Warning: a lot of this is going to come across as name-dropping. I don't mean it that way, honest.
I always find it interesting in a sociological way to see how people react to meeting celebrities. As I've been working on or attending conventions for about 25 years, I've met more than my share, even if only for a minute or two. Usually, I'm pretty good about seeming sane around them.
I did, however, get a little weak in the knees when I ran into Randy Harrison and Robert Gant (from the Canadian/American version of
Queer As Folk) on two separate occasions on the street back when the show was being filmed. I managed to keep my enthusiasm in check, however, and just said hello and that I enjoyed their work. They were both very gracious (it may have helped that I addressed them as "Mr. Harrison" and "Mr. Gant", though I realized afterwards that Robert Gant uses a screen name - "Mr. Gonzalez" would have been more correct).
Like the others above, I did have one time I can recall where I just let the person be - I saw David Cronenberg at the airport about two years ago, but I didn't say anything. The silly thing about it was that I was campaigning to get him to be invited to present the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) at the 2009 Worldcon, where the people running the ceremony actually reported to me, so I actually had a good excuse for walking up to him and talking - but I didn't.
I remember about five years ago, at my second Dragon*Con, I was walking through the Walk of Fame (where the actors sign autographs) with
Evil_Admiral, stopping to introduce him to some of my friends who were working at the con. I'd been asked to pass along a message to someone on behalf of one of my Polaris colleagues. I saw an opportunity, so I said to him, "Come here with me for a moment - I have to say hi to someone." So I walked up to Richard Hatch's table and said, "Hi, Richard." (He'd been a guest at our con a couple of weeks earlier, the year I co-chaired the committee, and we'd met on the Saturday evening when I helped him get up to his room after the Masquerade.) He looked up and said, "Oh, hi, Lance." I said, "Kim says 'hi'." He responded, "Tell her 'hi' back for me - I really enjoyed working with her." (She'd been his liaison at our con.) And then I said, "Oh, and this is my friend [his real name] - he's a big Galactica fan." Meanwhile,
Evil_Admiral was standing there with his jaw somewhere around his knees, thinking, "Richard Hatch knows you???" Not really, but we'd only just met about two weeks earlier.
I've had similar interactions with Michael Hogan, Gareth David-Lloyd, Mark Sheppard and George Takei (he was another one to whom I introduced
Evil_Admiral, giving him another jawdrop moment), all within a month or so after I'd worked with them or met them at Polaris. Quite often, when they see a familiar face, they're just a touch more - well, sincere, I guess - in their reaction. Or maybe it's not so much a "familiar" face as one they know belongs to someone who knows how to behave professionally in that environment. (That being said, when I met Scott Bakula, Edward James Olmos and Avery Brooks at this year's Dragon*Con, all three seemed very warm and sincere, and not at all as though they were bored to be there, like some actors sometimes do - I won't name names.)
Ellen Muth, on the other hand, came up to me at the airport in Toronto and said, "Hi, remember me?" (Another con I'd chaired, the year before, was her first ever, so I guess that made me memorable.) Now that surprised me. I just smiled and said, "Hi, Ellen. Isn't that my line?"
The nature of my work at Polaris, and the Worldcons I've worked on, actually brings me into closer contact with the author guests. I know that there are a lot of people who hold authors in the same sort of esteem that most people hold actors - but after 25 years of knowing them, and 10 years or so of working closely with them, and several instances of hanging out in pubs with them (there was actually a photo of me in Locus Magazine last year, at the post-Hugo party with Julie Czerneda), again it's no big deal to me. Authors, in my experience, aren't in the least bit pretentious about whatever level of fame they've achieved.
(This is where I'm considering posting the photo that Robert Sawyer took of me a few years ago during a party at his condo, but I don't want
Kommander to get jealous again.
)
I'll admit to being a bit boggled when Cory Doctorow said hi to me at least year's Worldcon when we crossed paths - I don't remember ever having met him before, even though he used to live in Toronto and in fact, worked for a time in our science fiction bookstore, which I used to frequent quite regularly. (Rob Sawyer and Tanya Huff used to work there too - in fact, that was where I first met Tanya, back when I was in high school. I'd walk in on a Saturday afternoon, and she'd say "You again???" Michelle Sagara West works there now.) But I still don't know why Cory knew who I was - I think he worked there when I was away for university.
They're just normal people (well, except for Ed the Sock, who's not people
), doing a job like everyone else - the only difference is that we get to see the result of their job in a more direct fashion, and that the nature of their job has an emotional impact on us. Maybe I'm just better at separating the actor from the character than the teenaged girls who scream at the sight of a
Twilight actor - but I've acted myself, which might be why.
Oh, all right.
I admit, I've been known to brag occasionally about the time that David Gerrold kissed me (though he only shook my hand when I saw him two weeks ago), and the time Harlan Ellison offered to sell me a combination storm window/bidet during a phone conversation, and then a year or so later, when he called me a dwarf to my face. There, that's the extent of the intentional name-dropping.
