My brother once met Michael Jordan. He was playing at a golf club where my brother worked, and they had cleared out the entire restaurant just so that Mr. Jordan could have privacy away from the public. My brother was working at the time and is a pretty charming person, so he went up to him while he was sitting alone and asked for an autograph. Mr. Jordan kindly obliged.
I also have a brother who stood in line for I don't know how long to have Todd McFarlane sign his "Spawn" comic book.
The only encounters I've had with famous people have been through writing.
As a kid, I wrote to President Ronald Reagan because we had something in common at the time, and I was impressed that in the reply letter, this fact was mentioned back to me. I'm sure he didn't write the letter himself but it was neat to see that someone had paid attention to details, as well as spelling my name correctly.
I have also written fan letters to two of my favorite authors, Dean Koontz, and Philip Yancey.
One thing I admire about Mr. Koontz is that he is a true rags-to-riches story (his family was so poor that they relied on wild game for most of their food) who always credits his wife for his success and is very grateful to his fans (I'm not sure about his religious status--I've read interviews in which he says he's "in the believing camp", but I don't know what he believes.)
On 2 separate occasions, Mr. Koontz sent me his newsletters (old-fashioned, snail-mail, real-paper newsletters that he produces and sends to his fans at his own expense) and hand-wrote a short note on them, each time mentioning specific things about something I had written in my letters.
In one letter, I had commented that I had been a long-time fan, and that in the picture on the jacket of his last book, he had a lot more hair than in the past! Mr. Koontz has a terrific sense of humor, and he wrote back (presumably in his own handwriting) and said that the secret to this was lots and lots of expensive (and, he wrote, "painful") hair transplants!
Another time, he sent me an autographed book. So I had 3 separate things onto which he had signed his name AND spelled my name correctly (which even my friends and family members often don't do, because my real name has an unusual spelling.) I do believe that each of these things were authentic.
Unfortunately, I was in a church with mentors who were on a big "get rid of worldly things" kick, and so, regrettably, I threw away everything Mr. Koontz had sent me. To this day, I still kick myself over that.
I also wrote 3 fan letters to Philip Yancey (my favorite Christian answer), and he was kind enough to respond each time with typed, but detailed, letters addressing everything I had written about, and signed with his name.