Also, you might have passed me!
I'm trying to remember others.
Waiting for a light right across from my apartment -- Bernie Kopell. (I'm pretty sure it was him.) In the lobby of a friend's apartment -- Burt Young. (He lived there.) Another friend's apartment -- Ed Koch in the lobby -- he lived there. I had heard that Patrick Stewart was living in my apartment building while appearing on Broadway, but I never saw him.
After I moved, I later discovered that the outside of my apartment building was in an episode of THE ODD COUPLE. I noticed it when I got the DVD set of the whole series. I had to freeze-frame to be sure. But that of course was filmed some 25 years before I lived there.
Someone told me that Tina Louise (Ginger from GILLIGAN'S ISLAND) lived near me when I lived at that appt. and that she attended the same Church my wife and I used to go to, but I never spotted her. I did spot Mario Cuomo at that Church once, though.
Once passed Gene Rayburn. Gilbert Gottfried. Vanessa Williams twice -- once on the streets of NYC, the other at an outlet mall in Harriman NY -- Woodbury Commons. She was nowhere near as gorgeous in person without make-up and in plain clothes. And both sightings were over 20 years ago.
I'm good at spotting -- but perhaps there were ones I didn't even spot!
Plus, I think I mentioned it before, I actually met Anthony Quinn and his son at Yankee Stadium and shook their hands. It wasn't in the stands but in the lobby of the front office. Joe D. was there, too, which I also mentioned before.
Also met and got an autograph of Jon Lovitz and a few other new (at the time) cast members of SNL -- got Joan Cusack's autograph, too. I think Nora Dunne was with them too, but didn't get an autograph. This was also at a Yankee game. It was their first season and I didn't even know who they were since I had stopped watching the show, but my friend recognized them. They were only a few seats away from us. Weird to ask for autographs from people you don't even recognize!
Another time in Rockefeller Center late at night I chatted for a minute with a guy in the SNL band who I recognized since he had been with Hall & Oates at one time -- which is what I asked him about. His name is G.E. Smith.
Probably the biggest in terms of number was when my friends and I were having drinks in the lobby of the NYC Hilton, and all of a sudden one after another celebs started walking in. They had been rehearsing one of those "Night of a hundred stars" or something like that at Radio City Music Hall. I got a bunch of autographs -- Muhammed Ali, Rich Little, Robert Loggia. I think a few lesser known people whose names I can't remember right now. Ali started doing some magic tricks with a handkerchief. It was amazing since he was already ill and could barely talk. What's funny is that my "autograph pad" was a pad of paper in my briefcase from work, so it actually had my name and office phone number on it -- as Ali began to sign, he somehow didn't like it, so he tore it off and stuck it in his pocket -- then signed again for me. (He never called me, btw!)
At a bar of a restaurant -- suddenly Andy Rooney walked in to have dinner.
Outside that same restaurant -- passed Jim Nabors. Also Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy once.
Was in The Mysterious Bookshop in mid-town (50-something street location) browsing, and so was Armand Assante! (He was born in NYC.)
I was watching Seinfeld's "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" a few years ago on Netflix, when I recognized that he was in the next town over from me here in Joisy. He was with a guy from SNL whose name I can't think of right now who apparently lives there. There's a bookstore in that town that attracts celebrity signings when they have written a book (of course), and maybe 10 years ago, give or take, Roger Moore was there -- but I didn't go. How odd, 007 in Joisy! It's a hole in the wall store with a crappy selection, too. I've always suspected that it's a front for the mob!
I heard that Rosie O'Donnell lives in another town next to me (not where Seinfeld was) but I've never seen her. (I'm not a fan of hers, anyway.)
Ah, memories.
So here's what I came up with:
I saw Ed Koch crossing the street once near Columbus Circle. I was surprised at how tall he was.
When I worked at 47th Street and Third Avenue, a group of us were going to lunch at a restaurant over on 2nd Avenue and up a few blocks. On one of those blocks between 2nd and 3rd Avenues was where Katherine Hepburn lived and I remember seeing her come out of the apartment (it was a brownstone, not one of those big high rises), get something from out of a waiting car and going back into the building.
And I think that is the full extent of my famous people sightings in NYC.
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