My brushes with greatness...

I have to confess. I am in a bit of a slump these days. Just got a lot on my plate and feeling a wee bit low. But I read my friend Paul's blog today. It was all about women who love the Three Stooges (which I still think is a myth!) and he had a couple of anecdotes from readers about times they actually met or spoke to one of the Stooges. This got me remembering my own "brushes with greatness"! No, I never met one of the Three Stooges but I did meet a handful of great actors back in the day - John Cusack, Aidan Quinn, Tom Cruise and Robert Deniro, to name a few. Let me tell you about meeting these four.

Awhile back, I lived in Chicago and I was acting and working with a theatre company called, igLoo, the theatrical group. No, that's not misspelled. We were cool like that. LOL Anyway...

We did some very avantgarde stuff and it started getting the attention of the local press which then got the attention of other actors that wanted to come and work with us. One of these was a great broad named Elizabeth Bracco. She is the sister of Lorraine Bracco and the wife of Aidan Quinn. Through her I met Aidan. Lizzie and I were in a few shows together and occasionally we would pal around. One Monday night, Lizzie called me and asked me to come over to her apartment and hang out making jewelry and ordering in sushi. Aidan was watching the World Series and she wasn't interested in that. So, I went over. Now, at this time, the movie "The Untouchables" was filming in Chicago. Many of my friends are in that movie as extras. I can spot them sitting in the train station and lying face down in pools of blood throughout the film! But I digress...

So, I go over to Lizzie's. She lets me in and we go to the dining room where all the jewelry making stuff was laid out. Then she takes me into the living room where Aidan is watching the game with a buddy. I look up as Lizzie is saying "this is my friend Mary, Mary - this is Bob" and I am met with the enormous smiling face of Robert Freakin' Deniro! Deniro was in town shooting the movie. He was playing Al Capone to Kevin Costner's Elliot Ness. He shakes my hand and says, "nice to meet ya" and goes back to the watching the game. I'm sure I mumbled something but I honestly don't remember what I said! What I remember was retreating to the kitchen where I chastised Lizzie! I mean, she could have warned me that I was about to meet one of the greatest actors to ever live. You can't just spring Robert Deniro on someone like that!! Sheesh!

At this time, when we weren't doing our own shows, we would rent out our theatre space to other companies who needed some place to rehearse or perform. One day, my friend who ran the company asked me to meet with a new potential renter because she and her husband were going to be out that day. So I waited at the theatre for about an hour. She didn't tell me who the potential renter was. So imagine my surprise when John Cusack walked in! He was the nicest guy in the world too. I showed him the space and he ended up renting it. Unfortunately, some of his people got into our costumes and pretty much trashed them which ended the rental relationship badly. But oh well...

The one day Lizzie invited us over for Aidan's birthday party. We went out and bought an old bowling trophy and wrapped it up for him! The apartment was packed! People everywhere! My friends and I were pretty much stuck in the living room but we were thirsty so I volunteered to squeeze my way into the kitchen to get us some beers. I pushed my way through the crowd, down the hall and into the kitchen. I grabbed 5 beers to take back to my friends. When I turned around to start back through the crowd I was face to face with Tom Cruise. He laughed and said, "Those aren't all for you, are they?" I laughed and said something really clever, "no". And that was that. By the way, Tom Cruise is short. Seriously short. Shorter than you can even imagine he would be. I had a good two feet on him.

So, those are some of my brushes with greatness. There are others - Elizabeth Taylor, William Windom, and a few more. But those four all happened at a very good time in my life and with the mood I'm in lately it did me some good remembering. So, still not a Three Stooges fan but there ya go! LOL