My friend worked at a coffee shop in LA, and said that De Niro came in for a cup of coffee one afternoon. He was apparently very courteous. I can't remember what he ordered, but I think it was just regular coffee.

This isn't exactly the service industry you're asking about, but...

When I was a senior in college, I worked at the National Wildflower Research Center oustide of Austin, which was founded and frequented by Lady Bird Johnson. Now, at the time, I had really short hair and looked very much like Anthony Michael Hall in Sixteen Candles. I was called "Sir" more often than I like to remember.

Anyway, one day during bluebonnet season Lady Bird came through. I was manning the gate. Her limo stopped and the tinted windows rolled down. I asked her some bullshitty small talk question, and she answered "Yes sir."

My coworkers and bosses tried to comfort me by telling me that she is legally blind.

And that helped for a while.

But then I realized, if she couldn't see me, she must have judged me a Sir based on my voice.

I guess I'm still not over it.

But anyway, that's my run-in.

≡ Click to see image ≡

Funny, mudpuppie! {{{{pupps}}}}

Well, we used to live in New Orleans and two of our best friends were waiters, so we heard lots of stories, but I don't remember much - except for the Frugal Gourmet guy (who's supposed to be a minister or something) who was a drunk and a totall chickenhawk lech.

Paul Newman was shooting a film in N.O. once, and they spent a lot of time filming in the mansion next door to me... He would always wave if he saw me standing out on the porch. And I'm a huge Paul Newman / Joanne Woodward fan, so that was very cool for me, though I never did the fan thing. Daniel Lanois later bought that house, and all his friends were rough (seeming) motorcycle dudes. :)

Wish I could remember more stuff, but for the most part celebs were usually pretty pleasant. I used to see John Goodman all the time... And of course, a ton of famous musicians.

"and all his friends were rough (seeming) motorcycle dudes" may well have just been northern Ontario/Quebec type dudes, natch.

I've had a lot of run-ins with celebs, as I used to work for a movie producer and a former studio head, as well as tech support for an ISP that a lot of celebs used. I also grew up in the same town as Neil Patrick Harris, and used to work with him at a Schlotzsky's sandwich shop where he worked in the summertime. I also used to do a lot of community theater which landed me a couple of extra parts in some movies of the week about 20 years ago.

Mostly celebrities are nice. Kenny Loggins was a clueless jerk when it came to computers, and treated all the tech support guys like they were lower than dirt. Dennis Miller's an all around asshole. Tab Hunter was very sweet, and his boyfriend assistant was cute as a button. John Cleese, Steve Martin, Heather Locklear, Hal Holbrook, Lloyd Bridges, all very nice and pleasant and easy to work with. Douglas Adams was a hoot; I think I have the last e-mail he ever sent before he died, and it was a very nice "Thanks for all your help" note.

I know that good technical support to the producer, ex-studio chief, and Adams is what led them to stay with a small local ISP ... and to a new job for me later on down the road. I also noted that the older/more established celebrities were, the nicer they tended to be.

Mainly, though, I'm always surprised how short most movie and TV stars are, and for the females, how damned skinny, too. The camera really does add 10 pounds, it seems.

I also once bumped into Dennis Rodman and Carmen Electra in a gay bar in LA. They both felt me up.

I'm rambling. I miss California.

I've waited on Charles Bronson, he was quiet and pretty decent but his companion was a knockout so nobody really cared.

1. I sold Elijah Wood a ticket at the Laemmle Monica, a movie theatre. He had very blue eyes and was very short.

2. I sold Christina Ricci a ticket as well (separately). She was very small and had large bodyguards.

3. Axel Rose came into my theatre, but I was in the bathroom and no one told me until it was too late.

4. I served Alyson Hannigan ice cream at Ben & Jerry's. I was very nice, but she did not become a regular. She was with that guy. That red head guy. That chicken guy. Gah.

And those are my service-industry-ish-related celebrity encounters!

I second WolfDaddy's observation: EVERYONE is tiny, tiny, tiny. That's what everyone says when they see a celebrity. [Did they really feel you up? Jeez louise.]

If all celebrities are tiny then why am I not a celebrity?

That's a common logical fallacy dabitch, "all A are B, X is B, therefore X is an A", "all pine trees are green, this book is green, therefore this book is a pine tree"

Anyway, you're not a celebrity because you're so luminous that you would put all other celebrities out of business.

I'm a pine tree now? ;) Hahaha! *shines*

Wow, WolfDaddy! It's nice to hear that Steve Martin is a nice guy. I've always thought a lot of him - he'd probably be one of the few famous people I'd actually like to hang with over beers or something.

((((pupp)))) and LOL @ Arse & peppermint pattie!

I am quite jealous of taz now. I would have loved to live next door to Lanois. I met him a couple times when I lived in Hamilton, ON, and I knew some of his musician friends from his younger days. He's a very cool guy, and man, the musicians that must have wandered through that house! Bob Freakin' Dylan for example. Sheesh.

The only famous people I have met are marginally famous Canadian musicians. Well, except for Lanois. He's more than marginally famous I think.

/wonders if he is scary looking, what with being a Northern Ontarian and all...

Some time ago I witnessed Ted Kennedy and his group at a downtown club. He walks right up to the table a bunch of my friends are sitting around and announces "we're taking this table."

The Frugal Gourmet almost ran me over with his wheelchar in the Pike Place Market in Seattle.

I don't kiss and tell.

A couple years ago I was chilling at a table in the back of a Soho bar with Billy Crudup and Kristen Johnston and a few off-Broadway pals; we were all pretty wasted, and the waiter was totally starstruck and hovering, and when I got up to go to the bathroom, the kid looked at me like, "Who is this guy? He must be like, some famous writer or something," which felt kinda great, really, because that would be cool. I mean, being some famous writer or something.

I made quiche for Christopher Reeve when he was filming The Bostonians. This was after Superman, and before he fell off the horse.

(I was a short order cook at the time.)

So wait, real men DO eat quiche?

I run into NHL hockey players on the streets every so often.

Hockey players are *big*.

CFL football players? Not so much.

WolfDaddy knows Neil Patrick Harris!?

*hyperventilates*

Hockey players are *big*.

Physically big? They're certainly bigger than the average dude, but most players seem to be in 5'11" - 6'1" area and around 200lbs. Seems kinda normal to me.

But I don't run into them on the street too often. Though the Red Wings did have a team vacation at the hotel where I used to work--they actually struck me as smaller than I would've thought. Especial Yzerman and Shanahan. Skinny dudes.

Ed Lover was once a regular customer of mine, as were several of the Jets (a few Giants, and one Carolina Panther that I know of; had to look him up online after he left, though), Mel Stottlemeyer's foundation, Ruben Sierra, and King Kamali (the bodybuilder). Definitely be nice to your celebs, but treat them like regular people. Ed Lover was a particular fave in our office because he was always friendly, usually in a good mood, and not above verbally sparring with several of my coworkers. If anything, we ripped on him more because of who he was.

It's almost always fun having a job where some minimal contact with 'celebrities' are part of your daily activities.

Oh, and I was in a theater troupe with the wife of one of the more prominent African-American soap opera stars, and was invited (while still a teenager) to his funeral (he apparently thought I was a promising young black actor! ha!). At the reception afterwards, I met a number of the soap stars I'd grown up watching alongside my mother. My favorite was the late Michael Zaslow. When I met him, I told him my I'd watched every one of his three deaths as a red shirt on Star Trek, to which he quipped, "Yeah, dying is how I make my living." (His character at the time, Roger Thorpe, had also been killed off a number of times.) Really nice guy, not at all difficult to talk to even for a shy kid like myself. I believe my Bacon number after that event was either a 2 or a 3.

OMG Eide knew Roger Thorpe?

*hyperventilates*

I'm sorry I missed this the first go-around, so probably no one will see this. Here goes, anyway...I work in a supermarket (please, no pity, I actually, generally like people). I have been fortunate enough to have met the first Mrs. Springsteen (Julianne Phillips Springsteen)(whatever happened to her?) She used to shop in our store, and she was very skinny. A couple of times we were told that Bruce was waiting outside. I met Jon Bon Jovi at the same store. I didn't even know it was him until he'd gone and I talked to him face to face. He looked way smaller in person. But very nice, both of them. In a different store, I met and got the autograph of Queen Latifah. She's absolutley beautiful and sweet in person. And Debbie Harry shops at the same store. She's quiet, and keeps to herself. Oh, and I once met Sebastian Bach, but had much more interaction with his wife, who is also nice, but has gone overboard with her new implants. She tends to look trampy in person, even though they have two kids-in their late teens by now, I guess. That's my brushes with fame.