Quite a few in the last five years. Most of them - Avery Brooks, Rene Auberjonois, Alexander Siddig, Terry Farrell, Nicole de Boer, Chase Masterson, Louise Fletcher, Robert O'Reilly, Jeffrey Combs - fall into the category of perfectly decent con guests. Polite and friendly for the moment or two you're with them, and you like to think that that's totally genuine. Not got a bad word to say about any of them, would love to meet them all again.
There's a few in particular though that stand out for me;
Michael Dorn - really didn't seem to want to be there, I think he's the only person I've met at a convention who didn't say anything when I met him. Don't think he even looked at me, actually. Bit disappointing, really, and what made it stand out all the more was that next to him was the lovely Denise Crosby, who's probably the nicest of all the TNG guests I've met. It was a real night and day difference between those two.
Andrew Robinson - really nice guy on both occasions I've met him, friendly and talkative and he actually remembered from the first time which was just fantastic.
J.G. Hertzler - oh wow. He's just this big bear of a man, really great guy, but what really sold me on him was having a photoshoot - with him made up as Martok and Robert O'Reilly as Gowron. Now while O'Reilly was just O'Reilly under all the makeup, Hertzler really was Martok, he was 100% in character. When one of the girls looking after everyone's bags had a little bout of the giggles he actually swaggered over to her in full Martok mode and asked "What is the joke, small Earth woman? Share it with me!" The guy is beyond cool.
Nana Visitor - this is where I really have to fight the urge to gush. She was the very first Trek guest I ever met at my first con back in 2007, I was very nervous about meeting so many of my heroes and wasn't sure if this was something I could ever do again...until I met her. I'd been getting a bit annoyed with myself after meeting a few other people and being a bit...well, I'm not sure what the right word would be. It was just starting to get to me that I wasn't really saying anything to these people beyond 'can you sign this/can I have a photo with you/kthxbai'.
But then I met Nana, and one of the most remarkable things about her is that when she says hello to you it's like she knows you, like you're an old friend and she's genuinely pleased to see you. And without going any further down memory lane with regard to that first meeting, I really do believe that the only reason that the only reason I'm still going to conventions nearly five years later is because somehow she gave me the confidence to keep going, to not be quite so shy around all these people who I've admired and respected for so long.
I got to meet her again earlier this year, and tell her some of that and...well, her response just confirmed everything that I'd taken away from that first meeting. Except more so. Forget nice convention guests - she is one of the nicest people I've ever met
period.
