Do telephone conversations count? I have a cute story about a kinda famous person speaking to Ray by phone.

quote:

Originally posted by dandelion:
Do telephone conversations count?...

Surely not. But do tell!

Okay, well, in March 2007 I attended the National Festival of the West in Arizona. That year they were having a tribute to my favorite series, Laramie, attended by all the surviving stars. I had decided to break the ice with people (the Laramie stars and a bunch of others) by asking what they liked to read. How people reacted was really funny. Some were very open about their likes, some were nice but refused to disclose titles due to controversial subject matter (politics), and some would give no information and were even a little paranoid.

Anyway, the very first person I approached was Dennis Holmes, who played Mike on Laramie. One of the cutest Mike scenes can be found at the 5:00 mark here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...l2G0&feature=related The first person Dennis said was Ray Bradbury. He had always meant to attend one of Ray's signings but never had. Well, of course I had Ray's number on my cell phone, called him and Dennis got to speak to him. It was a really nice moment.

Hey, I am reading Sam's book and will update with those who don't seem to have been mentioned here. It seems Ray met Judy Garland when she was still with the Gumm sisters.

quote:

...I am reading Sam's book and will update with those who don't seem to have been mentioned here...

Good idea. When you've finished, I'll re-compile the list from earlier in the thread to include all these new finds.

Phil u r 2 kewl.

Most of these will have been mentioned but here are the names from Sam's book starting with when Ray arrived in Hollywood in 1934, at not quite 14, with a few notations.

W. C. Fields--the first celebrity Ray met in Hollywood, first celebrity autograph, and first celebrity insult. ("There you are, you little son of a bitch!")

Irvin S. Cobb (author)
Ben Bernie (orchestra leader)
Helen Hayes
Brian Aherne
Stan Laurel
Oliver Hardy
(Laurel and Hardy at least twice)
Irving Thalberg
Norma Shearer
Clark Gable
Jean Harlow
George Burns (owed much for encouraging Ray!)
Gracie Allen (Ray saw rehearsals and even sold them material)
Gumm Sisters (Frances Gumm became Judy Garland)
Dick Powell
Louella Parsons
Gary Cooper
Marlene Dietrich (autograph and photograph of her with Ray)

Ray cut quite the strange figure touring Hollywood on roller skates.

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Here is the next section, 1935-1940:

Blackstone the Magician (met in Waukegan and again in Los Angeles)
Forrest J. Ackerman
Jack Parsons (Scientist)
Roy Squires
Arthur K. Barnes
Henry Kuttner
John Barrymore
Buster Keaton
Ray Harryhausen
Julius Schwartz (literary agent)
Jack Williamson
L. Sprague de Camp
Frank R. Paul (artist)
Isaac Asimov
John W. Campbell
Jack Darrow (early SF fan)
Milton A. Rothman (early SF fan)
David A. Kyle (writer)
Farnsworth Wright (Weird Tales editor)
Hans (later Hannes) Bok (artist)
Robert A. Heinlein
Laraine Day (actress)
Henry Hasse (writer)
Erick Freyor (writer)
Edmund Hamilton
Leigh Brackett
C. L. Moore
Anthony Boucher
L. Ron Hubbard

1940-1952:

John Steinbeck
August Derleth
Martha Foley
George Davis (Mademoiselle fiction editor)
Rita Smith (Mademoiselle staff)
Sam Cobean (New Yorker cartoonist)
Charles Addams (New Yorker cartoonist)

Carson McCullers, author of one of the three best books in the English language, right next to Barbee Oliver Carleton's Mystery of the Witches' Bridge and Bradbury's Dandelion Wine. I tell everyone if they want to read only one book to understand exactly who and what I am, read Carson McCullers's The Member of the Wedding; if they can't read it, see one or both of the movies. If they read all three of these books they would understand practically every central basic thing about my life. McCullers died tragically young years before I was born. I cannot express how thrilled I am that she and Ray waltzed together, and, of course, I have kissed, and been kissed by, Ray! It's truly the hand that touched the hand!

Don Congdon (editor and agent)
William "Bill" Spier (CBS radio producer)
Kay Thompson (singer, composer, actress, vocal coach, and author)
Norman Corwin
Orson Welles
Ava Gardner
Walter Bradbury (editor)
John Huston
Ricki Huston (his wife, pregnant with writer/actor Tony Huston)
Christopher Isherwood
Gerald Heard
Aldous Huxley
Ben Benjamin (agent)
Ray Stark (agent)
Olivia de Havilland
Joe Mugnaini

Here are the people mentioned in The Hustons, by Lawrence Grobel, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989, as having dined with John Huston and Ray Bradbury. This would seem to be the same dinner mentioned on page 227 of Sam Weller's book, though the details differ. Both of them have Ray so upset he left with Peter Viertel. Sam's book has Huston hoisting Ray by the lapels after Ray cussed him out in front of everyone at dinner, asking Viertel if he should let him have it, and letting him go, while Grobel's book, page 419, has Bradbury returning after Huston was sitting in a limousine, leaning in, and hitting him. Perhaps both happened on the same occasion. If so, a number of luminaries were present. Huston seems to have raked most of them over the coals after getting Ray so upset he left, and Richard Brooks, who told the story, said he was one of the very few if not the only one not crying.

Truman Capote
Humphrey Bogart
Lauren Bacall
Gina Lollobrigida and her husband
Jeanie Sims
Jack Clayton
Richard Brooks (Key Largo writer)
Lorrie Sherwood
Peter Viertel (screenwriter, described in Grobel's book as Huston's assistant--it was his estranged wife who warned Ray to stay away from Huston)

were about half of those present.

It would have to be checked whether this dinner did not in fact take place earlier, as Ray was at a screening of Beat the Devil, on which all these people had worked, shortly after arriving in England. It seems unlikely the same people would all be at a gathering following Moby-Dick. Perhaps almost as strange, though, if Brooks's memory is correct, that Ray actually hit Huston that early on in things--perhaps if he had, Huston might have respected him more.

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1952-1969

Bill Gaines (editor/publisher, EC Comics)
Hal Chester (film producer)
Sam Rolfe (screenwriter)
Ian Ballentine (publisher)
Stanley Kauffmann (editor)
Alan Jay Lerner
Frederick Loewe
David Susskind
Art Buchwald (writer)
Suzanne Flon (actress)
William Wyler (director)
Len Probst (Head of UPI International in Dublin)
Bernard Berenson (Renaissance Scholar)
Borden Chase (screenwriter)
Leon Uris (writer)
Norman Lloyd (producer/director)
Joan Harrison (producer)
Alfred Hitchcock
Gregory Peck
Leo Genn
Robert Morley
Royal Dano
John Gay (screenwriter)
Harold Hecht (producer)
Jim Hill (producer)
Sir Carol Reed (director)
Rod Serling
Charles Beaumont
Richard Matheson
Sam Godwyn Jr. (producer)
Sy Gomberg (writer)
Gene Kelly
George Clayton Johnson
Joel Engel (animator)
Herb Klynn (animator)
Barbara Billingsley
Paul Gregory (producer)
Charles Laughton
James Whitmore
Strother Martin
Charles Rome Smith (director)
Walt Disney
Jim Lovell (astronaut)
John Young (astronaut)
Richard Gordon (astronaut)
Pete Conrad (astronaut)
Neil Armstrong (first man on the moon)
Buzz Aldrin (second man on the moon)
Virgil Ivan (Gus) Grissom (astronaut)
Edward White (astronaut)
Roger Chaffee (astronaut)
Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (astronaut)
John Herschel Glenn Jr. (astronaut)
Malcolm Scott Carpenter (astronaut)
Walter Marty (Wally) Schirra Jr. (astronaut)
MA-8 (Sigma 7), Gemini 6A, Apollo 7
Leroy Gordon Cooper Jr. (astronaut)
Donald Kent (Deke) Slayton (astronaut)
Jack Smight (director)
Rod Steiger
Serge Bourguignon (director)
Bill Cosby
David Frost
Mike Wallace
Engelbert Humperdinck
Sammy Davis Jr.
Bob Gottlieb (editor)
Morgan Cavett (producer and songwriter)
Chuck Jones

Ray also had dealings with
Lucille Ball
Walter Cronkite
Does anyone know if Ray directly met them?

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1970-1985

Federico Fellini
Jack Lemmon
Billy Wilder
King Vidor (director)
Jon Jerde (architect)
Muhammad Ali
Fred Silverman (NBC Head)
Sam Peckinpah
Jason Robards
Jonathan Pryce
Diane Ladd (actor)
Vidal Peterson (actor)
Shawn Carson (actor)
Mary Grace Canfield (actor)
Richard Davalos (actor)
Jake Dengel (actor)
Jack Dodson (actor)
Bruce M. Fischer (actor)
Ellen Geer(actor)
Pam Grier (actor)
Brendan Klinger (actor)
James Stacy (actor)
Angelo Rossitto (actor)
Peter Risch (actor)
Tim T. Clark (actor)
Jill Carroll (actor)
Tony Christopher (actor)
Sharan Lea (actor)
Scott De Roy (actor)
Sharon Ashe (actor)
Ron Miller (Disney Studio head)
Larry Wilcox (actor/producer)
Mark Massari (producer)

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quote:

Originally posted by dandelion:
...Ray also had dealings with
Lucille Ball
Walter Cronkite
Does anyone know if Ray directly met them?

I know that Ray appeared in on screen dialogue with Cronkite at least once, but I don't know for sure whether they were in the same place (might have been a satellite link-up).

Bradbury discusses his "best meal of his life" with Walter Cronkite (second audio clip): http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetw...rst_draft_of_fa.html

Did anyone mention Fritz Lang?