There was an entertaining thread on Reddit where people shared their best and worst encounters with celebrities. Unsurprising celebrity turds: Diddy, Cosby, Jared Leto, J-Lo, Leonardo DiCaprio, and perhaps the biggest of all, Tommy Lee Jones. A few I wasn’t surprised about but didn’t necessarily expect to be bad: BJ Novak (channeling his inner Ryan), Bill Nye the Science Guy (!?), Oprah (Nooo!), the entire cast of That 70s Show (the kids anyway–and not just Danny Masterson who is in prison for rape), Ralph Nader (!), Toby Keith, Justin Timberlake, drunk Ozzy, Kenny Rogers. And some who were true gems: George Carlin, sober Ozzy, Dolly Parton, Gordon Ramsay, Jessica Biel, Chris Evans, Green Day (!), Nicolas Cage, Martin Sheen, Jamie Foxx, Adam Sandler, Woody Harrelson (being stoned makes celebs pretty chill), Beyonce.
Here’s my favorite encounter someone shared:
Rachael Ray farted on me at the airport.
And this is the wisest one:
I hung out with Charles Barkley once in Philly and for some reason he took a liking to me and was very candid and open. He told me you have to be nice to every single person you meet and it can be exhausting but if you meet 100 people and are nice to 99 but not to 1, then that 1 will bash you and tell everyone what a terrible person you are and people will believe them. Awesome guy.
Personally, I haven’t really had a lot of celebrity interactions. I can only think of a handful:
- Willy Nelson stood in front of us in line at a McDonalds in Mesquite a couple decades ago. He was extremely nice to our toddler daughter saying how beautiful she was and smiling at her. Super nice guy.
- Met Raul Esparza at a little tapas place in Chelsea called El Quinto Pino. The place was tiny and packed, and we were just wrapping up when he entered, so we offered him our table, then chatted briefly with him while we settled up. He was absolutely lovely, and I’m a huge Law & Order: SVU stan, but I didn’t realize yet that his tenure on the show was just wrapping up.
- I had Twitter interactions with both Roseanne Barr (who is completely insane) and Deanna Troi (who is lovely) that were pleasant.
- I saw Malcolm Gladwell in the Maui airport while I was reading one of his books (Blink? Outliers?). I considered asking him to autograph my book, but he was pretty clearly not wanting anyone to approach him, so I didn’t. Sometimes people just want their privacy.
- I was behind Alice Cooper in an airport security line. Seemed like a really nice guy. Nice to all the TSA folks, and polite to other passengers. I’ve heard this from other Arizonans.
Aside from that, I haven’t really met any celebrities. A mission companion of mine went to high school with Paul Walker (RIP). She also was a waitress at Fuddruckers when Michael Keaton came in (in the late 1980s), and he was very funny and great, she said.
The thing about celebrity encounters is that we have an opinion of them before we meet them. We either like their work or not. We may like or not like their public stances. But the interaction, to us as the non-famous person, completely colors our perspective of them forever. Most celebrities understand this, but a few let their egos get the better of themselves and act out against underlings and wait staff and the public at large. Additionally, sometimes people just have a bad day, but when you are a celebrity, one bad day can equal a bad reputation and loss of fandom that haunts your career. The public can turn on you. And there are doubtless many celebrities who suffer from social anxiety, just like everyone can. But when a celebrity you admire or whose work you enjoy acts like a jerk and you witness it firsthand, that bad interaction can sour you on them forever. On the upside, a positive interaction can take some of the negativity out of a celebrity’s bad behavior (consider Ozzy for example–someone who when drunk behaved quite thoughtlessly, but when sober and with his wife Sharon was one of the better celebs).
So let’s pivot to some Mormon celebs, which mostly means apostles or GAs, but could also mean Mormons who are prominent politically, in sports, music or entertainment. I haven’t personally had any direct interactions with real Mormon celebrities, so here’s the best I’ve got:
- I saw Oaks speak in person in Singapore at a fairly small gathering (maybe 150? 100?), which I blogged about at the time. He was not bad in that specific talk, although he talked a lot about equality for women in the workplace which didn’t really resonate in Singapore. Maybe he was thinking about the Women Wear Pants movement, which in my ward consisted of only 4 of us (including Astrid Tuminez who is now UVU president).
- On a slightly more personal note, I sat two rows behind Oaks at a very funny Utah Shakespeare production. He was enjoying the show a lot, laughing, covering his face, and just in general having a great time. It was nice.
- Spencer Condie spoke at a mission conference, and wow, he was pompous and full of himself. He also said that the 1989 Batman movie (PG-13 rating) was full of “pornographic violence” and not an appropriate incentive for missionaries. Here’s the deal, if you use the word “pornographic” to mean “very,” I will basically always think you’re an idiot. If there’s “pornographic violence” that had better be actually pornographic, not just excessive. I don’t like people who are hysterical prudes. Not a fan.
- There was a couple in one of my wards, both of whom had dads who were in the 70. I literally can’t for the life of me remember who these guys were, but when their dads came to visit, one of the dads insisted on everyone standing for him, him sitting on the stand, and him commandeering the whole meeting. It definitely caused me to roll my eyes, but as I said, I couldn’t tell you who the guy was at this point. And that’s probably a fitting end to that story.
So now it’s your turn to spill the tea.
- What Mormon celebrities have you seen in real life? Did this make you think better or worse of them?
- Have you interacted with other celebrities? How did that impact your view of them?
- Do you think it’s fair to judge celebrities based on these types of personal encounters?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
My family got lost on a hike in Utah circa 2011 and we ran into President Uchtdorf and his family who gave us directions! Very kind man but we didn’t linger. It was clearly his day off.
My high school choir at Christmas 1997 sang in the lobby of the church office building one morning and we literally saw all the apostles show up for work! President Hinckley and President Faust both lingered to say thank you. The rest ignored us.
About a week later that Christmas our stake had a youth fireside with President Monson and in that intimate setting he seemed very kind.
Elder Holland was on the same flight I took to start my mission in Hong Kong in 1999. Our flight was quite delayed so we got to spend a bit of time with him and he could tell we were all anxious and he put us at ease. I really liked him in that moment so his musket talk really hit me hard.
President Eyerings daughter was in my freshman ward at BYU. Met him briefly one time. Seemed nice enough.
My bishop sophomore year at BYU lived in Osmond Lane so I met Donny one time leaving a church meeting at his house. Incredibly nice.
My neighbor is cousins with Stephanie Meyer who wrote Twilight but we never met.
I went to high school with someone who played Satan in one of the newer temple films. He was nice but we weren’t friends. Corbin Allred.
Oddly enough I have no celebrity stories, and I live Hollywood adjacent. It’s not uncommon for us to find out we were at Disneyland the same day as some celebrity but completely miss out.
I served a mission in Ireland in the 60s with Stephen R. Covey (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) as our mission president. As a mission president, I cannot imagine a better person, very caring and empathetic. His wife, Sandra, was the same. My last 4 months I spent in the mission home working as the mission treasurer so I got to interact with them and their family every day, sharing meals and all of the events of daily life. We got to see how they interacted with their children as well. I was amazed at the patience and love which they showed to them. They were both very loving, caring individuals and an example to all of the missionaries. In addition, he was and amazing speaker, always riveting.
Years ago, I came across Thomas Monson eating a hotdog at Der Wienerschnitzel at the old ZCMI Center/Downtown. He clearly was enjoying the “eats” – all while mustard was spilling out of the other end, and dribbling down his tie. His Security Agent and I exchanged a look; but neither one of us said a thing.
It was strangly gratifying to see that despite all of the “Pomp an Circumstance” they’re nothing but human beings; just like everyone else.
I wouldn’t know a Mormon celebrity if I saw one.
I was skating in a morning session at Sun Valley years ago, and so was Arnold Schwarzenegger. Smoking a cigar. I skated up and asked him where he bought them locally. He said gruffly “I bring my own.”
Back in 2014 I saw Gladys Knight perform with her Saints Unified Voices choir at a Stake Center in North Carolina. Phenomenal singer along with the rest of the Choir (the Church should SERIOUSLY consider inviting them to perform for at least one session of general conference). Since her husband is from NC, she visits quite often.
One Elder on my mission (also from NC like me) was in the same Stake as Orson Scott Card and was childhood friends with one of Orson’s granddaughters. Was genuinely surprised to learn that Orson is fairly liberal (gun control, abolishing the death penalty, distaste for capitalism, etc…) despite his negative views on homosexuality.
I ran into Elder Christofferson on an elevator and Elder Holland at a mission conference. Both raised their families in NC (they both went to Duke), and they both reminisced about their love for NC with me. Though I never met Richard G. Scott, his brother was a temple worker at the Raleigh NC Temple. Overall, I’m honestly shocked that there are sooooo many LDS connections in North Carolina, but I’m glad that southern charm rubbed off on these apostles.
My most positive experience was with Elder Gong. When I served in the Family/Church History Headquarters Mission, I occasionally passed by him on my way to the Church History Library. He was still a seventy at the time, and we never talked or stopped to say hi when we passed each other. However, right before the April 2018 Priesthood Session of General Conference (Gong’s first conference as an apostle), he spotted me at the front right section of the Conference Center and without skipping a beat, he got up from his red comfy chair and walked straight to me to shake my hand. During our handshake, he smiled and said, “It’s SO nice to see you again 😊.” Not gonna lie, it was touching that he recognized me after only glancing at my face a handful of times for a few seconds each time.
These are the individuals I have interacted with enough to at least shake their hand: Faust; Monson; Haight; Scott; Perry; Ballard; Holland; Bednar; Christofferson; and Kearon (prior to being called to the 12).
Except for Bednar, all of them were super nice.
I was in the MTC at the same time as Shawn Bradley. He had played a year of basketball at BYU by then, so everyone knew who he was. Even if that hadn’t been true, being that tall and ducking to walk through doorways makes a person stand out. I didn’t interact with him, but I saw others trying to so in the cafeteria, especially the first few days after he arrived. Unsurprisingly, he seemed pretty uncomfortable with it all. He was only at the beginning of being a celebrity. His MTC companion was BYU basketball teammate Ken Roberts. It was probably both necessary, as both were taller than the standard MTC bunks and likely slept in a modified room, and helpful, to have someone you already know by your side while constantly getting bugged by people.
The most intimate setting in which I interacted with a GA was later that year (1991). I was one of 16 missionaries in Ukraine, and we were visited by Elders Packer and Oaks together, so we had a zone conference in a very small room with 2 apostles present. I don’t remember much other than Oaks called us to repentance (using those exact words) if we weren’t having companion study. I think we had a 100% rate of companion study for the following week, before reverting to whatever our habits had been before that.
About 10 years ago I was a member of the ward council and was informed one Sunday morning that we were going to have Lynn Robbins, then in the presidency of the Seventy, stop in and observe. He did just that, stopped in, observed, said almost nothing, and left at the end of the meeting. I think we all shook his hand, but that was about it. He came across as a bit shy and reserved, which seems surprising to me given stereotypes of who gets leadership jobs in the church, but the interaction was so limited that it could have just been the setting. I still don’t know what to make of it.
My encounters with Mormon celebs are kind of boring, but my mom has a lifetime of great stories. My two favorites:
As a teen and young adult, I knew President Eyring reasonably well. Very kind and caring, well-liked and respected in the community. It was interesting to me that he talked about Sister Kimball as Aunt Cammie (I don’t have any idea how she spelled her nickname), but always talked about President Kimball using his title. And no, I’ve never seen him speak without crying.
Years ago we ate dinner in a nearly empty Chuck a Rama with a member of the Q12 now deceased, though I honestly don’t remember which one. He was extremely kind to our toddler granddaughter.
A friend met with President Oaks in his office one evening. It was a very positive interaction with a thoughtful and funny person.
Mormon adjacent, I shared a flight from DC to SLC with Jason Chaffetz. He was always on stage, always “working the room.” It came across to me as egotistical and shallow, but I admit that I was not an objective observer.
Steven Covey spoke to our mission and basically said that he knocked more doors and topped everything we did and then spoke about how great his son was. There were some great points to his speech but man the guy really thought the world of himself and was such a turn-off.
Having said that, his planners were epic back in the day and I’ll fight anyone who disagrees =)
George and Marion G. Romney: Both held court at a Romney family reunion in 1975 or 6. We just lined up to shake their hands–no real interaction. If Mitt was there, nobody noticed.
Alexander Schreiner: He was a personal friend of my grandmother and she introduced me to him in the church parking lot one time (I was maybe 13). He gave me a British ha’penny as if that were a really big deal. I was impolitely unimpressed because British ha’pennies were old news to me, having handled them regularly when I lived in England at age 5.
Donny and Marie Osmond: The Osmonds were good friends with my uncle. When we were getting ready to move to California in 1972, my uncle suggested that maybe the Osmonds would not be needing their L.A. apartment that year and maybe we could rent it. He gave mom their phone number, which I found and threw away—living in the Osmond’s apartment would have been the ultimate in uncoolness from my perspective. When mom couldn’t find the number, I confessed, but suffered no significant consequences. My uncle resupplied the number and mom made the phone call. She talked to Sister Osmond, who said that they would, indeed, be using their apartment and could not rent it out. So we found another place, much to my relief. But during the year, my uncle came to visit and offered to take us over to the Osmond’s place. My sister went; I stayed home.
Roughly ten years later, I was sitting in a Sacrament meeting in Philadelphia (rented space, not a standard chapel) when in walked two heavily made-up girls who sat down and joined the meeting. I groaned to myself and mumbled something about how this Osmond wannabe stuff was getting out of hand. After the meeting, somebody whispered to me, “Did you see who came to our meeting?” Turns out they were not wannabes, one of them was actually Marie (don’t ask who the other one was). Half the ward got in line to meet her. I did not join them.
Mike Lookinland (Bobby Brady): Mike attended the University of Utah and was good friends with my senior-year next door neighbor. He would come over to visit my neighbor, but I was never introduced to him and didn’t recognize him. After he left one time, somebody whispered “That was Bobby Brady!” but I had not paid enough attention to who had been there to claim a face-to-face meeting.
Ken Jennings: My interaction with Ken was strictly online. For several years in the early 2010s, the Times and Seasons blog (specifically, Kent Larson) ran a Mormon-of-the-Year feature, which solicited nominations, took votes, and then openly ignored those votes in selecting a winner (which was justifiable, because certain groups were better at stuffing the ballot box than others). I took it upon myself to put together a list of people who would have been my pick for Mormon-of-the-Year in years prior to Kent starting the feature. For 2004, the year Ken had his record-setting run of 73 straight victories on Jeopardy, I selected him as a runner-up, along with Jared and Jerusha Hess, screenwriters of Napoleon Dynamite, but behind Arthur “Killer” Kane, a punk-rock bass player who died that year, two weeks after finishing his star stint in the outstanding documentary New York Doll. I submitted the list to Kent as a guest post, and he posted it in three installments. Ken read it and left a mostly tongue-in-cheek comment that read, in essence, “I expected to lose to the Hesses, but Killer Kane? Come on!” I responded that if Ken would bear his testimony on national television to Frank Spangenberg (another legendary Jeopardy champion), who, I suggested, was at least as intimidating as David Johansen (leader of the New York Dolls), I would change the order of my selections. Ken did not respond. (You have to watch the movie for that exchange to make any sense, but that’s OK. Watch it. I can wait.)
My wife met Pierce Brosnan at the Met museum in New York City. He was waiting for his wife in the bathroom. They had a brief chat about art. She said he was a really nice guy.
My dad was a mission president in Brazil in the 1990s. I lived with my parents down there for a year and a half as a 16 and 17. During that time we hosted Richard Scott and Dallin Oaks. Scott spoke Spanish but was learning Portuguese and addressed the congregation in Portuguese and asked me to make corrections and suggestions. They were both nice guys.
I saw Paul McCartney in the grocery store in Tucson AZ in 1983,
Apparently I don’t go to the right places to meet famous people.
In college I was friends with 2 Osmonds. I went to a missionary farewell for one of them and got to very briefly meet many, many Osmonds. IIRC, Donny was there, Marie was not. They were, without exception, very pleasant and all ridiculously musically talented (even the ones who didn’t do music professionally). Also, they all have the same dark hair, dark eyes and perfect smiles.
But clearly the more impressive Mormon celebrity encounter is that apparently I went to high school with Chadwick??? Its either that or Corbin Allred went to more than one high school. I was two grades behind Allred and don’t know that I ever interacted with him. Allred and I also attended the same middle school. (I suppose if Chadwick is older than Allred we may not have been in the school at the same time.)
DaveW, Corbin Allred was one year older than I was, so I guess that would make me one year your senior. I knew Corbin from the school musicals but he was usually a lead and I was just ensemble (I recall he was Captain Hook in Peter Pan and I was a lost boy for example, which was the musical my sophomore year). I spent my HS days in the choir room. According to his Wiki page, he left the church in 2024. As the temple actors do, or so I’m told. Small world!
I haven’t lived in Utah in twenty years but my mom is still there. I went on a tour of the old HS before they tore it down in 2018 as I happened to be in town at the time. I’ve only driven by the new HS but it looks very fancy.
My own memory of a GA encounter was involving L. Tom Perry. Elder Perry had a long friendship with my father-law prior to meeting my future wife and met him at the 24th of July celebrations in Cokeville Wy. just before our marriage. He was a real warn and funny person. Because my father-in law’s friendship with Elder Perry, he performed our sealing in the Jordan River Temple. I felt honored to have had that experience.
My own memory of a GA encounter was involving L. Tom Perry. Elder Perry had a long friendship with my father-law prior to meeting my future wife and met him at the 24th of July celebrations in Cokeville Wy. just before our marriage. He was a real warn and funny person. Because my father-in law’s friendship with Elder Perry, he performed our sealing in the Jordan River Temple. I felt honored to have had that experience.
Met Russell M Nelson when he was still an apostle and did a mission sacrament meeting. They had the entire mission in the gym, huddled by zone. He strode in glowing at the sight of us. He went around the room making sure to shake every missionary’s hand. In hindsight it was the Mormon equivalent of kissing the pope’s ring. Still, you could tell he relished providing those types of moments to rank and file members.
I attended a Kurt Bestor Christmas concert in Ogden during college, accompanying my grandma. It was blast! I also saw him keynote at a smaller gathering at BYU Special Collections for a day-long film music symposium. They had him speak last. Wisely, after following the music professors who covered more of the nuts and bolts of that music genre, he threw out his prepared remarks and just gabbed about his experiences in the industry. Very fun.
I can’t remember which talk show, it wasn’t Mormon. But the topic was celebrity encounters, and someone chimed in how they had met Donny Osmond at a stadium event. Donny was just there to watch. But this person didn’t meet him in the stands or at concessions. They found themselves standing shoulder to shoulder with Donny at the wall of urinals in a men’s room. That would be a hilarious way to encounter a celebrity, and it must happen quite often
I think celebrity is incredibly relevant to Mormon culture, on a microclimate level like the bloggernacle or Sunstone symposiums. Popularity and trendiness play in big time online and in-person
Vocalist Nathan Pacheco is in our ward in Alabama. Nice, humble guy and family man.
The comments here about Oaks are similar to what I’ve read and read elsewhere, so I guess I have to accept that he truly is warm and friendly in person. I have a hard time figuring out how to square that Oaks with the cold, humorless, and authoritarian Oaks we almost always see whenever he speaks as a Church leader. It feels like Jeckyll and Hyde. I guess I can see how a person can operate like that, but it feels so jarring. If only we had a switch that could reverse his personality. I’d much prefer to have a compassionate and charitable Church leader who is a total jerk in his private life.
Well, these comments and Facebook have triggered a few more celebrity encounter memories for me. The first two weren’t exactly “encounters” as we didn’t speak, but I attended smallish events that featured both John Travolta (who was about ten feet away from me and looked like he had recently had a bunch of face-freezing work done), and Vanessa Williams who was probably the most beautiful and intelligent woman I’ve ever seen up close. She is just the real deal. She also gave everyone at the event a copy of her memoir which was fantastic. I also was at a small dinner (12 people?) with Amex royalty / CEO Ken Chenault and his lovely wife Kathy. I had spoken with Ken a few times before, always in a business setting, but at this dinner I was next to his wife, and she and I talked quite a lot. Just absolutely wonderful, kind, thoughtful people.
Back to Mormon royalty, I did attend a play at the Pioneer Theater Company and saw Michael Ballam (the OG Satan) in the audience. I think it was a performance of Edwin Drood, but I’m not sure now. We used to have season tickets there, so we went to lots of plays at PTC. Russell Nelson spoke at the MTC when I was there, but I didn’t meet him or shake his hand. He gave out copies of his talk which was about Christmas symbolism, as I recall, and I quite liked it as an English major nerd.
Some friends of mine growing up were related to Dallin H. Oaks. I remember he dropped by to visit one day while I and a few of my fellow teen boy friends from the neighborhood were there. This was Utah Valley, and we were all Mormons. He shook our hands and asked to be sure that we were all going to serve missions.
Several years ago my wife and I were having a snack in the member’s lounge at the downtown Marriott in Calgary, Alberta. She saw a man sitting alone across the room in a white shirt and tie who was (oddly) having a glass of milk with his snack. My wife: “I think that’s a General Authority” Me: “We are not going up to him find out, that would be weird, and embarrassing if he’s not”. As we later proceeded to the elevator the same man was in there alone and held the door for us. Awkward silence on the way up. My wife turned to him and asked: “Are you a member of the church?” (didn’t say what church). He gave us a big toothy smile and said “I’m Todd Christofferson” and as if on cue, the door opened to his floor and he walked out of our lives forever. I expect he was thinking “You people really need to watch more General Conference”.
I have some fun connections: Elder Gong was my bishop growing up and I used to babysit for his family (his wife put on a baby shower for my oldest daughter, and then he later performed her sealing when she was grown up). And I know the Kearon family (they are absolutely delightful). My father-in-law went to high school with Elder Holland, and my teenage grandma dated L Tom Perry. But my favorite celebrity story is with the Fausts. Elder and Sister Faust visited Jerusalem when I was a BYU student there, and since their grandson was my “FHE dad,” they arranged to spend Monday evening with a small group of us. Sister Faust spent the day (successfully) scouring Jerusalem grocery stores to find marshmallows, so she could make homemade Rice Krispie treats for us to have a taste of home.
I went to BYU with Dan Reynolds. He seemed nice. I really admire him for what he’s done with the LoveLoud Festival. He’s helped a lot of people.
I’ve also met Lindsey Stirling, David Archuleta, and several of the cast members of Studio C. All lovely folks.
Ex-Mormon celebrities: David Archuleta was part of the single’s ward in our Nashville stake back when we were both Mormon. So I got to see him interacting with others his age as well as others a fair amount. I didn’t have a lot of one and one interactions with him myself other than smiling as we passed by each other in the hallways, but he used to talk to my wife when her primary class would line up at the drinking fountain. One of the truly sweetest kids in the world. Glad he can live more authentically now that he is out of the closet.
Dan Reynolds and the rest of Imagine Dragons would sometimes attend our ward when they were in town, because his brother was there. His brother is one of the nicest people in the world and as far as I can tell all the Reynolds kids, even those who see themselves as black sheep of the family like Dan does, are really truly kind and generous people.
Elder Faust’s son was my bishop at the singles ward at the U. until one day we show up to a new bishop being called and it turned out that Bishop Faust was having an affair. It was kind of weird in that he was a divorce lawyer and is the only bishop I knew who would tell young single adults that divorce might be a good thing. I swear all of Elder Faust talks for the next three years in GC were directed at his son. We would see Elder Faust from time to time in various places in Salt Lake, but I never had the heart to ask him what happened with his son.
In terms of non-Mormon celebrities, obviously living in Nashville one runs across various country stars or people married to them like Nicole Kidman but a celebrity you might not think of is former Olympic gold medal skater and sport announcer Scott Hamilton, who used to run a skate program in my part of town. I sat behind him on both an outgoing and a few days later the return flight to Nashville. For some reason our trips perfectly coincided. Again, a super nice and humble guy..
I don’t know if Brad Wilcox counts as a Mormon celebrity or not. Many people have interacted with him in public since he’s a so-called BYU professor (see, I can toy with the word “so-called” to mock people just like the Q15 used to love to do. Brad certainly doesn’t have the qualifications to be a “Professor of Ancient Scripture”, yet that’s the title BYU has given him, so “so-called” actually seems appropriate here). However, I don’t think nearly as many people have hosted him in their home for a few nights. This happened to me several decades ago. Brad was pretty young then and was working the Mormon speaking circuit. One of my parents was in stake leadership and used stake funds to have Brad fly out and speak at our stake youth conference. I guess in order to save money, Brad stayed at our house for a couple of nights (at least one night, but I think it was two). I was a teenager then, and I thought Brad was both fun to be around and an inspirational speaker. I would love to be able to watch a video of the talk he gave at that youth conference, which I remember quite liking at the time, to see what I would think of it today. I want to say that the stuff he was teaching back then made a lot more sense than the stuff he’s teaching today, but maybe that was just me viewing him through my young teenager lens? Regardless, I recall him being a very nice and fun house guest.
I’ve never personally met Oaks, but I’ve heard enough people say that he’s quite a nice guy in person that I have to believe it. It’s amazing how a person who is so warm and friendly in person can manage to be such a cold, humorless authoritarian when speaking in public. It feels like Jekyll and Hyde. I guess there are a lot of people who manage to be two very different people in more private settings than they are in their higher profile settings in front of lots of people. It seems like usually these people manage to present a more positive image in large public settings while they may be jerks in private. Oaks does it the other way, though–he’s nice in private, but he’s a jerk when speaking for the Church.
Obviously, the Community of Christ is a very different context regarding so-called celebrities. It’s a much smaller faith community, and our World Conferences, in particular, offer members a chance to get to know general officers. The latter do a lot of traveling worldwide, so there’s even more contact. I had the privilege during my 23 years working at the publishing house and church headquarters to know a good many of them. The current prophet-president was a member of my congregation for many years. He insisted we just refer to him as Steve.
I’ve now had a new twist on this, however. One of the recently called apostles (to be approved and ordained next June at Conference) is a woman who not only grew up in my home congregation, whose family was close to ours, but she on occasion babysat for my son when he was a toddler (he’s now 42, btw) Yes, now I feel officially old.
My husband has met several celebrities—mostly while he was dining out with his boss(es)—one of which always introduced my husband to the celeb:
Larry King—seemed very “down to earth.”
Joe Montana—very friendly
actor Wayne Rogers (Trapper John in the “Mash” series—very friendly
Robert Blake
One time we were in a furniture store and heard the distinctive voice of Charo—looked around the next aisle and yep—it was her.
Many years ago, Jay Osmond had a crush on my sister. I think he first met her in Trolley Square where she worked. Well, a date was planned for them to go out. Donny was going to go too— so I was invited to go. A double-date with Jay and Donny Osmond. We went out to dinner. They were nice—but it was annoying when people came over asking for an autograph. (So, I would never invade a celebs privacy in such a setting to ask for an autograph). My sister moved on—no second date though Jay was still interested, and no interest from Donny.
We lived next door to Pat Bagley when he was a student at BYU. He told my brother about submitting the “Dressed for Success” cartoon to the Daily Universe. If you haven’t heard of that cartoon, look it up. It’s a good story. Pat said that the powers that be at the newspaper thought the cartoon was too controversial. Pat said that “Daddy Dallin” (Dallin Oaks who was President of BYU at the time) approved it, so it was published, then picked up by Time Magazine.
I took Trusts from Dallin Oaks when I was at BYU Law School which was a snoozefest, but I think it would be hard to make that subject very interesting. He got sarcastic with one of my friends who had missed class to attend a job interview. “Well, job interviews are more important than class,” he said. My friend was embarrassed and said, “no they are not.”
My Dad attended Dallin Oak’s ward in his final years, and I used to go participate in some of their ward activities. Dallin Oaks would work the room, going around shaking everyone’s hand and saying, “I’m Elder Oaks.” When he shook my hand and introduced himself, I said, “yes, you were my professor at law school.” I was long out of the church by then and not that happy with his judgmental sermons warning parents not to be too nice to their gay kids. His wife was a sweetheart who visited my Dad when he was in hospice and told my Dad that she would never forget him passing the sacrament to her in their ward. My Dad was very happy and emotional that she would take the time to visit him.
As a teen in the 70’s we absolutely loved Carol Lynn Pearson’s poetry books. I wrote in my journal about serving her food at some kind of stake dinner function when I was a young teen. I was thrilled. I don’t remember anything about it, but I’m sure she was lovely, because she always is.
My husband worked backstage when Donnie Osmand was in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The stage manager warned the stage hands at the outset of the production that Donnie was a notorious prankster. “If he asks you for a prop, don’t listen to him.” Donnie was known to prank the stage hands by urgently telling them a prop was needed, then the stage hands would run around and put props on the stage at the wrong time. Donnie once sent a bottle of water up to one of the riggers on the 2nd level of the stage with a live goldfish swimming around in it. The stage hands secretly nailed Donnie’s sandals to the floor and Donnie slid his feet into them and then went sailing as his feet caught. Donnie took the prank in good humor. My husband said Donnie was a pleasure to work with, friendly and courteous to everyone.
There was a category on Jeopardy tonight “The Books of Mormons” – dealing with authors if the category name was not clear.
(1) Elder Gong was my stake president for a time. He was incredible. So smart, so kind, gave brilliant talks. His GC talks are, frankly, drivel compared to his talks then. He’s been disappointing as an apostle compared to what I knew of him before.
(2) I worked in an office that Elder Perry worked in for a time. He was super, duper normal.
(3) I know quite a few children or grandchildren of apostles (Maxwell, Faust, Nelson, Eyring, Bednar probably some others). They are generally normal, give me the impression that their dads / grandpas are pretty darn normal and un-special, and get treated with an odd amount of deference in Utah professional spaces.
Related story – I have a friend who is not LDS and did not grow up in Utah and wound up in a leadership role at a company where the son of an apostle worked. She was very confused for a long time why everyone treated this guy like he was the bees knees when he was average to below-average in performance. It was not until she talked to an LDS friend who explained to her why and she still found it a super bizarre cultural experience. She told me that people were afraid to even fire him after years of non-performance because they didn’t want to get cross-wise with the Church (?!?!?) and this was not at BYU. It was at a regular-old business.
FWIW (didn’t see this comment elsewhere), Alice Cooper is a bit of a Mormon celebrity in his own right. He is the son of Ether Moroni Furnier (there’s a name for ya), who was a “Bickertonite” evangelist, and apparently his grandfather was church president for a while.
I served my mission in Independence and met Andy Reid at a baptism (which he was performing). He seemed friendly and interested in deflecting attention from himself. At the time, I’m not sure I realized who he was.
Carol Lynn Pearson, a brief and unsatisfactory meeting for both of us. She was doing a one woman play. My wife and I, invited by relatives, drove from a few hours away to meet them and go to the play. We arrived to meet them just before the play started, and had to go right in. By the time the play ended, I had to go somewhere else very badly, and was the first person out the back door. It turned out that Sister Pearson had quickly made her way around the building to the back hall to greet people as they came out into the hall. I blew through the auditorium doors, saw her, and urgently asked “Where’s the bathroom?” It didn’t appear she knew, so I hurried on. Probably not the interaction she’d expected. And I concluded that she didn’t know as much as her fans seemed to think she did.