Post #110000 by WillTiki on Tue, Aug 24, 2004 12:49 PM

In Charlottesville, VA in about 1990 or so, I was eating dinner in a very small 6 tables or so, vegetarian restaurant when Lou Gossett Jr. plus a couple of other recognizable B movie bad guy types and a blonde hottie came in and sat down. They were in town filming Toy Soldiers. Later, a 2 seperate groups of overly enthusiastic fans burst in and got autographs. What was nice was how much of a gentleman he was to them as they interrupted his meal. Afterwards he went back to eating as if nothing had happened. He even joined the musician playing there for a couple of songs. He could tell easily that everyone in the place was staring at and talking about him. He was seated close to the door and as each party leaving filed past tried not to be seen looking at them, he smiled warmly and said good evening. Total class act.

On a totally different note, my wife once worked at a restaurant near where the US Secret Service has their training facility. The restaurant was frequented by cops and firefighters of all kinds due to their deep (50%) discount of meals for in-uniform or on-duty folks. Since this is about encounters with famous people, I will add that Secret Service guys are famous in their own way, yet anonymous. They were identifiable only due to their uniforms as instructors and cadets. They were polite, not cocky and tipped well. It was very cool to see half a dozen or more of them file out and fire up their motorcycles in unison and then motorcade escort the cars in formation out of the parking lot. I am grinning now just thinking about it.