Helen

I've recently started researching my family history and stumbled across a person on the internet who is sort of a distant cousin (something -removed, I never know how you work that out). Anyway, he was able to provide me with a history of the Vaughan side of my family going back to 1727 and (at last!) I now have a (extremely) tenuous link to celebrity :)

Drum roll please:

My great-great grandfather's first wife was Eric Portman's great aunt! Yay!

So unfortunately I'm not actually related to him, but still, yay! In celebration of this momentous piece of news I was wondering if anyone else would like to share their tenuous Britmovie links, brushes with actors etc?

Steve Crook

I'm not too sure that's one to boast about Helen. He was a great actor but apparently as a person he left a lot to be desired.

I've heard of a couple of people who wanted to write a biography but they gave up when nobody had a kind word to say about him.

But he was a great actor.

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS

DB7

Wasn't the Norman 'Carry On' Hudis play Dinner with Ribbentrop about Portman? Or have I got my wires crossed.

Helen

So I'm lucky not to be related then, Steve! I wasn't intending it too seriously, because as I've said it is a rather tenuous link.

Just interested to hear anybody's tales; I think Gibbie wrote not so long ago about someone he knew meeting Basil Rathbone...anything like that?

Bobj

My father used to tell me that when he was a service engineer for Bendix in the 1950s he was called to service the washing machines of Robert Donat and Dirk Bogarde. Didn't actually meet Donat but apparently Bogarde made him a cuppa! My mum also served Roger Moore with some batteries in the shop where she worked in the 1960s.

Rob Compton

Well Helen - if it's tenuous links you're after

When I were a lad, I was a butchers boy, complete with bike with a basket on the front. And...I used to deliver meat to John Slater (Passport to Pimlico, on C4 this week), and Michael Bentine (Its a square world). How about that then? [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif[/img]

Oh, and my wife's friend was nanny to Roger Moore's children.

And - as I've mentioned before: my wife was an extra in Tommy (Roger Daltry, Keith Moon and Elton John). This was just before they set fire (accidentally I think!) to South Parade pier at Southsea, where they were filming. Apparently Ken Russell's direction was a bit too fiery at times.

rgds
Rob - well you did ask :)

Rob Compton

And I met Sir Alec Guinness once in hardware shop in Petersfield

rgds
Rob

Helen

I trust Southsea Pier escaped (relatively) unscathed, Rob? Very worrying to think of the combination of Keith Moon and fire...

Have just remembered my Grandpa telling me about often seeing Ted Ray a lot in the 50s when he used to do odd jobs/gardening etc round Southgate (my Grandpa that is, not Ted Ray!). Apparently he was not a great one for autographs and was rather tight with money - allegedly he used to economise by going around getting the latest jokes from the cabbies around the Muswell Hill/Ally Pally area rather than paying the writers all the time.

Rob Compton

Actually I think the pier was fairly extensively damaged eek!

Apparently they had a great time as extras, loads of students volunteered and they got fed with continual burgers and cokes as well as watching an impromptu concert from time to time. At least, everyone had a good time except the poor student who was stand in for Elton (I think it was him) who had to try to stand for hours on end in those build up boots he wore

rgds
Rob

Jim

Now this really is tenuous! I had worked late one evening and the town was nearly empty. I was standing at the bus stop, trying not to nod-off. I casually gazed in the direction of the Holiday Inn and saw a shortish chap with black leather coat and sunglasses (at twilight time!) slowly walking in the direction of the Haymarket Theatre (Leicester). I looked at him sereptitiously, trying not embarrass him, and it turned to be the much missed John Thaw!

After a rotten day at work, it sort of lifted my spirits a bit. I didn't call out to him because I reckoned he deserved a bit of silent respect!

So, there's tenuous for you!

Good morning boys.

Rob Compton

Good one, Jim :)

rgds
Rob

Nettles

My dad once owned an off licence and once served Jack Douglas.

And I met Arthur Brough (Mr Grainger in Are You Being Served) when I was little. My dad used to deliver milk to him a couple of years before he got the offie and said he was a vile, dirty bloke.

And I once served Shaw Taylor with a road fund licence when I was a PO counter clerk.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability

Gibbie

Yes, Helen, I have a family friend who met Basil Rathbone years ago in Chicago.

I've met many an American celebrity, but I'll stick to Brits...

When I was in my senior year of high school, I worked for the school paper and the cartoonist was a friend who knew a couple who were friends with a musician, who had been in the movies, so we sent his latest single to be signed and it was one of the last he signed...John Lennon.

When I was in college, I worked for a TV program on Spring Break and I met another musician from the same era...Peter Noone, lead singer of Herman's Hermits (British Invasion band that was bigger in America and made a number of "Summer Holiday" type films). He was performing in the show "Pirates of Penzance" and was a guest on the show. My job was to bring the guests in to pre-show area.

The last time I was in my family village in northern Oxon, I ran across two older men walking about and they looked at me like they knew me and greeted me, the first man was more recognizable to me... his was the visage and fascade of Richard Harris.

Twelve years ago, when I was in LA area, my uncle took my father and I to the filming of a movie (he was the fireman overseer on the set) and a British actress was dressed up in a costume sitting on a high swing...the beautiful funny Jane Leeves, the British actress who has been very popular over here on sit coms since the 80s (she was Daphne Moon on "Frasier").

Having grown up with celebrities, the best way to treat them is normal or leave them alone, as aforementioned.

After church one Sunday, when I lived in the Chicago area, I was standing next to a man at a cafe, who looked like Bill Cosby's older brother and discussing coffee and tea drinks...and then, like a bad advertisement, the kid behind the table wagged his head and mentioned the famous basketball players name. After that, the man could no longer be normal, he had to be on pedestal, and star like. You can never get to know somebody that way. It is always a pleasure to meet these folks, but that should generally be true of anybody. For the curious, the gentleman's name is Norm Van Lear, a renouned basketball player, who played for the Chicago Bulls and co-hosted a Sports program on the ESPN network here.
He was gracious.

Gibbie

[ 10. July 2004, 15:32: Message edited by: Gibbie ]

plasticjock

No, here's tenuous for you:
I brushed past Ted Robbins at Hamilton Square station on the Wirral a few years ago....before he became...errrm, famous [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif[/img]

smudge

When I was a sprog, I did a couple of Christmas seasons 'on the boards' as it were. Main stars were Bob Grant (ON THE BUSES - well, they DID make 3 films... thumbs_u ) and Wayne Sleep ; you know, the chap who danced with Princess Di ! [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif[/img]

Got to spend a few hours with Bernard Bresslaw, whilst he was visiting ; mis-directed Antita Harris to the 'nearest' Post Office (and it was snowing )

And as were were all young, some of us went autograph hunting round the shows on in other parts of the city...

Since then, met lots of celebs - mainly at film/charity events. Some good, some bad and some indifferent.

London sightings in passing - George Cole, growling cos he was locked out of the theatre, and late night on Waterloo Bridge, the lovely Caroline Munro eek!

SMUDGE

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