For everyone I know, it’s rare to see someone famous unless you’ve paid to see him or her on stage or at a sports field. When it happens, there always seems to be someone with a story destined to be repeated.
I still smile when I think of my father telling anyone who would listen about his meeting with Chuck Connors in a Chicago restaurant bathroom in the early 1960s. Every year my father returned to my native Chicago for the annual sales meeting of Central Steel and Wire Corporation and received his Christmas bonus, which was of great interest to his family. Because the bigger the bonus, the more festively wrapped boxes there were likely to be under the branches of our living Christmas tree.
When Dad entered the bathroom, there was none other than the star of ABC’s The Rifleman. Since the show was one of Dad’s favorites, he was a bit taken aback when he saw the imposing 6’6″ Connors who, before turning to acting, was one of the few to ever play two sports professionally, with the Basketball Celtics and the Baseball Cubs.
Whenever my dad would talk about his chance encounter with Connors in that restaurant washroom, he’d always say, “Now I know why they call him the shooter,” which always earned a gentle rebuke from my mom, who pretty much did everything felt what was happening behind bathroom doors shouldn’t really be a topic of conversation.
Dad spoke to Connors for a few minutes and told me he told the actor that he looked a lot bigger in person than he did on our 23 inch black and white RCA screen at home.
Well, over the years I’ve had my own occasional celebrity from time to time. As for sheer volume, well, that happened in June 1987 at the Atlantic City Convention Center. On a family day out, my brother-in-law, John Whittaker, and I snagged some $50 nosebleed tickets to see Jerry Cooney-Michael Spink’s heavyweight boxing match.
The fight was billed as “The War at the Shore” although Cooney, the 6’2″ behemoth, wasn’t too keen on a war and was stopped in the fifth round by the much smaller Spinks. Chicago Tribune sportswriter Sam Smith later wrote to cover the event that Cooney took so many shots in the fifth “that he was certainly contemplating skipping his meal after the fight.”
As I walked through the venue before the preliminary rounds began, I rode the elevator up one step behind a future President of the United States. Donald Trump was there with his wife Ivana, who was sadly in the news last summer when she died after falling on the stairs. While The Donald never turned, I remember Ivana turning, smiling, and nodding hello to me.
Trump took a personal interest in the fight and paid over $3 million to take it to the Atlantic City Boardwalk, just steps from his casino. While that may seem like a gamble to some, the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame has reported that players left over $7 million at Trump’s casino tables in the days surrounding the fight.
Also in the lobby before the fight was a 21-year-old Mike Tyson surrounded by a large entourage. I didn’t approach Iron Mike.
My fourth celebrity of the night was the least likely as most of the performers live fairly anonymously. However, it was this artist, LeRoy Neiman, who rose to celebrity status, known for his paintings that captured major sporting events, some of which were used as covers by Sports Illustrated.
Neiman walked past me and I knew immediately it was him. His looks were so unique that I’m sure he didn’t have a look-alike anywhere in the world. The artist, who died in 2012 at the age of 91, not only sported a colossal bonnet of salt-and-pepper hair, but also a signature mustache that stretched from one long sideburn to the other.
He passed me at a time when smoking wasn’t banned within the walls, leaving a blue-grey puff of his signature cigar smoke before disappearing into the toilet. As a tribute to my father, who passed away nine years ago, I went to the toilet myself and chatted with him a little while we washed our hands at the sink.
Next week I’ll wrap up my celebrity memories by focusing on a specific night out in Cincinnati with friends when I had my most intense encounters with the rich and famous.
John Grindrod is a regular columnist for The Lima News, a freelance writer and editor, and the author of two books. Reach him below [email protected]
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