Whenever I’m asked about famous people I’ve met both in and out of radio, the discussion is awkward.

I found out that they’re just people like you and me.

After innumerable encounters over the years, I didn’t find the experience all that exciting and find revisiting it even less so.

I never established personal relationships with a majority of these musicians, politicians or other luminaries.

Many meetings were of a “grip and grin” nature…a photo-op for my files.

I did talk to quite a few iconic personalities however, especially backstage at concerts and during radio interviews. A few incidents come to mind.

I’ve never been a fan of Elvis Costello’s singing. He’s a great musician but as a vocalist, he’s always irritatingly behind the beat.

Sharing some tea with him changed my impression of the man. He’s polite, engaging and a walking encyclopedia of music history.

Living legend

When I met Steve Earle in the late ’80s at the old arena, he was a strung-out mess. He was due to play within half an hour of our chat.

When I left him I knew he was in no condition to perform. Somehow, between our encounter and show time, he roared onto the stage and did almost three hours.

I’ll let you guess how he pulled it off. I just wish I could see him again, now that he’s clean and drug-free.

I interviewed Tony Bennett for almost an hour. What a gem. This living legend was modest, captivating and someone I could have talked to all day.

Probably the rudest interview I had was with John Ralston Saul.

We were a little behind schedule as sometimes happens in live radio. He snarled and bellowed at me off the air about how important his appointments were.

He threatened to leave.

I should have kicked his pompous pants on the way out. But the professional in me asked him to stay. I listened to his on air bromides about Canadian unity (he was selling a book on the subject). Off air he continued to disdain me. When he saw I wasn’t impressed, he childishly moved his chair to the other side of the studio.

The late Peter Winch was one of the most respected philosophers in the world in the late 20th century. He was one of the literary executors of Wittgenstein and a towering intellectual giant in his own right.

In the mid 1980s, I was one of the few University of Winnipeg philosophy students who got to have dinner with him when he came for a visit from the University of Chicago.

By this time, I’d seen so many notable people from my radio career, I shouldn’t have been nervous.

But I was awe-struck by his forbidding intellect and for once found myself almost speechless.

Aside from meeting Winch, I eventually realized that famous people put their clothes on just like we do.

And that some of the most compelling, gripping, astonishing life stories come from the less-than-famous; from people who either have no celebrity, or from people who were once on top but lost it all.

I see people like that regularly at Siloam Mission.

— Larry Updike is the senior communications and advocacy officer for Siloam Mission.

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