Chance Encounters #2

For me a chance encounter with someone famous has to include the exchange of greetings at the very least. Just passing them on the street or sitting in the same restaurant doesn’t count.

My chance encounter with Martin Sheen was outside the Malibu House of Health, Malibu’s only health food store back in the 70s. He wasn’t particularly friendly. A bit gruff actually. But at least he managed to hello.

Actor James Woods in downtown Auckland was a lot friendlier and he said hello first when we passed each other. My encounter with Patrick Macnee was strange. I was admiring a Patek Phillipe watch in the Queen Street window of one of Auckland’s most expensive jewelers when I saw Patrick Macnee’s reflection. He’d come up next to me and we exchanged a few words about the watch and I ventured a question about why he was in New Zealand. Work and pleasure was his answer. He was working on a film and hoped to get some sightseeing in as well.

If any of you have been to the English seaside city of Brighton and eaten in the legendary English’s Seafood Restaurant and Oyster Bar you’ll know how small and crowded it is. My wife’s late-aunt had treated us to an expense paid lobster lunch there on one of our UK visits. Derek Jacobi and Donald Sinden were chowing down at the bar and acknowledged us as mannered English people do wehn we passed them on our way to be seated in the tiny elbow-to-elbow, knee-to-knee dining room. We had a lobster each and enjoyed every last morsel.

A few weeks later Donald Sinden happened to park his Rolls Royce Phantom VI in front of our rental car (a Peugeot 406) in Stafford-Upon-Avon and walked us to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre for his magnificent performance as “Chorus” in King Henri V. We parted company as he headed for the cast entrance and we carried on to present our tickets (again, courtesy of Anne’s aunt Margaret). We talked all the way and laughed a fair bit too.

Years earlier, again in Auckland, I was surprised to run into the by then notorious, Kim Fowley. Kim and I had met in Hollywood and shared a few experiences in the “music scene.” We weren’t friends, but there were times we’d been useful to each other.

My future wife was still New Zealand’s top fashion model and, since the sudden death of her husband, was managing the country’s top modeling, casting and event agency – June Dally Watkins. The office was in Auckland’s CBD and Anne and I had met when I went into the agency to apply for a script writing job for one of the major events the agency handled.

At the time Anne and I were still in the early stages of our relationship and I was living not far away in a B&B near the campus of Auckland University. Kim made one of his grand entrances while I was at the agency and Kim insisted we go out on the town to catch up. He’d been in Australia promoting a new album or something – probably mainly himself – when he decided to fly over “the ditch” to check out the opportunities in New Zealand. June Dally Watkins NZ was an offshoot of its sister company in Australia so he’d arrived with an introduction and a return ticket.

Kim and I spent the next 24 hours going to clubs, parties, the legendary Auckland ‘White Lady’ food truck and places I can’t remember or shouldn’t. He never stopped, but I had to so we parted company so he could continue his rounds. I don’t think Auckland knew what hit it like a tornado.

This may be his last published interview and can tell you a lot more about him than I ever could:

https://www.rockcellarmagazine.com/is-this-the-last-kim-fowley-interview-ever/