I have met and spoken with many bands, singers, actors/writers/directors, and athletes. I suppose it's open to interpretation how many are all that "famous" to the general public, especially nowadays. The one person I
accidentally spent the most time with and had a blast was Ray Bradbury. Back in the '70s/'80s, FILMEX (the defunct Film Exposition of Los Angeles) had a yearly 50-hour movie marathon. I went to several of these, including the ones for horror, western, Oscar-winning Best Pictures and Sci-Fi. It was at the Sci-Fi marathon that I decided to go to the rest room during
Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I had already seen the film 20 times earlier at the theatre, so it was OK; I was only going to be gone for a minute. Well, when I walked back into the back of the auditorium (back in the day of big theatres, so I was at least 15 feet from the nearest seat), I recognized this guy with glasses standing in the back. I immediately said, "Hello, Mr. Bradbury." He said hello back. I said that I thought we were watching a terrific movie, and he proceeded to explain to me, in personal detail, what it meant to him. We stayed back in the back, standing and quietly talking to each other about his own work, Spielberg,
It Came From Outer Space, UFOs, God,
Moby Dick, etc., but the amazing thing was that we kept making comments about
Close Encounters while we discussed everything else. If anything, I believe that he loved it more than I did. Oh, one other thing if you don't know; Ray Bradbury had no qualms about swearing at all.
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