Can't say I've had the privelage of flying with any celebrities, but I have served as a ramp-rat for a few and witnessed others from afar.
As a ramp rat at KBKL, I first met Bill Cower (I think that's his name but not totally sure, the coach of the Steelers) as he got out of a Citation for the annual Steelers/Browns "grudge lunch" in 99.
Then I got to "meet" John Travolta once. I was at the bottom of the steps of his Gulfstream right after it landed, had the carpet laid out per standard procedure but had no clue who was on board. Saw this guy come down the steps, wearing sunglasses and a ballcap, and I gave the usual "welcome to Cleveland, how can I help you today" spiel. He said thanks and gave a "top it off" fuel order, then hopped in a black SUV and took off. I didn't even know it was him until I heard the voice, and it was confirmed later with airport ops. I guess he was in town for a funeral or something.
For you wrestling fans out there, WCW was in Cleveland one night in May 99 and there was word that "one of the wrestlers" was flying in to our facility. I saw Doug Dillinger, the head of security for WCW, waiting in our lobby. Unfortunately when the plane came in (it was a C210) I was on the other side of the airport and didn't see who was in it. The next morning after the show, I got on shift at 7am and was told that "the gentleman" would like the C210 pulled out. As I was pulling it out of the hangar I saw two guys standing off to the side wearing black WCW polo shirts and ballcaps and drinking coffee. One was a wrestler, think his stage name was Kanyon if anyone remembers him, and the other was WCW president Eric Bischoff. I made some very idle chat with Bischoff as he was asking for an oil funnel, then he got in the pilot seat and blasted off.
One sunday I was working by myself and was accosted by an extremely rude celebrity assistant/manager type who DEMANDED a deli tray of sandwiches RIGHT NOW! I tried telling him that we need 2 hours notice on all catering (hey, you gotta cook the stuff right?) but he said RIGHT NOW! I called our emergency weekend catering guy and got some sandwiches made up, then delivered them to the door of a King Air on the ramp. Three guys were inside just hanging out and were very thankful for the food that I dropped off. It turns out that it was the Offspring in town for a concert, and as they left the lead singer Dexter was in the left seat. I remember wondering how he got a pair of David Clarks on with all those earrings.
There was a day when Archbishop Desmond Tutu was in town for some event, and his Citation was on the ramp by the KBKL terminal. I remember going down there to marshal it out, I stuck my head in to ask the pilots when the ARchbishop would be arriving. The copilot looked at me and then pointed, I turned around and saw the mayor of Cleveland and the ARchbishop and about 50 MILLION reporters rushing towards me about 10 feet away. I scurried out of the way, pulled the carpet, pulled the chocks, and marshalled it away. Apparently I got on the news that night according to my buddy in airport ops.
Then there was the time Iron Maiden was in town for a show. A C421 came in and went to the customs ramp, I then had to go down and retreive it to bring back to our hangar. Bruce Dickinson, the lead singer, owned the plane and was the pilot and he used the plane to fly the band around on tours. He was also partaking of the avionics shop in our facility and had his plane there for about a month. But that first night, I remember walking through the hangar and seeing this short scruffly lookin British dude raiding our vending machines. Turns out it was Bruce, and my manager (a HUGE Maiden fan) and I invited him to join us at the grill. We hauled out the grill and had some hot dogs with him as he told us tour stories. Very cool guy, easy to talk to. later on after he left, two boxes were sent to the line shack with our names on them. They contained a copy of Maiden's latest CD autographed and personallized by the whole band.
During the Cleveland Airshow I got to meet several of the airshow pilots. Jimmy Franklin, Sean Tucker (a total jerk), Jene Soucy, and several others. Got them all to autograph my logbook.
I was off for the holidays over New Year's Eve but I'd heard that Metallica was going to be in Cleveland for a concert, I remembered thinking it would be awesome if they would use our FBO. Well it turns out they did, showed up in a GIV. The lineman on duty at the time was able to con the pilot into giving him his backstage pass to the show, so he went. Unfortunately for him, the backstage pass happened to be a PHOTO ID and a security troll caught him after a song and a half.
During my time at KBKL we also did charter services for several NBA and MLB teams. Nobody really worth mentioning, and the tips were horrible. But on those nights there was usually a boatload of high quality catering left over and we all ate like kings.
As a flight instructor I was working out of Million Air at KLUK in Cincinnati. There I got to meet or see several celebs including Jimmy Buffett, Jeff Foxworthy (real friendly guy), Ted Nugent (he arrived in a ratty looking blue Baron), and KISS (arrived 2 hours late in a shoddy looking GII).
Edited to correct spelling errors
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