I traveled with Carly Simon!
July 14th, 2010
I’m still a little bit star struck.
Last week, on the first leg of my journey home from my summer vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., I traveled with one of my all-time favorite singers and songwriters, Carly Simon.
Here’s what happened: As we were walking along the pier to enter the queue for the ferry back to the mainland, a woman in a billowy white dress, a big handbag, blonde hair and a very familiar face walked up behind us in line.
Carly Simon looking and sounding great at 65 on the ferry between Martha's Vineyard and Woods Hole, Mass. (and me!)
I looked at her and smiled, then looked away, and then a little bell went off in my head. I turned and looked again, and she smiled back at me, and I stuttered something like, “Did anyone ever tell you that you look like. . . um wait a minute. . . are you Carly Simon?” As a long-time fan, I knew that she lived on Martha’s Vineyard, so the possibility was not completely far fetched.
She smiled and said, “Yes, I am,” and seemed eager for a friendly chat, so I engaged.
I introduced myself and my partner Barkley, told her I was a big fan and that I cut my music-listening teeth on many of her hits on AM radio way back in the 70′s. (like You’re So Vain, Anticipation, Nobody Does It Better.)
I was looking around to see if her people, her handlers, her bodyguards or anyone else was around and realized quickly that it was just Carly, all by herself. She was toting a box of 100 or so CD’s that I offered to help her with, but she insisted on carrying it.
She told us that she was doing some very personal publicity for her new acoustical album Never Been Gone– and that the box was full of teaser CDs with two songs from it. Her plan was to stand at the entryway of the returning ferry and hand them out to passengers, and urge them to go to a record store on the Vineyard to buy the album for half price when they presented the teaser CD.
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We made a little more small talk, boarded the ferry, she sat down, handed me a CD, we said goodbye, and I walked away floating about 10 feet in the air.
I found my seat, got out my iPod and started listening to her Greatest Hits album. After a song or two, I decided to go back and ask her to sign the CD she’d given me and maybe even ask for a photo.
Carly Simon's latest album, Never Been Gone. (Iris Records)
With pen in hand, I went back to where she was seated, still by herself, and asked if she’d autograph the CD. She said, “Of course,” and pulled out a Sharpie (natch) from her big bag and asked, “Would you like to sit down? Now, Chris, is this just for you, or for you and Barkley?” (Inside, I thought, wow, she even remembered our names!)
I sat down. She signed the CD and we talked for ten minutes or so, about the horrendous summer heat wave, about her 42-year-old horse that recently died, her bout with Lyme’s disease, the brand new iPad she was fiddling around with, life on Martha’s Vineyard and about my week there.
Finally, I mustered the courage to ask if I could snap a photo and she said, “Of course, let’s do it!” I took two pics and then we huddled over the camera and she chose the best one. I returned to my seat, and continued on my journey to Boston-Logan and then back home.
What a great way to end a great vacation!
So anyway, frequent travelers . . . since this is a travel blog and not a celebrity blog, let’s add a travel angle here with a question:
Have you ever encountered a celeb or superstar on your frequent travels? If so, how did you react? I’d love to hear your stories and I’m sure other readers would like to hear them, too! Comments, please! Let’s have some fun with this . . .
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Love this story, Chris! I am a Carly Simon fan, too! I remember traveling to Tokyo while still a travel reporter for CNN. One night after shooting around town, the crew and I decided to hang out at the club, Sweet Basil, in the Roppongi district. We had no idea that the group Average White Band would be performing there. Being a lover of music from the 70′s, I was overjoyed. When the show was over we actually got a chance to sit and talk with them. They were so cool and down to earth. I still cherish that moment when I listen to their music.
My wife and I were flying to Tokyo where I was working in 1992 and had a layover at LAX. At our gate, she pointed out this older gentleman with white hair and a beard wearing a long trenchcoat that kept staring at her. (She is quite attractive, if I do say so myself…) I asked her, “Don’t you recognize him?” She replied, “No, I don’t.” I then said, “Picture him facing away from you, reaching into a kitchen cabinet with his derriere showing, in a film from about 1978 with John Belushi.” She then said, “Oh, it’s Donald Sutherland!” We also saw Janet Jackson at ATL, Kenny Rogers in Tokyo and Richard Attenborough in London, but, as you can imagine, they were somewhat unapproachable at the time…
Several years ago we saw Tommy Lee Jones getting off a plane in Atlanta. I was surprised that he seemed huge in real life. He was wearing aviator glasses, reflective, which to us, said, stay away. Who knows though.
“Lunch with Rod Stewart in Portofino last June.” It was a raining; my group went into a restaurant for lunch. A larger group was at the table behind us, but I did not pay attention. My husband commented that the man facing him looked a lot like Rod Stewart and we would have to Google him when we got home to see if he had a young son named Alistar. Well, of course, it was him with his wife and possibly nanny and yacht captain. Later we passed Rod and wife walking around. When we returned to our ship, many of us were talking of our Rod Stewart sightings. All of us only looked, no one spoke to him or otherwise interrupted his day.
Ah, this is wonderful! Congrats, Chris! I’ve had the opportunity to work with many celebrities over the years and have found almost all of them to be very down to earth, humble, and grateful. Your experience is just what I would’ve expected from Carly, except even better!
I’m a little late reading this article but thought I’d pitch in. Running across celebrities is always a fun topic. I fly ATL-LAX several times a year and it is very rare that I do not see a celebrity on the flight. I’ve been on planes with Peri Gelpin, Hubie Brown, Darryl Mitchell, Vijay Singh, Richard Lewis, Jackson Brown, just to name a few, and most recently was sitting in LAX early one morning when a group of older gentlemen walked in together, sat down next to me and starting making polite, small talk. They were familiar, but not quite obvious, faces and noticeably musicians. Turns out it was The Temptations.
But my favorite celebrity-on-a-plane event happened a few years back and I did not actually see the person. I was flying down to Tampa and enjoying one of my much too infrequent first-class upgrades. I flew this route often so I knew the 767 I was on came in from LAX and then continued on to Tampa (my current flight). As the plane was moving away from the gate I noticed a passport on the floor by the feet of the gentleman sitting next to me. He saw it about the same time I did and asked me if it was mine. A flight attendant was standing right there so he told her someone had lost a passport as he was picking it up off the floor. He handed it to her and she said, “Let’s see who it belongs to,” expecting it to be someone else in the cabin. She said, “It belongs to…” opening the passport, “…Lauren Hutton” and showed us the inside cover with the familiar front-tooth gap grin on her passport photo. Obviously, she had just arrived on the flight from LAX and was likely continuing on somewhere else. I’m confident Delta returned the passport to her in short order but always wondered if Lauren Hutton was stuck at Customs in London, Paris or some other city later that day when she figured out she dropped her passport somewhere in Atlanta.
I wish Steven Spielberg had been as friendly to me. I saw him outside of Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. I first recognized his voice, then looked up and sure enough it was him. We were standing shoulder to shoulder. I asked if I could get a photo with him and he denied being Steven Spielberg. I know for fact it was him because he was traveling with Larry Davis, one of his crewmen.(His name was on his brief case.) All he had to say was “no, I’d prefer not to have my photo taken” but he lied to me. I’ll never look at him with the same admiration again.
On our way to Christmas in Vermont, my family of six was staying at the Plaza Hotel in NYC. It was a couple of years after the “Home Alone” sequel was released. I had a young son the same age as McCauley Culkin’s character Kevin and he wanted to stay at the Plaza Hotel like Kevin did so we had made it a part of our Christmas travel plan. While waiting for the elevator in the lobby one late afternoon around dinner time, the line of people waiting to pick up messages at the service counter wound its way near the elevators. As we were waiting for the elevator, I just heppened to look up to a very familiar face in the message line, Ron Howard. He grinned at me very directly in a very friendly manner, as if to say, “Yep, I’m Ron Howard.” He was dressed very casually, in a black baseball cap, blue jeans and black Tee-shirt. It was the 22nd of December so very close to Christmas and I wondered if he and his family were spending Christmas in NYC at The Plaza. It was during the time he was filming “Ransom” and so I thought that might be the occasion of his stay. I was too star-struck to say anything or to indicate I even knew who he was, although his smile looked like he wouldn’t mind me approaching him. He and I are the same age and I would have LOVED a conversation wtih him. But at that moment the elevator arrived and I got on and proceeded up to my room in obscurity, and hating that I had been too afraid to go over to him. The rest of the family had not even noticed him.
Another siting — My brother had the first class seat beside Jepeordy host Alex Trubeck a few years ago between LAX and Dallax. They talked about sprinkler systems, as Alex and my brother had each just purchased a new one.