Brushes with Fame

I don't like to disturb people who are famous. I especially don't want to annoy people I admire. That said, I do like to remember fondly those few times I have had special and unique opportunities to see and/or interact with significant figures.    

Perhaps my favorite brush is a time when I found myself in mid-town Manhattan (NYC) with my uncle David on an elevator with Mother Teresa (1910-1997). We exchanged no words but my uncle and I shared a good laugh at being in such a small space with the sister and a couple of her colleagues in an elevator in what was then called the Pan Am Building. It was around that timer I was working for J. Walter Thompson. Mid to Late 80s maybe. 

In college as a student at the University of Miami I caught Gloria Steinem (b. 1934) speaking at a luncheon. Scheduling had here doubling the bill with Ralph Nader. My fond memory of this encounter was an easy joke as I was leaving. I said something like "I enjoyed having lunch with you Gloria." She responded with ease saying. "Yes, we should do it more often." This photo was taken in 1978 which was around the time of that appearance at UM. (Nader was okay too but Gloria...)

Philip Kotler (b. 1931) is a kind of legend among marketing people. His textbooks on marketing often serve as required reading for students. I managed to hear him talk at an event for marketing leaders near TPC Sawgrass in Florida. I was working as director of global communications at Thermadyne at the time, So it was somewhere around 2006 or 2007. I got him to sign a note that said "Wes is doing a great job." Kotler added "I think" to the quote and signed the note.

Arthur Ashe (1943-1993) was a guest at a celebration at Madison Square Garden. Knowing what a fan of tennis my wife was I could not resist passing him a note to sign as if an autograph. The note said "Your husband is a great guy." He added "He put me up to this along with his signature. 

 

I was hanging around downtown at the Toy Building near the famous Flat Iron Building not far from 23rd street. A friend suggested getting a bit to eat at a trendy NYC restaurant nearby, I don't recall the name of the place but I got a smile when I saw inside a group of maybe 7-8 people dining at a long table (or tables pushed together). Andy Warhol (1928 -1987) was there at one end. I didn't want to bother him as he was clearly entertaining or being entertained by this group. I could not resist getting close to the other end of the table and making a clever comment. I said to a guy at the end of the table, "That guy at the other end has been famous for more than 15 minutes." The man smiles and said something along the lines of "I should say so." That little interchange became so much more poignant when years later I noted that Andy died at age 58 fewer than two weeks after that sighting. (Warhol went to the hospital for a routine gall bladder operation and ended up dying from something not related to that surgery.)

Robert Rauchenberg (1925-2008)  has a showing at a gallery somewhere near Key Largo when I was in Miami in graduate school. My aunt Dahlia (married to my uncle Andrew) was keen on checking it out. I don't remember the details other than it was an easy drive to this low key gathering, a sort of wine and cheese art event. I recall with a smile that my aunt (an art scholar) managed to catch up with Rauchenberg with a question. Her carefully worded question was something like. "Can you comment on influence Marcel Duchamp has had on your work?" Rauchenberg just smile and said something like "...awww come on" suggesting that he was not in the mood for heavy art history talk. This would have been  circa 1979.

Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) is shown in photo above around 1983 which would have been about the time I spotted my hero (and author of Slaughterhous Five). I didn't bother to talk to him but I just love the fact that I caught him midtown around 47th or 48th street studying a chess match which was posted on a wall with a flag on the side that read "white move." It's a memory I hold dear. Just an ordinary event in the life of a writer living in New York City. (He and Jill did live nearby). Vonnegut died in 2007 as a result of Traumatic Brain Injury he suffered as a result of a fall at his Brownstone Apartment in Manhattan.