• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Meeting the living legends

You know the saying, "never meet your heroes"? I live by it, and fear meeting any Trek people would put me right off them and the show.

:lol:

That hasn't been the case for me. Most people I have met have been very cool. Sure conventions are jobs for them, but most really dive into it with good humor. As long as you don't ask them canon/continuity questions, it's usually just fine.

;)
 
Thanks to attending scifi cons & movie screenings, I've met quite a few folks from the franchise. I will say my favorites are Rene Auberjonois at a con in Richardson, TX (see avatar), Wil Wheaton (TWICE!), and Leonard Nimoy at the American premiere of the '09 movie (I was four seats away from him).

And I'm still jealous that my oldest sister, who is not a fan, met James Doohan while I had to work.
 
The closest I’ve come to was seeing Marina Sirtis in a play...she was funny in that role.

I’m not sure I’d like to meet them, for I think I’d be too awkward.
 
You know the saying, "never meet your heroes"? I live by it, and fear meeting any Trek people would put me right off them and the show.

One of my worst was...I'll just say a female from TNG and leave it at that. I was at a con that was understaffed, and they were looking for someone to get this talent for her appearance and they couldn't find anyone. I volunteered on the spot, so they told me where to go. When I got to the door she yanked it open and yelled "I left specific instructions for someone to be here in 5 minutes!" and slammed the door in my face :guffaw:
 
One of my worst was...I'll just say a female from TNG and leave it at that. I was at a con that was understaffed, and they were looking for someone to get this talent for her appearance and they couldn't find anyone. I volunteered on the spot, so they told me where to go. When I got to the door she yanked it open and yelled "I left specific instructions for someone to be here in 5 minutes!" and slammed the door in my face :guffaw:
With a British accent? XD
 
One of my worst was...I'll just say a female from TNG and leave it at that. I was at a con that was understaffed, and they were looking for someone to get this talent for her appearance and they couldn't find anyone. I volunteered on the spot, so they told me where to go. When I got to the door she yanked it open and yelled "I left specific instructions for someone to be here in 5 minutes!" and slammed the door in my face :guffaw:

We are all guilty of being human.
The penalty is always death
 
I have yet to meet anyone from Star Trek, but I have met quite a few people from the 2004 version of Battlestar Galactica. They were all awesome but James Callis, who played Baltar, chatted with me and my girlfriend for ages about movies, books, basically every subject under the sun except the show.

Sam Witwer was an even bigger nerd than me and a big fan of retro gaming. He’d just recently been given a Commodore Amiga and we swapped ideas about what to do with it. Awesome guy.
 
I have yet to meet anyone from Star Trek, but I have met quite a few people from the 2004 version of Battlestar Galactica. They were all awesome but James Callis, who played Baltar, chatted with me and my girlfriend for ages about movies, books, basically every subject under the sun except the show.

Sam Witwer was an even bigger nerd than me and a big fan of retro gaming. He’d just recently been given a Commodore Amiga and we swapped ideas about what to do with it. Awesome guy.

We got to meet Katee Sackhoff and Tahmoh Penikett at a convention a while back.

Both were delightful.

1z532Ap.jpg
 
I've only met some of the actors in passing, but if we're talking some of the original STAR TREK writers . . . .

Theodore Sturgeon ("Shore Leave," "Amok Time"). Did my very first convention panel with Sturgeon, way back in the eighties. I was a bit intimidated at first, but he couldn't have been more welcoming to a newbie writer with only a few short story credits in my name. Had a nice talk about "Horror and Science Fiction."

Richard Matheson ("The Enemy Within). I was Matheson's editor at Tor Books for decades, and he was always a pleasure to work with. Only met him in the flesh once, though, at a snowbound World Horror Convention in CT back in the nineties. Still have fond memories of sitting up with him by a fireplace in the hotel lobby as we talked out some plot points in his next novel.

Norman Spinrad ("The Doomsday Machine"). Was one of my creative writing teachers back in '84. He was a good teacher, who spend a whole week teaching us how to outline a novel. He's still around, btw, although I really haven't talked to him in years, in part because he mostly lives in France these days.
 
How would you define "living legend". I got an autograph from Shatner, Stewart, and I got a picture and autograph with Jeri Ryan, who I do kinda consider a living legend in the Star Trek universe.
 
By virtue of living in the UK, I've yet to meet any Star Trek actors. I do occassionally go to the big conventions held here in London, but I'm not one for getting autographs. Especially as some of the 'big' ones will set you back $90 - $120 just for their name on a piece of paper. I remember talking to a guy at one in about 2018 who spent $930 on autographs alone.

Still, I do have a story about not meeting someone from the show. Alice Krige was doing a signing to celebrate the release of Endgame on VHS at the Oxford Circus branch of HMV. I went along with a friend and his parents to get her to sign a copy, but with traffic issues we arrived too late for the signing. However, the manager went back to her for us and came back with signed copies of the VHS cover as well as giving us each a store poster advertising the release of the video.
 
My one time meeting a Star Trek actor was on my birthday in 1994 when I was introduced to Robin Curtis. She had been my favorite Saavik for ten years by then and still is. We spoken briefly and got our picture taken together. After her talk and Q and A session, she led the entire convention in singing happy birthday to me. The first (and so far only) time several hundred strangers sang to me,
 
At two different small sci-fi cons, I met George Takei and Walter Koenig. Both were great with the fans. Takei went on to be the grand marshal of a parade for some event which I saw him from a balcony of a bar in our old town.
 
I'd met Nichelle Nichols in 1991, before Star Trek VI came out. Absolutely lovely person, definitely was tight-lipped regarding the barrage of questions people were asking about VI...

TOS, DW, and the other shows seemed more monumental back then...
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top