartÃn, a Spanish restaurant. Walt Frazier of the New York Knicks (what a tall man!) danced next to me in Adam’s Apple, a discotheque. Al Pacino (what a short man!) waited beside me to cross Madison Avenue. But they didn’t look at me. For a brush with fame to happen, there has to be eye contact. Strangers in the night exchanging glances…
A neighbor and I made eye contact in the elevator. Since I didn’t follow tennis, I didn’t know he was the VIP who lived up in the penthouse. The doorman told me. That was Ivan Lendl!
There may be physical contact. I stepped out of the Hallmark shop on Fifth Avenue just as a tall distinguished woman walked in. Our eyes met. I almost said hi. I knew I knew her though I couldn’t place her. Was she some acquaintance of my parents? Then it dawned on me. The Queen of Spain! Our sleeves had brushed so it was literally a brush with fame.
But no. A real brush with fame involves some verbal exchange. Strangers exchanging glances but also words… Still on Fifth but uptown, my 10-year-old sister walked out of her school and followed a tall elegant woman a couple of blocks to where the woman lived. “Excuse me, are you Mrs. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis?� Jackie smiled and replied, “Yes, I am! But you don’t have to say all that!�
More elevator encounters. My father, who loved World War II movies, walked into the Waldorf-Astoria elevator and said, “Good evening, General.� “Good evening,� answered Gregory Peck, who had played Douglas MacArthur. I’d have called him Atticus (the wonderful main character of To Kill a Mockingbird).
I loved Halloween in New York. There, Trick or Treat was an indoor vertical thing, with elevator shafts and stairwells replacing streets. And I liked to get a glimpse of people’s apartments. Sometimes I got more than a glimpse. A very tall large man with a slouch and a disturbingly familiar gaze waved us into a candlelit hall full of spooky objects. In the middle was a table replete with the most exquisite and expensive goodies—a sweet-tooth buffet. “Help yourselves,� said Donald Sutherland. There was no sign of Kiefer.
Happy Halloween! Now it’s your turn. Tell me your favorite brush-with-fame story. Remember: a private moment, close-up, eye contact, a few words said. If it comes to more than that, then it’s no longer just a brush. It won’t count.
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I used to work for a TV company and in our staff canteen there would always be some famous people there. I have brushed Michael York and Margaret Thatcher. I have met and spoken to Sue Lawley as well as John Major, Neil Kinnock and Paddy Ashdown .
One of my ex-girlfriends is also the ex-girlfriend of Kenneth Branagh but that was long, long time ago now.
Er…
I was a bodyguard for HIlda Ogden at one of her book signings and I have chatted to Ken Barlow about druidism and planets.
I went to tea with Barry Morse in his house in Pall Mall, London and I once played guitar alongside Mikel Laboa .
There are lots more brushes I could go on about but, as I said to Lizzie last week, I hate people who drop names!
Yes! Me too. Also vicarious living, or borrowing, as I do above: my sister this, my sister-in-law that… :-)
Hi,
One of my favourite things in this life is rock music, and amongst all the rock bands in this world, my favourite one is U2.
My biggest brush with fame was in a concert played by U2 in Madrid (Vicente Calderón Stadium, September 9th 1997). Two hours before the show began, I was wandering around the Stadium, walking almost alone through places where the band was not supposed to get in (most of the people was waiting outside certain doors, through which U2 crew was supposed to get access into the Stadium…) Suddenly, a white van with darkened glasses stopped just before me, its doors opened, and… the four components of the band (Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr.) got off the van, walking slowly. They were just a few inches away from me. Suddenly, Bono look at me, and said “HOLA!!!”. I really got frozen… the moment I had been dreaming of all my life, and I didn’t get to say a word! I felt really stupid.
Now I remember that day with a smile… I can consider that my best “brush with fame”.
RC
Hello Gina,
I don’t personally know any famous person I can talk about in this forum. Discretion is my last name. he he he
Happy haaaaaapy bithday Gina!
I would like to thank you for being such a great teacher and wonderful person, for always taking us one step ahead.
There are some limited periods in my life
where the friendships formed then
have not lasted.
In looking back,
I realize that these were times for me
of isolation and turning inward,
when I didn’t share my pain
with anyone.
I have learned much since then.
Now I share with my friends,
and I am willing to risk
and give of myself.
I like it better this way, and my friendships last…
– Sue Mitchell
Your friend,
Cristina
Having spent over 30 years working as cabin crew for an international airline, I have met various stars of stage and screen, personalities, captains of industry, all too many to mention. But since this was always in the context of a longhaul flight, they would qualify more as close encounters rather than ‘brushes’. My one ‘brush’ was passing Bernie Winters (Mike & Bernie Winters) whilst walking down Tottenham Court raod in London. I well remember this, though it happened more than 20 years ago, only because he caught my questioning eye, and graciously smiled and nodded in my direstion. I have seen Imelda Marcos across a crowded room at an event in Manila, but felt no compulsion to move in for a closer look. Oh! since you mentioned the Queen of Spain, as a volunteer worker in Lourdes, I once witnessed the Mother of the King of Spain being escorted by her body guards from a limousine to the Grotto to pray in private. It was lunch time and the area was almost void of people. It all happened so fast, and at the time I had no idea who she was, until a colleague later informed me. However, I would trade all of this to meet Hilda Ogden!!
Ah yes U2..Having finished our drinks one night in a crowded Irish pub, ( that’s a pub in Ireland, not some paddywack imitation in Bangkok or Boston), my friend and I rose to leave and heard a voice saying..’ look, theres a table over there’ And that folks was the night I gave up my table to Bono.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU !!
I wish you enjoy a happy day and don’t forget to ask a wish when you blow the candles.
Virginia Polo
Although I’ve never actually met any of them (unlike you Dónal!), being brought up near Manchester means it’s difficult to avoid seeing people from Coronation Street. I’ve sat next to Jenny Bradley on the bus, made eye contact with Martin Platt whilst shopping for CDs, and shopped for clothes next to Gail Platt. The one thing that I can say about all of them is that they all seem smaller in real life than they did on the telly.
Happy Birthday Gina!!!
Gina – what you haven’t mentioned is that after seeing you, all these celebrities said to their friends, “Hey, did you see who that was? That was Gina!”. Have a great day!
I have seen some famous people in the San Sebastian film festival. For example, the actor Javier Bardem, the Portuguese writer José Saramago, the director Isabel Croixet, and the actor Juan Diego Botto. When we were younger, we went to see the cycling event of the Basque Country. It is like the French Tour but here. We saw Laguia and Chozas and we talked to them. I think when we spoke with Chozas he had won the stage that day. He was euphoric. Happy Birthday, Gina! The cake was very very good and the Ferrero Rocher too. You look like Isabel Preysler. You look alike!
Nekane
Back to the early eighties, when I studied English at the Washington Irving Library, here in Madrid, I run across Victoria Vera ( a Spanish actress) in one of the corridors of the building.At that time, she was quite famous because she appeared in a weekly TV show and I was a bit in love with her. She was watching some pictures that were hanging on the walls and I stared at her like hypnotized. When after a while, she turned her head, looked and smiled at me ( at that time I was quite a bit more handsome than today) while she walked away, my heart began to run like a horse. Well, I didn’t touch her but I was really ‘touché”
Happy Brithday Gina!!!!
u r s t l a baby
Hi Gina
Happy birthday greetings from Manila!! I vividly recall visiting you in San Sebastian on your birthday three years ago .. has it really been three years?!
My most recent brush with fame was a month ago, with Andrea Casiraghi (sp?), son of Princess Caroline of Monaco. He was here representing his mom in a charity organization that she supports. My friends and I sneaked out with him for a cigarette during a formal dinner hosted by my parents. I also met Princess Caroline at a charity ball here in Manila two years ago. She was seated next to my parents and was merrily smoking away even though the hotel ballroom was a non-smoking area. But they’re both cool and down to earth.
I was in the Bellagio Hotel lobby in Las Vegas waiting to buy tickets to Cirque de Soleil’s “O” when there was a slight commotion .. it was Sly Stallone with his entourage. He walked past me and I was glad to discover that he was not much taller than my 5’3”.
Many many moons ago Mother Teresa was in Manila and I have a picture with her that I will always treasure. As I do the picture of me shaking the hand of Pope John Paul II in the Vatican.
Who would I have wanted to brush against? Michael Jordan. Oprah. Andre Agassi. John F Kennedy Jr. Patrick Dempsey aka Derek in Grey’s Anatomy.
Raissa
Happy Birthday!!!
...
But I still can’t get over Donal dating Kenneth Branagh’s ex-girlfriend. Did she dump him for you???
(And, Donal, I also found out the other day that Robbie Williams is from Stoke-On-Trent and is, therefore, a Port Vale supporter. You haven’t seen him at the stadium, have you???)
...
I daydream a lot about having interesting conversations with famous people, but it never happens. I’ve seen famous people at a short distance, like Pele, Charlize Theron or Imanol Arias, but I’ve never gotten to speak to them. Well, yes, once I spoke to Lorena Bernal. She used to be Miss Spain, remember? This was the conversation:
Lorena: Un zumo de naranja, por favor.
Paola: Enseguida.
Obviously, at that time I was working as a waitress. It was a student’s summer job. I saw that Lorena Bernal was really, really pretty, even prettier than on TV. Maybe it’s the orange juice…
Hi Gina, happy birthday !!!
Scarlet Johanson is a good example of famous people that I’d like to know, but it’s impossible … still !!!! make me time to move my workplace to L.A., and begin to work as fitness manager or something like this.
Well, I never found any famous in a situation that the famous person doesn’t make his rol in the world. I always found a singer just singing, an actor in an scenario, a princess in an official act, ..., but I remember a very very very famous football player, whose studied in my own class when I spent my classes in the university, his name is Victor del Amo, he is now playing for the Deportivo de la Coruña, a soccer team. His place in the class was two chairs beside myself, but we never told.
Again, Gina, have a good day with your family and friends, and the next year, again, I’ll congratule your birthday.
I confess that only because of the Birthday of Gina I decided to write here. But this is special day and for that I will dare to do it.
First of all, I want to greet Gina a Happy Birthday and I am singing ( you don’t hear me but really I’m singing) : “Happy birthday… Gina Mylove (a translation for your surname?). It sounds better than the …mister president ” of Marylin to JF Kennedy, but perhaps the history won’t remember…
And also, related to the famous people that someday I could meet, perhaps a brush with fame or perhaps not but there is some known people I met.
There are some “lift relations�. I shared lift with some football (soccer?) players, in one hotel in Seville. I must confess that I only was able to recognise them because the person who accompanied me talked to them. We interchanged some words. Another lift relation, and also sport relation was in one hotel of Athens, with Barcelona’s basketball players. In this case it was absolute clear for me who were they and also I had the strange sensation of having my eyes just in front of their chest. In this case to talk was a little uncomfortable.
And also I shared restaurant with several Real Madrid. There’s a place, El Asador Donostiarra, when it was very usual to meet them. And I have seen most of them there. And I have interchanged some words with Roberto Carlos. I have met him also in another restaurant, Castellana 179. So, here are some hints or the people interested in meet them.
I also had met some time, the current president of Spain, Zapatero and also Mariano Rajoy, but I don’t know if these cases could be considered a brush with the fame, because it was so long time ago that both of them are almost unknown. This is the advantage of being from a little place like Leon.
And also many, many years ago, around year 75, I had some drink, with one of the inhabitants of the night of Madrid then: Joaquin Sabina. Then I was also one of these night-birds. And when the night was finishing we were only a few who share drink and dreams.
But I had two special brushes.
The first one: Ana Belen. I collided with her in a corner and I embraced her. I was walking very fast and just in the corner of Huertas street and I run into her. She isn’t a big woman at all, I’m 182 tall, and I embraced her to avoid to hurt her and also to avoid her to fall. Of course, I talked to her and asked to forgive me: she was alive and smiled me.
The second one was in Santiago. I was in a meeting in Hostal de los Reyes Catolicos. And it happened to me something similar to Gina with the Queen. Of course it was not the Queen, but the situation was similar. I saw a man; for me was familiar. I suppose I maintained my glance a little, and then he came to me, shook hands with me and said very friendly: “Hola, como estás? Of course, I said: “Muy bien y tu?, We talked a little more, what are you doing here, you see…in a meeting with a supplier and you? I have here something … and then after three or four minutes we said goodbye. Then I was thinking who was he and a colleague asked me: So, you are friend of Oscar Lendoiro? ( He was then and he is now the President of Deportivo de La Coruña). Of course I wasn’t.
I was thinking for a while if I had known him before. From time to time I am a little absentminded, and this day the meeting was very hard. (My explanation is that he saw me, we met eyes and thought that probably I was someone who he didn’t remember exactly who was)
Dear Gina, this long speech is my present to you in your birthday. You know that for me it is a very big effort.
Happy birthday, again, singing…
And to everybody, excuse my mistakes, and the long and boring speech, bur she is my wonderful teacher
José MarÃa
Since I love to read the Mortadelo y Filemón comicbooks, I was thrilled to see Mortadelo walking around his old Barcelona neighborhood. He talked to me, and he talked to me exactly the way Mortadelo talked in the movie. His head is smaller than mine and his glasses make his eyes look very large. And he told us that he is a Post Office employee. When the director of the movie saw him, he saw Mortadelo. Do you understand what I’m saying? I don’t know his real name. It doesn’t matter. I saw Mortadelo in 3D and he talked to me and put his hand on my shoulder as if we were buddy-buddies. Click on the link above to see the picture.
Hi, Gina. I hope you had a happy day yesterday.
When I was adolescent, I went to a concert with Camilo Sesto, and I remember in the middle of the concert, my friends and I went to visit Miguel Bosé, who was in a palco too. He was very nice and he gave us two kiss on our face, what ilusion…..!!!! as famous person gave me a kiss….... When the concert finished, The Pecos (they are singer) were going out too, and they were also very famous in that time. I didn’t like them because I thought they were too much conceited and when one of them (the brother with his hair black and blue eyes) was going out from the theatre, I took his nose and all my friends couldn’t stop of laughing.
I think in this situation I had an eye contact, and a real contact, don’t I?.
Best regards, Conchi F.
Oh the number of times I had no clue who the person was! Besides Lendl… Pelé in the same restaurant I’d seen James Mason in, Coretta Scott King (or Mrs. Martin Luther King) in Place Vendôme, RamoncÃn in a bar near the Vistillas…
Re what Paola says about Lorena Bernal… another one who is, or was, far more beautiful in person than on paper or screen is Isabel Sartorius. We saw her in Barajas airport. She was in the next boarding gate. Airports are good places for brushes with fame.
Feliz cumpleano dearest Gina! I had my own brushes with fame. When I lived in the big apple, I walked past the famous father of Mira Sorvino—Paul Sorvino, I felt like a duende compared to that huge man. Also, on a vacation to Whittier , California to see Gina Villegas, I actually asked for Danny De Vito’s authograph at LAX after my plane left. This time, I felt like a gigante next to that petite guy. Is that little Oscar in the photo? What a sweetie!!! Regards and Love. Chuchie
Hi Gina.
I think I’m a bit late but I wish you had a happy birthday.
Sometimes I write in a magazine of Grupo Zeta and when I go to see the editor, I meet in the lift with famous journalists, politicians and actors. It’s a close encounter but not a warm encounter because famous people live in other world and normaly they won’t put themselves in the same level as us, simple mortals. Fame is strange, we admire everybody who has a place in the media, but if you meet an anonymous surgeon that saved lots of lives in his career, do you admire him in the same manner?
Well, I was thinking about all of my brushes with fame, not that they have been that many or interesting in the least. Apparently I missed my opportunity to see Matt Damon at a party I was at during the film festival. I was bored and so I decided to stand in one place with a sour look on my face and wait for the moment to escape instead of mingling, which would have produced a more interesting evening. At that same party the year before, I met Paco León, not so famous worldwide but quite nice. But don’t ask him. He won’t remember.
Last Saturday I was at La Cepa and literally brushed the keyboardist from La Oreja de Van Gogh. Frankly, I find the group unbearable because the lead singer Amaia is, as far as I’m concerned, one of the most petardas there are, but I have nothing against Xabi San MartÃn, per se, so I have mentioned him.
I have a bit of a problem when it comes to these kinds of situations. Either I am slow and don’t realize who given famous person is or try to act natural and not gawk, thus creating an unmemorable moment and forgetting about it forever. I only remember the boring ones like MarÃa San Gil at the fruterÃa or Odón Elorza sitting alone at Dioni’s. Oh! And Juan Mari Arzak gave me a pat on the back when I was eating there in September.
Hi everyone,
It seems easier to meet famous people in a city as New York. Here in Madrid, I think you can meet famous people at the airport, at the AVE station, or at places like these.
Once, I met the Ketama’s singer (Antonio Carmona) at Atocha station, arriving from Sevilla in the AVE. He asked me for the hour that the train had arrived.
If you are downtown, at Gran Via street you also can meet actors in the cinema premieres.
I don’t usually meet famous people or not famous people, because I don’t look at people’s faces. Maybe several times I have been near a famous person, but I haven’t seen him.
Happy Halloween!
Conchi Calvo
Hello everybody,
I think it’s very difficult to talk about a brush with fame or with famous people.
I have seen a lot of famous people in my life, near, very near me but I have never crossed a word with them. Perhaps because I don’t feel them different from me. Their works are known and you can see them on a screen but they are normal people.
I also think it must be very uncomfortable to be nice with everyone only because they think they know you (and it is not real).
I prefer to be unknown.
What can I say? I live in LA-LA-land, so I just happen to be where the glitzy live. So (and these are among more than I can remember on the spot): standing next to Jodie Foster in a supermarket check-out line, admiring t-shirts for sale at an outdoor market with Cate Blanchett, toasting champagne with Frank Gehry at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion while his Walt Disney Concert Hall was under construction next door, rocking out to the Rolling Stones next to Tom Hanks and Anjelica Huston, having a drink with Beck and David Byrne backstage at the Hollywood Bowl, attending last night’s gala premiere of BOBBY at the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and getting up close and personal with Helen Hunt, Elijah Wood, Harry Belafonte, Lindsay Lohan, Martin Sheen, Sharon Stone, and Demi Moore.
In NYC, my own trick-or-treating experience with Donald Sutherland; Keanu Reeves at a Mark Rothko retrospective at the Whitney; and JFK Jr. and Chris Walken at a sushi restaurant.
Not to mention my face-to-face interactions at the visual and performing arts center where I work: Laurence Fishburne, Brian Eno, Chris Martin (from Coldplay), Maria Shriver, James Turrell.
But at the top of the heap, the only experience that really raised my heartrate: shaking hands with all five members of Duran Duran last year and hearing Simon Le Bon say my name. Indulge me: I was 13 in 1984.
—-mia, gina’s sister
Hello Gina !
An interesting article.
Reading your article, I have remembered that once, in a restaurant in Ibiza, along with our table, Julio Iglesias was having dinner, already at least 20 years ago, because I had then 17. Whithout thinking it, I got up and said to him: Is you Julio Iglesias? He said to me, yes ! we greet ourselves and each one kept on having dinner. This was bruses with fame !
Ah, I’m reading and I see that it’s your birthday, so Happy birthday !!
See you soon !
Reyes ·:))