Friday Five Very cool idea from smattering.org

1. If you could eat dinner with and "get to know" one famous person (living or dead), who would you choose?
Boy, tough one. Has to be one of the LOTR guys, of course. I find Lijah the most intriguing and difficult to know, and of course I worship Sir Ian. Hmmm, go for door number one and risk being disappointed but with the possibility of getting a much better grasp of who he is, or door number two and talk to someone I've loved for over 20 years? Sounds like I've talked myself into #2, but... Yeah, Elijah. I live for rejection.

2. Has the death of a famous person ever had an effect on you? Who was it and how did you feel?
Strangely enough, this is sort of back to Sir Ian. In my Blake's 7 days, I was crazy about Geoffrey Burridge and lucky enough that during that time period, he was usually performing with Ian's group at the National Theatre. So I made several trips to London and was able to quite often see both guys in the same play, although my favorite thing of Geoffrey's was his one-man show, "Chatterton." Only met him once, but he was even more beautiful in person than on TV or stage, and one of the nicest guys I'd ever met. Really loved his fans, and always amazed at how much attention that one episode of B7 got him. When he died of AIDS, I went into a tailspin that last for weeks. Major, deep depression. I can't think of another death that affected me this strongly--in fandom, not even Ian Marter's (who I was MUCH closer to, for several years) made quite the same impact. It was like... some future that I had mapped out and counted on had been eliminated. Don't know how to explain it.
Photo of Geoff as Dorian in "Blake's 7"


3. If you could BE a famous person for 24 hours, who would you choose?
I'd have to say Kirsten Dunst. Pretty, smart, talented, and with a blockbuster movie opening in a month.

4. Do people ever tell you that you look like someone famous? Who?
Yup. Gilda Radner. Not so much anymore as she fades from people's memory. Too bad--I loved the comparison.

5. Have you ever met anyone famous?
Between working at Wrigley Field, being a skating photographer and running a fairly famous skating website, and formerly working a lot of media conventions, yeah. Sometimes really meet, sometimes just get to say "hi" as they pass. Most famous peopleI know fairly well are one former and one current Olympic gold medalist. Famous people I ran into at Wrigley and was most impressed by: Fergie and Keanu (separately, not together!)