LIST 10 FAMOUS PEOPLE YOU'VE EVER MET OR BEEN VERY CLOSE TO, BUT ONE IS A LIE. GUESS WHICH ONE YOU THINK IS A LIE.
Muhammad Ali
Stephen Sondheim
Julia Roberts
Elizabeth Taylor
O.J. Simpson
Jimmy Carter
Robert Duvall
Billy Wilder
Taylor Swift
Prince Charles
My answer tomorrow. Thanks for playing.
I think I read that you met Gerald Ford before, so I'm going to guess that Jimmy Carter is the lie.
ReplyDeleteI think you need to define "close". Do performing artists at performing venues count? Sports figures at sporting events?
ReplyDeleteIn my estimation, if you are "close" to someone, and so are several hundred other people, you ain't close.
My list includes Chris Farley on the Sony lot, when I was trying out for Jeopardy, and Tony Bennett boarding my airplane. Tony Bennett was a little guy. He could have fit into an overhead compartment. Farley, not so much.
Oh, and Gandhi. I saw him once at Arby's.
Questions:
ReplyDeleteDoes shaking hands in a crowd of well-wishers, not separately, count?
Do local celebrities count, or should all players be able to know of the person themselves?
Mr Levine: As your crossing over to the other side of the street
ReplyDeleteat the sight of a rapidly-approaching man in night camo
counts as neither meeting, nor being close to, him,
we’ll guess Mr Simpson.
Robert Duvall is my guess.
ReplyDeleteFor Ken I'm guessing: Taylor Swift! :) Here's mine:
ReplyDeleteGordon Ramsay
Ralph Sampson
Stephen King
Bruce Springsteen
Joey Ramone
Posh Spice
Nick Hornby
Uma Thurman
Denny McLain
Dave Pirner
Taylor Swift.
ReplyDeleteTaylor Swift.
ReplyDeleteSondheim.
ReplyDeleteTaylor Swift
ReplyDeleteYour lie is Prince Charles.
ReplyDeleteCan't resist playing: The Champ, Ali.
ReplyDeleteI'll say Taylor Swift, as she's the youngest one on the list.
ReplyDeleteTaylor Swift is my guess.
ReplyDeleteBilly Wilder
ReplyDeleteElizabeth Taylor. No, Jimmy Carter. No, Sondheim. No, Elizabeth Taylor.
ReplyDeleteI think.
It's a premature April Fools prank. You haven't met a single one of these people.
ReplyDeleteGotta go with Prince Charles....
ReplyDeleteOff-topic, possibly Friday question - Ken, a few of the other movie/TV/pop culture sites that I read have floated the idea that they will become "pay" sites (ie: subscribers/readers would have to pay upwards of $10 per month in order to access the sites). What do you think about paying to read online content ?
ReplyDeleteThere's a good chance you've "met" most of these people at some awards show or fundraiser. My guess would be Taylor Swift or Robert Duval.
ReplyDelete-30-
I guess Sondheim. I remember you met Prince Charles and you asked him "What would you say to young people looking to get into your line of work"?
ReplyDeleteOJ
ReplyDeleteI couldn't make a list of three unless you count the Doolittle Raid survivors I met years ago.
ReplyDeleteMy Roster of the Famous:
ReplyDeleteBrian Wilson
Chuck Berry
Moose Skowron
Bobby Richardson
Jerry Coleman
Dallas Green
Danny Ozark
Mike Schmidt
Your non-meeting: Robert Duvall
ReplyDeleteTaylor Swift.
ReplyDeleteO.J. Simpson is the celebrity Ken hasn't ever met or been very close to.
ReplyDeleteMy list of 10:
Richard Petty
Ralph Nader
John Glenn
Barbara Eden
Mike Curb
Leonard Nimoy
June Lockhart
John Astin
Soupy Sales
Pat Boone
OK, one of these is a lie
ReplyDeleteRichard Nixon
All Beatles except Sir Paul.
Tennessee Williams
Gore Vidal
Groucho Marx.
Zeppo Marx
Gummo Marx
Victor Borge
Johnny Carson
Alfred Hitchcock.
Ken, I am going to also guess that Robert Duvall is the "lie" on your list!
ReplyDeleteMy Top 10:
Ken Levine
Bob Hope
Carol Burnett
Paul Newman
Roberto Clemente
Franco Harris
David Sedaris
Nolan Ryan
Cal Ripken
Diane Keaton
I'm so bad at guessing these things. Duvall?
ReplyDeleteMy list
Earl Warren
Rod Serling
Anita Baker
Nelson Rockefeller
Mike Tyson
Jack Nicholson
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Luis Tiant
Tom Petty
Ringo Starr
I'm guessing OJ.
ReplyDeleteMine (if the types I mentioned above are OK):
1. Dave Berg (MAD writer/artist at a signing)
2. Bill Clinton (just shaking hands in a crowd of well-wishers in 1997)
3. George McGovern (at a rally in 1984)
4. Bernie Wrightson (comic book artist, at a small comics convention)
5. Dave Sim (indie comics creator of Cerebus, signings)
6. Tip O'Neill (at a St. Patrick's Day parade)
7. Hillary Price (creator of the comic strip Rhymes With Orange, at a library exhibit and group of comics creators, pro and amateur)
8. Jeff Smith (creator of the comic series Bone, at 2 signings. No, not the chef)
9. Denis Kitchen (underground comics creator and publisher, at same group)
10. Gary Hallgren (underground cartoonist, at same group)
When starting this list, I did notice that all were either politicians or cartoonists. Also, I avoided local celebs after all (except the cartoonists that happened to live in the area).
My 10, one being a lie:
ReplyDeleteRalph Menchin
Dave Collins
Sarah Moscovitch
Fred Grant
James McDunnah
Clare Thomas
Ken Levine
Ian Porter-Thomas
Zheng Hu
John Jacobsin
My guess is Taylor Swift is the one you've not met. You've mentioned in the past that OJ was nearby when you got married, but thankfully he never got near the knife next to the wedding cake.
ReplyDeleteIn other news, Republican Matt Gaetz is under investigation for violating sex trafficking laws and an inappropriate relationship with a 17 year old. A member of the party of wholesome Christian family values and law and order turns out to be a criminal pervert? I'm shocked, I tells ya, shocked!!
Oow, I wanna do a list too.
ReplyDeleteHoagy Carmichael
James Garner
Bob Hope
David Isaacs
Evel Knivel
Ken Levine
Tommy Tedesco (Wrecking Crew)
Leslie Van Houten (Manson family)
Robert W. Morgan
Tom Wolfe
Phil Mishmish
My list:
ReplyDeleteMr. Peanut
Mr. Moneybags [of Monopoly Fame]
Gov. Claude Kirk
Jesus Christ. [Or maybe that's what I yelled when I almost got hit by the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile]
Jeffrey Dahmer [Asked if I wanted to "be....I mean, go to lunch."]
John Glenn.
Flash Gordon.
Captain Kangaroo.
Mark Evanier. [May not have been THE Mark Evanier; I just heard the name being announced over an airport P.A. system.]
Donald Trump. [Ooops, my mistake. Just a turd someone forgot to flush.]
I were to play that game, I think I'd have to have one real famous person and nine fake ones.
ReplyDeleteI am most likely wrong but I am going to say Taylor Swift.
ReplyDeleteAs I am pretty much a nobody I can only come up with four.
ReplyDeleteSidney Poitier
Malcom Forbes
Stephen king (the writer)
Hillary Clinton
Mibbitmaker - ha, I really HAVE met Sim, Wrightson, and Kitchen, and also Art Spiegelman, Fred Hembeck, Wendy and Richard Pini, and Joe Sinnott. I used to sell comic books.
ReplyDeleteAnother vote for Taylor Swift. My list:
ReplyDeleteMagic Johnson
Ken Levine
Vin Scully
Rodney Dangerfield
Tyne Daly
Angela Lansbury
Muhammad Ali
Terry Bradshaw
Newt Gingrich
Ned Lamont
Here's my list
ReplyDeleteJohnny Depp
Bonnie Hunt
James Doohan
William Kunstler
Hugh Jackman
George McGovern
Bobby Lewis
Bill Clinton
Ron Luciano
Richard Petty
Okay, so which is the lie? Richard Petty.
The details on the others:
Johnny Depp - He and I were the only two customers in a Subway. I wished him a good evening and he wished me the same with a smile on his face.
Bonnie Hunt - The very first time I visited New York City, I recognized a laugh and turned around to see who it was that had laughed. She was standing about twenty feet away and smiled back when I smiled at her.
James Doohan - I got his autograph at a science fiction convention. No words were exchanged. He stayed longer than he was contractually obligated to, which I appreciated as I was the next to last person in line. He was very tired by that time.
William Kuntsler - On the same day as Bonnie Hunt. He was getting into a cab but smiled when I said hello to him.
Hugh Jackman - He was doing a play on Broadway. Just by sheer happenstance, I was about fifteen feet away from where he came out of a side exit, hoping to avoid a crowd. That didn't work. Several people surrounded him before I could say anything to him.
George McGovern - Had him sign a copy of his then most recent book after he had given the Convocation address at my college. He stayed longer than he was contractually obligated to, which I appreciated as I was the very last person in line. He was very down to earth.
Bobby Lewis - A singer who had a #1 record with "Tossin' And Turnin'" in 1961. I saw him put on one hell of a show in the late 1980s. At the end, he was reaching over the stage and shaking hands with everyone. The man had a killer smile and a strong handshake.
Bill Clinton - When he was still in office, came to this area to do a fundraiser for Hilary. I was close enough to his limousine to be able to read his lips as he saw how many people had turned out to see him on a cold Sunday morning.
Ron Luciano - The, shall we say, "colorful" baseball umpire. He was talking to my dad, whom he had gone to high school with. When I told him how much I liked his style of umpiring, he thanked me.
Richard Petty - As I say, this is the lie. However, I did have his autograph, gotten for me by my uncle who covered sports events as a photographer. Years later, my dad met him when he stopped to ask for directions. He gave my dad his autograph and the two signatures were a clear match. Dad said he was a very pleasant person, in person.
Roger Owen Green-
ReplyDeleteI never had the pleasure of meeting the other cartoonists you mentioned, but all the ones I mentioned were true. Hint - the lie is one of the politicians, though really that one was a half-truth.
Couldn't be cooled than to be at a monthly group get-together hearing Gary Hallgren and Denis Kitchen telling stories about Harvey Kurtzman (among other things).
Ichiro passed within a few steps - clubhouse to practice field - at spring training one fine MArch morning. Not as tall as I expected.
ReplyDeleteI lived in Homer Alaska for five years - once saw a fellow at the airport who was too pretty, well-groomed, and well-dressed to be "a local". This was 1997 or so and the celeb had done a weekly NPR radio show in the eighties. His biggest claim to fame - voice-overs for Motel 6 - Tom Bodette.
His Mona Lisa smile indicated amusement that I'd not acknowleged him (there were at most six within eyeshot).
In turn, I was privately amused that he'd mistaken me for "a local" myself.
The lie in my list of ten:
ReplyDeleteRichard Petty
Ralph Nader
John Glenn
Barbara Eden
Mike Curb
Leonard Nimoy
June Lockhart
John Astin
Soupy Sales
Pat Boone
is Leonard Nimoy
Here's my 10 in no particular order:
ReplyDelete1. Ronald Reagan
2. Ted Kennedy
3. Joe Biden
4. Antonin Scalia
5. William F. Buckley
6. Ralph Nader
7. Willie Mays
8. Tommy Lasorda
9. Johnny Bench
10. Woody Allen
I've never met Ringo.
ReplyDeleteBut what does MEET mean in the yeat of COVID. Just yesterday, I talked with Sapphire, the writer of Push, which got turned into the movie Precious, with a half dozen people for 10 minutes. Would she be on the list? What are the ZOOM rules?
FTR, it's Mays.
ReplyDelete