Who's your favorite Trek actor at conventions?

You beat me to the punch. Shore Leave is a fan-run convention that routinely attracts stars. I chatted with LeVar Burton there just a few months ago . . . .

 

That is totally awesome. Gates called your daughter her friend. That was so sweet.
And you got your picture taken with Kate

 

I'm glad your daughter had a better experience with Gates McFadden. You're right, everyone can have an off day. For example, my experience with Suzie Plakson was a positive one. It just goes to show.

I did see Kate Mulgrew many moons ago, while Voyager was still on the air. I agree, she was witty and enjoyable, although I didn't have a chance to speak with her directly. She definately made me like Janeway more.

 

Chase is great. I first met her during the early days of DS9 and she's become a really good friend.

 

Jimmy Doohan was such a great guy. I met him in 1976 for the first time. I joined his fan club and met my first wife through the penpal section. My son is named "Scotty" in his honor.

I saw him at many shows over the intervening years and got to go on a Star Trek cruise with him back in the 90's.

His son Chris is really nice to chat with. He is on Facebook and responds to all posts.

 

HAHAHAHAHAHA

 

I must have met about 90% of the TOS/TNG/DS9 main cast by now, along with some of the Voyager crew too. Most of them have perfectly nice for the 30 seconds or so that I was with them getting an autograph or whatever. One or two were a bit grumpy, but I'm willing to believe I just caught them at a bad time or whatever (especially since I've heard good things about some of the people I had bad experiences with, and heard bad things about some of the people I had good experiences with).

Appropriately enough considering it's my fave Trek series, the highest number of good-to-great experiences come from the DS9 cast. Nana Visitor is always going to have a special place in my list of faves, for being the first Trek person I ever met and for being so welcoming and friendly - forget conventions, she is just one of the nicest human beings you'll ever met in your whole entire life. As it was my first con I was a bit nervous about meeting so many of my heroes, but meeting her was like meeting an old friend and all my nerves were just gone. It really helped me feel like this convention thing was something I could do, and I'll always be grateful to her for that. A few years later I did manage to say all that to her face, and her response just confirmed everything I'd taken away from the first convention.

Rene Auberjonois, Andrew Robinson, JG Hertzler and Armin Shimerman are also right up there in my top ten of people I've met at conventions (and that's including all the non-Trek people), but the one who has really come to mean the most to me in the last few years is definitely Chase Masterson. The first time I saw her, in 2009, it was just a very brief "canIhaveyourautocanIhaveaphotokthxbai" sort of meeting as I hadn't really planned my day that well and was in a bit of a rush.

After that I really wanted to see her again, just to do it properly this time, and when it was announced she'd be at another show in 2011 she was the first person I went to see. I'd also recently found that, instead of thinking "is that it, have I seen everyone I wanted, yeah, that's it, let's go home now" it's much better to end a convention by going to back to see your fave guest one last time and then leaving immediately after. If you're lucky enough to get another really good experience with that person then you leave on a bit of a high. And since the best person that day was easily Chase, I went back to see her one last time.

I should explain at this point that there had been something bothering me about my convention-going up to this point. I won't say what exactly because it's a bit silly, but it was something about myself, something that was lacking. But on that day it hadn't been quite so bad, especially when I was with her, and I happened to mention it when I went back to her that second time.

Her response is something I've carried with me to every convention I've been to since. And it's had an effect, the problem is gone. It was only a small silly problem, but it was there and it was real and she helped me get over it. I'm sure she'd be the first to say that it was such a small thing for her to have done, but it wasn't to me and I'll always be grateful to her for what she said.

So, yes, most of them were perfectly nice to me and I had a good time meeting them. DS9 definitely has a higher proportion of the really really nice people, but Chase is way way up there in a class of her own because in addition to being one of those really really nice people she has also had an actual measurable positive effect on my life.

Which is nice.

 

Of the once I have met - Denise Crosby.
That of course might have had soemthing to do with how busy they were.
Frakes and Spiner where so busy they barely had time to aknowledge my existence, while Denise and I had a chat for severakl minutes...it naturally helped that I knew of and was a fan of several of her non-Trek roles, such as "High Strung"!.

 

I ended up talking to Bonita about Chuck since i am a fan of that series as well. I asked them both what they liked best about their roles on Chuck/Enterprise and Bonita said she really enjoyed getting to give orders and boss people around :P

I was kinda lucky as the event was beginning to wind down so there was more chance to just hang out and chat with the guests for the last hour or two.