I have a few stories from when i lived in London. I used to work in the Dorchester hotel which is where most of the celebs stay when they come to London. Alot of the movie launches were based in the hotels and one of my good friends worked in the "special visits" department so she dealt directly with many of the big names and co-ordinated all the interviews before the red carpet events. I was project managing the installation of a very hi-tech (at the time) interactive tv system in the hotel. I become the "Go to guy" whenver a guest had a problem with anything technological. I met many celebs and found most of them to be a$$holes but i never ever get star struck and consider famous people like any other person except their job gives them the opportunity to be in the spot light. My friend used to get tickets for the Red carpet premiers and would ring me at 4 in the day and be like "fancy going to the VIP launch of a movie in an hour?" heck yea....first to see the movie then epic party afterwards with all free drink and food. I went to Kill Bill 2, The Italian job remake and a Will Smith movie, think it was Bad boys II or Men in Black II. Its so funny when you arrive at the aftershow party and all the photographers are there. The door of the car opens and they are expecting an A-list celeb then i jump out....They just sigh and dismiss you.
Among the celebs i met or actually interacted with include Pamela Anderson, Liam Nesson, Tom Cruise, Hugh Grant, Will Smith, Lucy Lu, Peter Jackson, Russell Crow, Nicole Kidman etc etc I saw and passed by many others.
Some interesting stories....
Angelina Jolie used to live in the hotels for weeks on end before she bought her own place in England. This is going back 10 years when she was in her prime. Her assistant used to stay in the room opposite her suite and the doors were always left open. Her little son Maddox used to run out the door and up the corridors and you always knew you were in for a treat when you saw Maddox running towards you in a corridor on his own...it meant that Angela Jolie would be following shortly afterwards. Often in little shorts and a tight little t-shirt. :steer
Probably one of my personal favorite moments was when i wasn't working. I was out on a date and I brought my date to the bar in the Four Seasons in London, very swanky bar but cool for one or two drinks. I remember going to bathroom and noticing a huge black guy standing near the door and after working around celebs for a while you can spot a security guard a mile away. It was a very dimly lit bar and i looked around to see if i could spot a celeb but i was more interested in my date. There was a two piece jazz instrumental playing in the bar and they were out of view of our seats. I remember the music changing and thinking the live guys must be finished and they must have put a CD on. I looked around the corner and there was James Brown jamming with the two lads. It only took a few minutes for the whole bar to realize this and everyone gathered around. There was only about 20-30 people there at the time but he sang about 5-7 songs with them.....it was pretty amazing.
Then another interesting one was having lunch with Nelson Mandela. I went to college here in Ireland but my closest friend was from Mozambique and by chance he decided to come to Ireland to go to college. We both ended up moving to London after college and shared a house. His mother owned the only English school in Mozambique at the time and did very well from it. His circle of friend growing up would have been the kids of Politicians, presidents and the wealthy. One of his good friends was Nelson Mandela's step son's and he was coming to London to do a 3 month placement working directly with Richard Branson to see how Virgin is run. He naturally could've stayed in a city centre apppartment with security guards, car etc but he wanted to rent the crappy liittle room we had free in our crumby run down house. I suppose it was a bit of normality for him. He loved living with us because we treated him like normal, made him take out the trash, clean up, etc etc. All things he never or rarely ever did in his life.
Anyways, any time Nelson Mandela came to London he used to stay in Dorchester. Malenga asked me if I'd like to have dinner with his "parents". I had to go to my boss and ask him could i have lunch with a guest....which is not that abnormal but he nearly died of shock when i told him who it was. Anyways, the head chef of the dorchester cooked lunch for me and 5 other guests in a private dining room in the hotel. It was a little surreal at the start but by the end it was just like dinner with a friends family.
My aunt worked as the receptionist at the Abbey Road Studios when she moved to London back in the 60s....She has some pretty amazing stories to tell....Hung out and did "other things" with The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, The Who etc etc
