CULTURE

The Weekly Celebrity Sighting

Observed in their natural habitat

I once saw Melissa McCarthy shopping for a Christmas tree.

I was there in a chain-link enclosure at the Lowes parking lot in Burbank, California, doing the annual agonizing.

Is it really worth it, paying all this money just for a tree that drops needles all over the carpet?

Then my brain registered someone familiar — a shorter guy with a mustache and a distinctive voice. Wait a minute, my brain flashed, that’s… that’s Melissa McCarthy’s husband.

Don’t know him? Even if you don’t think you know Ben Falcone, you do, if you’ve ever seen any of her movies — he’s always guest-starring in them. Or directing them.

If HE’s here, I thought, then maybe…

And there she was — yep, just tipping Christmas trees this way and that, spinning them, commenting to her kids in that distinctive voice, acting all like a real-world person, doing real-person stuff.

I smiled, nodded my head, and remembered — yes, they live among us.

I first moved to La La Land in the late ‘90’s. Within weeks, friends back home wanted the run down on all the celebrities I’d already encountered, as if Elizabeth Taylor was just out there on the street corner, hailing a bus. But they persisted in asking. They needed to know. To this day, my theater pal, Irene from Cleveland, will end a lengthy phone conversation with, “So… any celebrity sightings lately?”

But turns out, they were right all along. It’s a real thing.

I’d only been in town three days, doing the endless walk from the parking structure on the Sony studio lot for my very first temp job at The Gameshow Network — data entry, baby! There was a very small film crew set up and a short-haired blonde lady sitting on a bench, studying lines.

Oh my gosh, keep walking, but um, I think that was Glenn Close?

And it was. Just sitting there, preparing. Less than a week in town!

That same week I saw Gary Collins pushing a shopping cart at a market in Studio City. Robert Guillaume (from Soap, Benson, The Lion King) was just sitting there at Jerry’s Deli having some soup, living life.

Random people, but still, I guess all this time US and People Magazine were correct.

Look, they too buy food! They too wait in line for coffee!

But when the pay-the-bills job is cater-waitering at lavish home parties, the Academy Awards, the Emmys and movie premieres, the celebrity sightings go into the stratosphere.

Throw in some background extra work or acting in TV and films and you’re there to witness them putting in time at the office.

And boy, did it become random and ridiculous.

I once saw Betty White chatting up Judge Lance Ito — yes, that Judge Ito, from the OJ Simpson case.

I once watched Oliver Stone and a young Scarlett Johansson dig through a party host’s fridge because the appetizers sucked and they wanted Marshmallow Fluff instead.

I “attended” Tori Spelling’s first wedding, along with old-timers like Ed McMahon, Tom Poston and Suzanne Pleshette — I was passing hors d’oeuvres, but I did attend.

Speaking of Suzanne, I once worked a fundraising benefit where she told a dirty joke and two old ladies at a nearby table muttered, “She has no class,” followed by, “She never had any.”

I was once locked in a room with hundreds of screaming males and one over-the-top Tom Cruise for the movie Magnolia. Just us and Tom and the crew, for a few days, being all inappropriate.

Josh Brolin asked me if a book I was reading was any good during some downtime on set. It was The Shipping News by Annie Proulx and I told him it was only so-so, at least so far.

I once sat in a crowded backyard eating off paper plates with the original Catwoman, Lee Meriwether, who was perching on a crappy folding chair.

I saw Beverly D’Angelo and Carrie Fisher mistaken for shoplifters while shopping for vinyl at Amoeba Records.

I bumped into Broadway diva Lilias White ordering hot chicken at her favorite shopping center hole in the wall next to my barber’s place.

I once witnessed Penny Marshall cackling at an event, and Sylvester Stallone a few tables over rolling his eyes and saying, “Somebody, please shut that woman up!!”

Don’t worry, no NDAs signed.

Things were seen and heard firsthand by yours truly.

I once had the distinction at an awards dinner of being the person to “get” Harrison Ford at his table. “Excuse me, Mr. Ford, you were the hero of my childhood movie-going, I know you’re busy chatting up Calista, but you’re presenting soon.” And he followed me backstage, like I was important or something. Gosh, I could’ve led him anywhere. If I was a stalker I could’ve had a white van out back and totally hit the jackpot.

I once witnessed Tony Shalhoub singing Beatles songs around a piano with old friends.

I encountered The Rock wandering the Disney lot, where he kindly stopped to pose for a quick pic with a visiting friend. I watched Steve Martin and Martin Short kibbitz over dessert in a media mogul’s basement.

Mike Nichols once remarked to me, in his most snide tone, “You know, I have been reading since I was three years old,” after I took the initiative to read him the menu card before him aloud, as if he were feeble and blind. He was not impressed.

I once overheard Jonathan Silverman coming out of the closet to Shirley MacLaine as I sat next to them in an early-morning makeup trailer. Or so I thought. Turns out they were softly running lines for a scene later that day — amateur mistake.

I stood by next to Joan Collins on set, half-naked, in a teddy — she was in the teddy, not me. I’m still recovering. I once watched Don Rickles roast Norman Lear (and his hat) while Bette Midler, Quincy Jones and Samuel L. Jackson (and his hat) looked on.

I cocked a gun and played an FBI agent in a scene with my schoolboy crush — Lea Thompson from Back to the Future. That was a memorable day in this lad’s life. I’m sure the earth equally moved for Lea.

Bill Clinton once insisted he get a photo with me — well, and all the waiters, two by two, at an event.

I spent a Christmas with Cher — well, doing dishes in her kitchen in Malibu for a good five to six hours, but still. She’s a lot shorter than you’d ever imagine.

Oh, the glamorous life.

I once watched Annette Bening and Tom Hanks weep tears of astounded joy during an election-night party. A few years earlier I’d watched Tom — did you catch that? we’re on a first-name basis — and Leonardo DiCaprio rehearse and perform a movie scene together, while Steven Spielberg hovered, giving direction on set.

I overheard Barbra Streisand telling tales about Tom Cruise’s marriage to Mimi Rogers.

I saw Debbie Reynolds closing down an Emmy Awards ball. It was the end of the night, we were stripping tablecloths and the ugly overhead lights were on, but Ms. Reynolds still sat there in the cavernous now-empty conference center in her sequined red outfit, glass of champagne nearby, basking in the new attention after appearing on Will & Grace.

Florence Henderson once grabbed my arm to steady herself at an outdoor-on-wet-grass wedding. Mrs. Brady needs me!

I’ve seen Goldie and Kurt, Brad and Angelina, Annette and Warren, even Ashton and Demi, (back in the day).

I’ve watched Gwyneth Paltrow’s kid look for Easter eggs. I’ve wandered Dustin Hoffman’s home and beach house, trying to look busy. I saw Jane freakin’ Russell smoking a cigarette next to a porta potty on the Paramount lot a few years before her passing. Talk about legendary — and how it’s not all glamour.

And yes, since you asked, Hugh Jackman does have that much presence and magnetism standing there in person. Yes, Julia Roberts does glow from inside when she talks to Drew Barrymore in a living room.

And sadly some of the ladies are even scarily thinner in person than they appear on the screen. I’m looking at you, Nicole Kidman. Courtney Cox, you need to eat a sandwich.

Then there’s the music acts I got to witness — you know, Willie Nelson, Christina Aguilera, Olivia Newton-John, Alanis Morrissette, Andy Williams or Lady Gaga — just paying the bills, slumming it, singing in some wealthy guy’s ballroom, at a rich kid’s bat mitzvah or at that Best Buy teamwork-building event.

For real. They gotta to pay the bills too.

But what’s the point?

So yeah, let’s just say it’s an odd town. And I’m just one person. There are security guards, former personal assistants, nannies, second ADs and estate managers who could put me to shame with their personal stories in dealing with the famous and infamous, daily. I have butler friends who could bury you in juicy details.

But in truth, over the years and all these encounters, you lose the ability to be star struck.

Hmm, who would really make me tongue-tied if I were to encounter him these days? Daniel Craig. Yeah, Mr. Craig.

Maybe Allison Janney — I’ve admired her talents for years.

And definitely Kate Winslet. Yeah, the Winslet is a goddess in my book — the kind that makes fully-out gay guys ponder that they just might be straight… or so I’ve been told.

It’s been fun going down memory lane here — gosh, there were so many more sightings — Fran Drescher, Melissa Gilbert, Kathy Bates, Pierce Brosnan, Paul Rudd (dreamy), Christina Hendricks, Scott Bakula (dreamy part two!), Tina Fey, Robert Wagner…. but really, let’s get real, who cares? I know this started for the folks back home, but, gees, name drop much, Joe?

Seriously.

It’s not like I worked with these people as colleagues or made a splash in their lives.

I poured them drinks. I maybe welcomed them to an event. I was part of a scene one day when they went to their jobs and created a movie or TV moment.

Jane Seymour does not recall meeting Joe Guay. Melanie Griffith and Antonio aren’t asking me over to chat with Tippi Hedren — even though their place was the best.

And no, they do not live “just like us” in the ways movie magazines want you to believe.

But what I’ve witnessed is they are just like us in human interactions. They’re just as nervous about who they’re stuck sitting next to at dinner party. They’re just as tired and frustrated going to that fundraiser they promised to go to after a long day of work. And some are just as insecure and moody, sometimes rude, buried in their phones, or all over the map emotionally, saying, “I’m too old for this shit,” just like any of us on a given day.

Sure, I can say I was at The Oscars. I was in so-and-so’s home with Clint Eastwood and Kevin Costner. No doubt about it, the celeb-viewing was off the charts. But it’s still the everyday-activity sightings — like Melissa McCarthy and her Christmas tree, or seeing Vince Vaughn trying to find his Uber at the Hollywood Bowl — that I hold more near and dear when recalling the decades spent in Los Angeles.

But the big thank you go out to Eric McCormack, who locked eyes with me in the produce aisle, to Jane Lynch who nodded at me after I recognized her in the Trader Joe’s parking lot, and to the bearded and sunglasses-wearing Steve Carrell who waited off to the side for his usual order at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf while I got my non-flourishy brew.

Here’s to you three — thank you for having the class and professionalism to nod, slightly smile and then have the restraint to not ask for my autograph.

I appreciate it, you three are a class act.

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