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'Six Degrees Of Separation'

As a very young girl, my wife can remember General Charles de Gaulle visiting her infant school in rural France and bending down to shake her hand. She recalls him being very tall and a bit scary.

I can't claim having met anyone as famous, but did get a kiss from punkette chanteuse Hazel O'Connor once.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
As a very young girl, my wife can remember General Charles de Gaulle visiting her infant school in rural France and bending down to shake her hand. She recalls him being very tall and a bit scary.

I can't claim having met anyone as famous, but did get a kiss from punkette chanteuse Hazel O'Connor once.
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I can see you as a groupie!
 
You know, I just realized I omitted another series of connections, one that would be of special interest to Forteans, as it includes a possible conspiracy!

When Michael Palin was doing his travel documentary Pole to Pole, he stopped at the Greek island of Rhodes. There he met political cartoonist Vangelis Pavlidis, who appeared on the show. It just so happens that this man is the brother of my college academic advisor, who now also lives on Rhodes. Back in the states, I used to work at my alma mater with my advisor's son (Vangelis's nephew). Another colleague at that same institution was a friend of Terry Gilliam, who of course was part of Monty Python alongside Palin.

Here's where it gets scary: The name of my colleague, the woman who knows Terry Gilliam? Professor Rhodes!





Gee, I hope these last few posts will be preserved after this site closes.
 
amyasleigh said:
Belatedly: I reckon I have a fairish claim to being within a few degrees of separation from Hitler (told of in my post #685). It occurs to me that I have a closer connection with Stalin.
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It's been said before in the tread that anybody having a close link with Hitler would be too quite close to Stalin,at only three more steps, including the Führer himself, Robbentrop and Molotov. I believe that the path can be shortened ; I don't know if Molotov met Hitler, but as far as I know Ribbentrop went to Moscow, where it would be strange if he hadn't met Stalin. So that at most, nobody is at more than two steps farther from Stalin than to Hitler (which puts me at four degrees from the Father of Nations).
 
Well, as mentioned above, my wife shook the hand of General De Gaulle, who shook the hand of Maréchal Philippe Pétain, who shook the hand of Hitler, when he formed the Vichy (collaborative) government under Nazi occupation.

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Which puts you at three from Hitler, and at five from Stalin. And, so at one more from Khrushchev, Malenkov, Beria (maybe less, if Ribbentrop had met some of them), and in fact all important Bolshevik leaders, like Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin.
 
Analis said:
Which puts you at three from Hitler, and at five from Stalin. And, so at one more from Khrushchev, Malenkov, Beria (maybe less, if Ribbentrop had met some of them), and in fact all important Bolshevik leaders, like Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin.
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Thinking about it, as well as the Bolsheviks, I can probably get to Nicholas II in less than six: I once met the grand-daughter of the last (pre-Revolutionary) Ataman of the Kuban Cossacks. So me to her; her to her grandmother, her grandmother to her grandfather (he was killed during the Civil War, so never met his grand-daughters), and given that he was CO of the army which supplied troops for the Imperial Lifeguard, and also Governor of the Kuban Region, I'd put money on him having met the Tsar, although as I write I don't know for certain. That's five four degrees, in my calculation.

And speaking of 20th century Russian leaders, I can get to Putin via just one connection...
 
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ChasFink--"John Leguizamo attended college with me for a time."
I think celebrity opinions and endorsements are a bad criteria for deciding a vote. But election enthusiasm is high in TX , so I found it an amusing little bump to get a robo-call recording from John Leguizamo endorsing Ms Sanchez, running against a tea bag.
 
Today Techy was watching the TV news, all about D-Day of course, and there was a clip of a former soldier who'd landed with several friends. He named some, including Dick Simpson who was sadly killed.

Techy's father was there too and knew Dick Simpson, and saw him die. He carried a photo of his dear late friend in his wallet for the resort of his life, and would take it out and show it to people and tell them how Dick died right in front of him.

So there's Techy, and here's me, a couple of degrees away from that brave soldier.
 
Kryptonite said:
I met the late JOHN MCCRIRICK, who was in The New Statesman with the late RIK MAYALL, who was in the Government Inspector with JIM BROADBENT, who was in Only Fools and Horses with the late LENNARD PEARCE, who once met ADOLF HITLER.
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Never mind Hitler, you're only four degrees away from me :bpals: You - Mcririck - Mayall - Broadbent - David Jason - me.
 
As mentioned in another thread, I am connected by 3 degrees to Stalin and Churchill, by 2(?) to Franklin D Roosevelt (numbers are not my strong point)

My late Granny was in the ATS during WWII, her company was inspected by Eleanor Roosevelt on their parade ground. Apparently she refused an umbrella as all the young women who'd been waiting for her (for ages) had gotten soaked by the rain - she thought it discourteous to then meet them under a brolly.
 
JudgeNutmeg said:
i own a charcoal drawing of olly the octopus which my nan had rolf harris do for me when he was doing a show here years ago(unfortunately he didn't sign it)
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With the benefit of hindsight, the Judge didn't lose out on much by not having the picture signed...
 
The only links I can think of are that my oldest daughter went to school with Dana Carvey's niece, and her father (Dana's brother) coached their track team. I am somehow related to a famous sculptor, the only reason I knew he was famous is that there was a girl at school who spent most of her time bragging about the famous and rich people she knew, and when she bragged about meeting the sculptor I was able to finally shut her up by honestly saying "he was at our house for Christmas. He is related to my mother." Everyone else in the group laughed and she never dropped another name because she knew I was telling the truth.
 
My Mum tells me that my late Dad met Princess Diana on 2 occasions.
However, he didn't remember much about it, because on the first occasion, he was unconscious in a recovery room after heart surgery in Brompton hospital. The second occasion was later on, when he was just waking up (she'd decided to come back to say hello). His recollection was hazy as he didn't see or hear much, being a tad woozy. Apparently, that was the day for a Royal trip out to visit the Brompton. My Dad's surgeon was showing the Royal party round.
 
In the 60s my Mother worked for the English film director/actor David Greene who moved to America and then Canada where he made mainly television films and miniseries. He had been an actor in a few films, one of which was The Wooden Horse (1950). While he was living in Connecticut my Mother met the actress Angela Lansbury when she came round one day.
 
I can do Hitler in four--ugh. 1. Mom was a school chum of Liz Sutherland, married name Liz Carpenter. 2. Liz was a pal to several TX liberals, which included Molly Ivins. . . 3. who did fun stuff with Decca Mitford. . .4. whose sister, Unity, had a warm relationship with. . .ugh
 
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