Firstly. A big thank you to all of you for putting up with the server problems that accompanied the arrival of my first blog essay, or blessay as I quite horribly prefer to call it. I thank you all for your suggestions, tips, links and comments. I can’t reply to all the points raised, but I will say that (A) the Nokia E series iSync plugin just simply doesn’t work for me, nor do any third party offerings. “Unexpected error”. I shall wait till Missing Sync come up with their solution which is due soon and (B) no, I don’t want my iPhone hacked or cracked, thanks very much for the offer. We may return to the geeky side of my life a little later.
This blessay, while entirely different in other respects, is also unaccountably and inexcusably prolix. Sorry about that, I don’t seem to be able to keep things brief. So my advice is that you read it in bits. Or print it out and save it for a rainy day or a recalcitrant motion.
I will try to produce more traditional ‘dear diary’ style down-and-dirty blogs if that’s what you would prefer, but I advise you to be prepared to expect a mixture of the long and the short.
My subject this week is Fame….
Let Fame, that all hunt after in their lives, Live registered upon our brazen tombs…
I have been pondering this business of fame since I was young enough to know Valerie Singleton from the Queen (for Americans and other non-Britons I should explain: one is a remote, god-like, autocratic woman endowed with powerful charismatic charm and the other is a constitutional monarch recently played on screen by Helen Mirren).
Some questions will be addressed in the following blessay:
· Is fame really something that “all hunt after in their lives”? · Whose fault is fame? · Can we postulate a kind of fame meme? · What’s it like being famous, Stephen? · What are the bad things about being famous?
The quotation I opened with is so firmly branded on my memory that I have no need to check it: it’s from the beginning of Love’s Labour’s Lost. When I was in a student production nearly 30 years ago Hugh Laurie played the King of Navarre and was incapable of delivering those opening lines without giggling; what set him off was catching the eye of Paul Schlesinger, who played Berowne. This happens on stage; I remember having a similar problem with John Gordon Sinclair – the only way we could get through some scenes of The Common Pursuit was by looking away from each other. It’s a chemical thing, like a kind of (mostly) benign allergy, impossible to explain or predict. Anyway, Hugh Laurie had the affliction big time with Paul Schlesinger. So much so that the harassed director, Brigid Larmour, was forced to get the entire company of attendant lords to intone the opening speech tutti, as a kind of chant or oath, to draw attention away from the corpsing. Brigid Larmour is now artistic director of the Watford Theatre, Paul Schlesinger is the head of BBC Radio Entertainment and Hugh Laurie has disappeared into oblivion. How the whirligig of time brings in its revenges. I played Don Armado incidentally, a character with the best description in any of the Shakespearean dramatic personae: he is “Don Armado, a fantastical Spaniard”. Only I was Don Armado, a fantastical Mexican because … oh, it’s another story altogether.
Intro For the duration of much of what follows it might be a good idea if you cast yourself as famous. Much of success in life comes from being able to put yourself in the shoes of another: in the shoes of a prince or a pauper, a dictator or a dick-head, a burgomaster or a burger-flipper, regardless of degree, status or esteem, it’s what imagination means – the ability to penetrate the consciousness and experience of another. It’s perhaps the defining characteristic of the artist. So, rather than look at fame from the outside which we can all do (only members of a royal family are born famous after all) try in the following paragraphs to look at fame from the inside. I’m not suggesting this because I think famous people need especial understanding or sympathy, it’s just that I suspect much of what’s written below will make more sense that way. Besides, isn’t it the best way to read anything? Only resentful bores and bitter egoists see everything from their own point of view, surely?
Thank you for the splendid blessays Mr. Fry. I came to see you talk about ‘An Ode less travelled’ in London and you signed my book afterwards. I wanted to say all sorts of things to you but only managed ‘Thanks then. Well done’. It was like bumping in to an old friend who had no recollection of me at all, which is of course ridiculous. All I wanted to say was that I like you very much and so much enjoy the things you do and how you do them. Please keep doing them for the foreseeable future.
Alethea x
Yes, okay, sure. But what’s it ‘like’ being a bat then?
Please do not write shorter blessays! I wouldn’t bear it.
I need to say( I actually say this every time I read your writings, only this time you might know so)that you are an exceptional writer.
Keep writing, keep being you. Thank you.
Mr. Fry, love your work. I’ve seen the documentary you did and found it fascinating. You’re very brave! Well done man
Dear Stephen,
Unfortunately, your fame was explored in the Belfast Telegraph yesterday in the most negative terms. A columnist by the name of Kevin Myers seems to think that your popularity is symptomatic of a general cowardice in society about standing up for old-fashioned (heterosexual) values. I’ve tried to find it online, to send a link, but no joy. The language used is extraordinary – especially when discussing the mechanics of gay sex. If you are unable to track it down, let me know and I will post a hard copy.
Yours,
John McGagh
http://chocolatesandwich.blogspot.com
Derren Brown covers the strange world of being famous in his sublime ‘Tricks of the Mind’. It must be a very odd thing to be the same person in your own thoughts and interactions with others as you’ve always been but to have your normal day constantly punctuated by a different kind of attention that no-other lines of profession impart.
About 5 years ago now I saw in the local paper that a bass player and drummer who once worked with the jazz guitarist Allan Holdsworth where playing at a theatre up in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Being a big Holdsworth fan I jumped in the car and took part in that greatest of pleasures for any musician – to go and watch someone else get up there and play for a change.
I thoroughly enjoyed the show and thought it only polite to tell the guys as much afterwards. Only, at the stage door, also waiting with me, legions of fans with T-Shirts and posters to be signed and hand knitted gifts for the group, began to make me feel unwashed. It was a most unusual thing, as I had no idea that this was “that sort of group”.
More curious to learn about them I started talking to some attendees, in the pissing down North East rain and to my amazement I found that these guys where bona-fide pop stars, with a fan club and a huge worldwide following.
To me, they where just great players who’d done a great recording with a sublime guitarist – but here I am presented with a weight of evidence that in fact they where slebs – a word I can’t imagine I’ll leave in this before clicking ‘send’ because the squiggly red line is taunting me already.
So anyway, the majority of the crowd thinned somewhat when the heavens really opened and a succession of surly roadies assured us that the lads had started on the bar and probably wouldn’t be out any time soon and that we wouldn’t want to be in the way when those Clare Brothers Arc wedges started rolling out two by two.
Eventually, however, the said pop stars did emerge. I stood back and let the fawning commence. Plectrums where exchanged, drum sticks where picture posed with, felt pen was daubed across exciting 80′s LP sleeve designs.
It was now my turn to ask about Allan Holdsworth. The look of relief on Mark King’s face was obviously a great boost to him. To finally be asked about music, rather than, “Do your thumbs hurt” or “Are you the fastest bass player in the world” from yet another fuckwhit. I explained to him that I’d been amazed to find out from the now dispersed crowd of fans that Level 42 had been a huge band during the era I thought I’d been paying attention to such things.
The reason I recount this here is that this reminded me, as did other encounters with Slebs (I’ve done it again, so I’ll just have to add it to the Dictionary) that in my line of work at various recording studios, where you only find out once someone has left the room that you recognise their face because you’re going home to watch them in EastEnders, that fame and talent are two completely different things, but you can’t get to where your line of work ultimately takes you, if you happen to be a particularly ambitious actor for example, without having to accept that it comes at the price of being involved in a world you could certainly do without.
I look at the headlines in the puke papers, splashing Princess Diana’s name all over the place, yet-a-fucking-gain and wonder how long it’ll be before the folkefest realise that even thinking about saying the “What’s Allan Davies really like..” line is just as ridiculous as asking your butcher if that cleaver really is sharp, and it says a lot more about their selfish need to be thought of as important that it does what they’re being unwittingly programmed into thinking it does, often by the very media machine they like to tell themselves they have a healthy cynicism of.
The, “You’ll never guess who I had in the back of my cab the other day” brigade are really saying “I have been elevated beyond the mundane, if only briefly, because I projected myself on to that Jonathan Ross the other day and he was a rude twat who didn’t tip, therefore I am better than him.”
The call and response, wilful acts of non-thinking which pollute the collective mind-set of our nations are quite extraordinarily unique to our times. I wonder where it will lead?
Tonight on Sky One, Sharon Buxomtart interviews Numa Numa boy about the 40th anniversary of his 10 millionth page view and talks frankly with certifiable ex-sports readerouter David Ike, who’s latest book on the Bilderberg group landed him a spell in Guantanamo Bay.
Quote from Thomas Hardy seemed apropos:
“Everybody is so talented nowadays that the only people I care to honor as deserving real distinction are those who remain in obscurity. ”
Slight difference nowadays is that we seem to honor fame itself rather than talent. I guess we have degenerated.
This is an oasis in the blogosphere. A “bloasis”? That sounds like a disease.
Thank you and please don’t stop!
I love reading things you write because it’s like talking to you, and your books are like friends. Thankyou lovely man.
I will join the others in asking that you not shorten the length of your blessays.
I will say that I have never wanted to be famous, for many of the reasons that you have discussed. I have never seen anyone that I would love to go up and talk to, as I am in America but most of the actors that I follow are British, so I have never really considered how I would react if I met someone, like yourself, that I admire. While reading your blessay I came to realize that I would likely have responded in the typical unoriginal style. If I should ever come across anyone famous, I now have an idea of things to avoid and things to consider. Thank you.
Mr. Fry, could you tell Mr. Laurie I say “hi.”
Just joking. The blessay on fame gave an intriguing perspective. I admire your work, and pass the pheme-nomenon of the “Stephen Fry enigma” to others. Namely, I tell them–”you know that goofy General bastard on Blackadder? Well, he’s actually pretty smart, witty, and played Oscar Wilde.”
And, since my friends are functionally illiterate, they say, “Who’s Oscar Wilde?”
I am looking forward to your future projects–hey, how about you play an American oh, say, Doct–Lawyer, who solves complex legal dilemmas with a crack team of law student apostles?
I think it would work.
Mr. Fry,
I have just finished watching your documentary on manic depression. I wonder if you are receiving treatment. FWIW: I am going to give you some Jewish-motherly advice. Please consider at least the cognitive therapy. Most people don’t think of their thoughts as behavior. Thoughts are interior behavior. You can modify your thoughts just like you can modify your beahvior. And your thoughts do most certainly affect your mood. Now to what degree this will help, I don’t know, but it will do something. When you are continually calling yourself a “cunt” and “worthless” you are in effect hypnotising yourself. And I know that people can work themselves into a depressed state by doing this. How this ties into mania, I’m not as sure , since I am not a psychologist.
In the grip of a major depression, controlling your thoughts is probably difficult because by then you have lost control. So start practising it, with the help of a therapist, when you are not completely manic or depressed.
You need to do this. Your talent is not tied to your illness. Many less talented people than you suffer from this. And many talented people do not. Thinking that you have to remain bi-polar in order to be creative or production is really nonsense. You need to be healthy to be productive. Period.
I hope you try cognitive therapy. It has alot in common with meditation techniques. I know Buddhists practice controlling their minds. They use the metaphor of a rampaging elephant to describe a mind gone wild. And a calm elephant with his trunk down represents the pacified, serene, peaceful mind — not a sedated and dull mind. This peacefulness brings clarity, so it can help creativity.
You are great.Thank you for this program. It has helped me understand a few things.
Sincerely,
Davanna Kilgore
Palm Harbor, Florida
As an ex pat in living and working in Florida, People ask me what I miss most about England.
Sentences.
I love words. Big words. Small words. They have words here. Ive seen them. Ive filled in the missing words on forms. Ive used single words in a blessing while driving.
However, words, big and small, juxtaposed to make sentences of enriching descriptions….ah…..that I miss.
More than I thought possible.
Thank you Mr Fry.
Thank you, what a fascinating blessay, thoughtful and insightful and I enjoyed it greatly, it set a lot of thoughts going about our (the non-famous public) response to fame.
From the point of view of a very non-famous person, I have long thought that meeting a famous person in itself wouldn’t leave me star struck, it would be what they were famous for that would do that, and now I think about it, perhaps the context as well! If I were to meet a footballer for football training I would feel woefully inadequate and be unable to function even to my usual low sporting standard. If I met him and had to make conversation I would have no problem, simply because I don’t start from the position of expecting him to be a thousand times better at it than me.
On the other hand, the only person I ever said I would be star struck by is one Stephen Fry, trying to hold a conversation with a conversational olympian would leave me as inadequate as trying to do a quick warm up with the England football team.
(I would probably bring up a tenuous link – comment on how annoying that must be and scuttle away hastily feeling very stupid and kick myself.)
Something else which this super blessay made me think of is the way someone who is famous in their own right might feel when out with someone else who is recognised while they are ignored. If they were once famous and that has waned, this must be a double injury. A friend did this once in a restaurant where two famous people were dining, and after admitting to me that he hadn’t at first realised, I felt compelled to also disturb their meal to say hello to them both!
Then there is also the affect it might have on someone to be a close relative of someone famous. Imagine being someone who consistently finds that the thing people find most interesting about them, is that they are related to someone else. I know someone like this, it’s something people comment on and some will say they are reminded of someone and he has to admit who it is in order to get past the “do I know you from somewhere†stage.
So, thank you again for most interesting thoughts, and thank you also for making use of the opportunity fame gives you to entertain and to educate.
We the babbling public must be immensely annoying at times but forgive those moments when surprise and delight strangle all conversational wit leaving us with opening lines such as “what are you doing here†when what we mean is “wow, what are you doing in the small and unimportant sphere of my lifeâ€. And forgive what has almost turned into a blog back at you! For me whose first rule of seeing a famous person is that I won’t even try to intrude enough say hello unless I can at least remember their name and am sure enough not to have to ask if it is indeed them this is quite uncharacteristic. But I expect they all say that….
Dear Mr Fry, so glad you decided to start a bl-g. Do write about whatever you like, at whatever length. You and your work (on paper and on screen) have cheered me immensely at a time when cheer was scarce indeed. So thank you, and if we ever do meet, I will remember to be brief and acknowledge your friend or sweetie or whomever. Cheers.
Dear Mr. Fry, thank you very much for all, especially for your books! Sorry, I don’t speak English very well. But your creation give me powerful stimulus to studing English!
[...] an interesting glimpse behind the other side of the lens, check out this weeks blog post from the ever wonderful Stephen [...]
I have really enjoyed reading what everyone else has said (just as much as the original post actually), some really interesting insights, as well as some very touching stories. It is really quite heart-warming:).
Firstly: Thank you for a million memories
Secondly: I will resist any urge to ask stupid questions if I’m ever in your presence again….or say ‘it’s you isn’t it???’
Lastly: You were ‘most interested’ in a film script I sent you a few years ago, but were busy with ‘Bright Young Things’. Would you like me to send it to you again? Your agents have not replied to my (polite) email.
Best regards
Christy xx
I should be revising for an exam. Far more interesting to punt off some more thoughts. So, I wondered…
Why do we feel a desire (hopefully tempered by common sense as to whether it is an appropriate moment!) to say ‘hello’ to the celeb trying to go about their business?
Is it perhaps because we are programmed to need two way conversation. It is essential to the human condition and fame being one way frustrates that? Is that why we are all busily typing into a little box on a computer screen?
And: WHY is it not good enough that 100 or 1000 other people have said “hi. I think you’re great, and my girlfriend’s mother’s best friend cut your hair once. Years ago. You probably wouldn’t remember…” ?
Well as fans they may be pretty much the same, but beyond fanhood each is an individual as unique as the celeb. Your chosen celeb has heard “I think you’re great” but they haven’t heard it from _you_ the person behind the sentiment.
PS – Someone asked me “what are you doing here” yesterday. Just because I was outside a different building to the one I work in. I just grinned.
Thanks for writing such an thought provoking entry, years back I had an idea for a novel based on fame and possibility of becoming ‘unfamous’. Still not got round to starting it.
You might find this book I found an interesting read:
Illusions of Immortality, a psychology of fame and celebrity by David Giles.
(ISBN: 0333754506)
Sounds dull as a dull thing on a very dull day but, well, isn’t!
Richard, London
This is a very interesting perspective about fame. Yes, we are all here because Stephen Fry is famous but judging by most of the comments, we aren’t all fawning all over him, begging him tell us what he had for breakfast. Good blogging is good blogging, no matter who wrote it!
But there are people like myself who just don’t really care about famous people that much. I don’t read gossip mags, I have better things to spend my money on–and how much of the tosh written in them is actually true. I would probably get a little giddy at meeting someone I admire (eg Bono) and get totally tongue-tied but honestly, I probably wouldn’t really care if I met someone ‘just because that person was famous’ and that includes Royalty. At the end of the day, they are average people who have to brush their teeth in the morning just like the rest of us. My attitude towards any person is if they’re nice to me I’ll be nice to them and be more inclined to want to be friends with them. I have never obsessed about any ‘sleb’ but I have friends who do. I have one friend who literally worships Tori Amos–she has almost become his religion. Which might be another point to explore…is it because of the decline of organised religion that some people find they must devote themselves to football teams or one particular celebrity? Is it a genetic leaning or personality trait that makes one person obsessed with a famous person while another can just walk away and not be bothered?
I think that there should be some kind of fame school really, because you see these people long to be famous and then when they are they don’t like the attention! I would like to be – in as much as recognised for the writing – but I don’t think I’d like the “Halp, I’m in ur Tescos and I can’t move for paparazzi.”
Excellent blessay, full of points that – as ever – make me think again about the subject.
If I know I’m about to meet somebody famous (that is, I’m at a signing or somesuch as opposed to bumping into them on the street) I sort of brace for it. It is nerve wracking. Sometimes I have something I want to ask, and I figure out _exactly_ what I’m going to say to them. if I don’t I’ll never get the damned question out.
I’m by no means famous, but I do sing semi-professionally, and I do have people come up to me after a performance and complement me. Eventually my stock response became, “Thanks, I appreciate it.” John Cleese has it right.
Three “brush with fame” stories:
1) Douglas Adams came to my college for a signing of his book “Last Chance to See”. I walked up, shook his hand, “nice to meet you”ed, and then The Question:
“Did you have anything to do with Black Adder?”
He cracked a grin and said “No, but they’re all friends of mine.”
Just thought you might like that one.
2) My brother was in London in the late 80s. He walked into a bar (sorry… “pub”) and there at the bar was the instimable Tom Baker, having a drink. My brother walked up to him and said “Excuse me, but aren’t you Doctor Who?”
Mr. Baker turned to him and replied “Welllll., I’m not _really_ Doctor Who…” When my brother then asked him for an autograph, Baker produced a briefcase, which proved to be full of photos of himself, pulled out a photo, and signed it.
3) I once walked up to a bar in New York and discovered that i was standing within arms reach of Frank Sinatra. This was 1992. I didn’t say anything to him — I just enjoyed the company and let the man enjoy his drink. He walked out couple minutes later.
Stephen, I’ve been a big fan of yours (and Hugh Laurie’s) ever since I discovered Blackadder on PBS in the late 80s. I was thrilled when I heard Hugh was going to be starring in a show in the USA, while everyone around me was saying “Who?” So when are you going to start milking him for connections so you can get your own Hit American Show?
At least you can do a guest turn on House, right?
Uuuh… has he stopped writing now? I’m a gadget freak myself, and I loved the first entry — so well-written, with such technical insight! So I came back, day after day, craving for more. The second entry was a big surprise, but none the less interesting, thought-provoking — and again so well-written! So now I keep coming back every day to check for more… But there is no more…
Dear Mr. Fry, I hope that you’re not suffering from writer’s block or performance anxiety (which would be quite natural, considering the high expectations among your audience now). But I can assure you that you could write a blessay about how you wash your socks or change the battery in a smart phone, and your readers would still be thrilled. Such literary talent, deep thoughts and exquisite command of the English language are rare in the blogosphere. Reading your texts is pure pleasure. Please, give us more!
(Pause. Thinking hard.)
On second thought: how much can we demand from you? Are you Superman or what? Suddenly I feel like a parasite, always begging and craving and demanding more, more, more, never happy with what you’ve so generously given us all sofar.
Is that what it’s like to be a fan? Is that what it’s like to be the target of people’s admiration? In that case I apologize for my thoughtlessness and withdraw my plea for more blessays. Write when you feel like it. Don’t let people like me get to you. Take it easy. Take your time. Take care.
((And please forgive me for battering your beautiful mother tongue — unfortunately, English is not my first language, it’s not even my second…))
I’ve returned to say, “please write another ‘blessay’ Stephen”, and ask that you might consider musing on the subject of music, or literature, or religion next time. However, I’d be just as happy if you were to write about what you had for breakfast; I’m simply eager to read what you have to say because, in these intellectually lean times you are one of the few people to give human life some meaning.
Furthermore, if you should want to style yourself as the head of a new cult in the near future, I’d gladly swell your ranks (innuendo very much intended this time); all the better to annoy certain small-minded individuals (see above post on negative comments made by a journalist) who are intent on peddling the views of a 2000 year old book. Would we still follow the instructions of medical advice written that long ago? Do we still believe that the Earth is flat? Why, oh why then do people still cling on to views that were introduced to society via the most ancient texts? For the record, I’m a (loosely based) Christian myself, but in the words of Eric Idle, I believe that Jesus Christ was a Buddhist.
Moving on, I wonder if your attitude to book signings or appearances of that nature would change if you were to discover that most ‘sleb’ signings are now conducted camera-free, i.e. photos are allowed from afar, but there is no flash photography and no people able to pose with you. Have you really sworn off those types of public appearances forevermore?
Lastly, on the subject of the word ‘sleb’, did you coin it, or (like with all good literature) borrow it? As, since I read your blessay last week, I’ve seen the word repeated in the media no less than three times, by three separate publications; I’d patent it if I were you.
May God (or whatever non-specific, non-existent deity) bless you, for you are a true prince in a sea of evolutionary regressives, and we love you for that.
Astoundingly written and thank you so much for saying how dreadfully awful it is to be the companion to a shleb. Yes, it is. Been there. Too many times. One feels as if one is not only a bug, but a bug on the bottom of a shoe.
Living as a resident alien (particularly an American one, god only knows why) in China brings it own, strange sort of fame. Everywhere I go, everybody stares. I’m instantly recognizable by my skin, hair, clothing, and (in summer) my tattoos. Complete strangers come up to me on the street (or at the market, or in a restaurant) and start conversations with me, hoping to practice their English. People comment to me how powerful my country is compared to theirs (as if some of that were magically passed on to me, a lowly college student and general fuck-up), and I’m always at a loss for a proper response. Is it “thank you?” Or do I return with a compliment on China’s rapid commercial development? *I* certainly didn’t make the ‘States a rich and powerful nation (in fact my ancestors were Italian anarchists and Quakers), but everyone treats me like an important diplomat and flatters the hell out of me everywhere I go (the plus side of this being the generosity with which people will go out of their way to make sure I have everything I need in a highly contextual and extremely confusing culture). But tourist places in China are the worst. I get stopped for photographs constantly and often I notice video cameras following me as I walk down the street. And camera phones! Those damn things are everywhere! How many times have I had one stuck in my face while eating–not really one of those times you want your photograph taken.
I’ve never intended to be famous, or even noticeable, and it took me awhile to get used to so much attention. Still, I have days when my response to a camera phone is a rude gesture, and when the dreaded random conversation starts on a bus, I usually count the minutes ’til my stop. It can be fraying to the nerves sometimes, and there are days when I hide in my apartment because I’m too cranky to smile at every other person who walks down the street and shouts “hello”.
On the fan side of things, I’ve only met one celebrity, Paul Simon, but he was dining with his mother at the time and I didn’t think it was right to go impose myself on them, so I contented myself with a few moments of staring and thinking to myself: “Gosh, he’s gotten old!”
I loved both entries and have nothing especially witty or useful to add to the hundreds of preceding comments, nor do I have any acquaintance or anecdote tenuously connected to your life to mention. My new mouse and I just want to thank you and any other involved parties for implementing the more concise layout for each entry.
I’m looking forward to more blogging, books, tv shows, films, and whatever else you choose to do.
Stephen, I’m enjoying your blog very much (all three posts appeared at once from the RSS feed).
I very much appreciate your suggestion to exercise empathy – we could all benefit from doing that more often.
I’ve only once been a ‘fan’ of a celebrity. I was (and remain) rather embarrassed about it. I went to the extent of hanging about outside a cinema to see the person arrive for a film premiere. I got an autograph (having promised myself I wouldn’t). I took photographs with my mobile phone. I had brought a gift, even though I knew, logically, that it was a ridiculous thing to do. (I did not, in the event, offer it, thank goodness.) I had all the delusions of being that ‘special’ fan that you speak about, and even though I knew them for delusions they persisted. I felt humiliated, dirty and disgusted with myself afterwards, and decided to do nothing even remotely like that again.
Now if I pass a celebrity in the street, I treat them the same way I do everyone else – make eye contact and smile.
[...] comedian, author, and sex machine Stephen Fry blogs at absurd length about fame. If you find the time to read it, please give me the [...]
A friend of mine got to meet his hero backstage and found him in his shirt, boxers and socks. My friend, who is neither fashionista nor fetishist, was wholly disappointed by his icon’s choice of socks. Never meet your heroes.
Great post, and a surprising weight of response.
I noticed a few gulps while reading the blessay. I could easily have approached you in exactly that cap-in-hand “you must find it terribly annoying” fashion.
My few brushes with genuine fame have been interesting and I think I have fared pretty well overall.
I was on Old Compton Street many years ago, hung over on a Sunday. A familiar face walked past so I smiled and said hello, and put my hand out. My hand was shaken and he said “how ARE you?” whilst knowing he’d know my face in just a second, as I had approached with such confidence I obviously knew him. We chatted for 30 seconds and I walked off. I was 100 yards down the road when my mind supplied his name – Clive Anderson. I’d seen him on TV recently. I was mortified, but I guess no harm was done.
The second time I met Belinda Carlisle backstage after a concert in London and went into utter shameful awe. To force myself from being catatonic, I opened my mouth and became a Satanic Nun, babbling everything that entered my head, and peppering her with questions, and she graciously ignored me but did allow me to get a photo with her, which was sweet of her and is still treasured.
Finally, some years ago I was sitting on a tube opposite Phyllida Law, and I decided to play it discreetly. As I left the train, I bent down and said “Miss Law, I thought you were very good in Peter’s Friends”. She said thank you as I got off the train and we exchanged a smile. That’s the way I would try to do it in the future. Unless caught off guard of course, or hung over!
JamieX
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Hello, Mr. Fry!
I have a possible solution for your Photo/Recording woes:
Have a technical person come with you who will take the pictures, record them, etc. and make sure that when they get to you they just have to stand for the photo and say the magic words.
This tech person would talk to the next person in line and take their camera/recording device, etc. and make sure the flash is on/off, that etc. They will make sure the line you should record is known in advance. This will make it quick for you and less awkward.
Actually, for the recordings, you could just put up a site with the commonly requested ones and hand out a leaflet or something.
I’m not sure how big a deal saying ‘hi’ to someone on the phone is. You could refuse to pick up the phone ensuring you don’t end up with conversations with people you don’t know.
I suppose I’m suggesting this because I’m shy and a book signing, etc. is a good way to actually meet someone I’m fan of.
I’ll tell you story:
I went to a Michael Moorcock book signing. He was very interesting and very nice. I told him I really liked his books and that I had a ton of the Elric books but they have all disappeared from my Mom’s house when I went to college. I think they got thrown out. I bought a couple from him right there plus the few I had re-purchased; he signed them all.
He asked for my mailing address and sold me an extra from his and his wifes stash in the back of their car.
A couple months later I got this large heavy box in the mail. It was a box of Elric books (and more!) from Michael Moorcock; all signed to me. With the books was a note saying he was sorry I lost the books and here were some. He asked for no compensation, just a donation of suitable size to his favorite charity.
Take care, Mr. Fry!
Ciao!
I was quietly having my haircut in Exmouth Market last year when a taxi pulls up in front of it, with no other that you in it. That was very odd.
I’ve always felt that the best way to deal with famous people encountered in the street – a fairly common occurrence where I work – is the same sort of smile-and-raised eyebrows I use to greet coworkers when passing in a corridor. An acknowledgement without hassle. It conveys recognition and approval without hindering them in whatever they’re doing.
The one time I can remember doing something *other* than that was encountering Orlando Bloom in Soho. I went up, said hello, exchanged a few inanities then asked him to say hello to Corrinne for me, at which point he asked me who *I* thought he was and explained that no, he wasn’t my ex-coworker James, which was *excruciatingly* embarassing, especially as he was then caught by a couple of giggling teenagers who’d overheard…
This is quite simply my new favourite cause for procrastination.
Thank you Mr. Fry
What a pleasure to read. On many levels. Well two, I suppose.
I thought, as advised, I would only read in bite-size chunks but your wit and argument had me hooked.
I am a lifelong lover of all things Adams, Dougas that is.
I am aware of your friendship – and mean with the utmost respect to both you and he –
that in your shiniest moments of prose, you serve to remind me of the wonderful word smith himself. Planet Posker indeed.
On that other level, having enjoyed/endured/exfoliated with my own small measure of ‘being known’ (wouldn’t deign to use the f word)
I now intend to fend off ‘what’s it like’ questions by handing out cards that read (in big friendly letters of course)
“For an Explanation, see stephenfry.com”.
If it provokes responses of, “Who do you think you are? Think you’re as famous as Stephen f@*&in Fry! Dream on.”
Then I will smile, think of you, and go home with ego deflated but soul renewed.
Keep the blessays long and wonderful.
A Friend from the Emerald Isle.
Dear Stephen,
Re.Fame & Photography:
Have a Life Size photograph of yourself made into a cut-out silouette that can stand on it’s own. On book tours have it set up next to your book signing position. Anyone who would like a photograph with ‘you’ can stand next to it and an Assistant from the book store will use the customers cameras to photograph them with your image. As for Pro Photographers (like myself) take that image with you to the studio or possibly a shorter Portrait version that fits in your case. This way you can relax and allow the ‘weight’ of the session to fall on your cut-out representative: you could be photographed together or if up to it on your own.
Regards,
Keith Trumbo
A wonderful blessay, Stephen – you are always a joy to read. A couple of things come to mind. Once seeing the late George Harrison being interviewed about the miserable experience of working with Madonna on a dreadful film called ‘Shanghai Surprise’ – Madge and her then husband Sean Penn’s behaviour on set had been widely reported as less than perfect and George was asked what he thought of the couple. He said something like ‘He’s a nice guy…she’s just someone who thinks she’s famous’.
Don’t know quite what that says – just struck me as relevant. He the former Beatle one of the most famous people in the world saying of her probably the most photographed woman in the world (after Princess Diana) that she only ‘thinks’ she’s famous.
Best wishes Pete Kerry (llewscribe)
[...] Aren’t all celebs “short and kinda daft in person”? Perhaps not Stephen Fry. [...]
I chat to all sorts of (sleb and non-sleb) people and sometimes annoy them. But I generally want to say, I appreciate them. I don’t love or want to touch them – but meeting people whom we respect, is a very fulfilling act – even if it’s not for both parties. I couldn’t imagine what it’d be like being ‘hassled’ every day. I’d probably want to kill someone. The Beatles – they knew what it was like to be famous. That fall of George’s at the start of A Hard Day’s Night – he jumped straight up from it. Youth and fame – inexplicable yet complimentary.
A very interesting read, makes me feel slightly guilty about my ‘lust’ for fame =/ [although I grant you I do want to earn it, otherwise peopl scowl at you far more than if you try hard]
I must say the handful of ‘famous’ people I have met have been excellent and really nice to talk to, but these have only been at organised events, I’m not sure I’d now have the courage to approach someone in the street lol
Much love
xx
This was a very timely read for me. I’ve spent a lot of time recently thinking about fame and the desire for it. I once had that desire and I did achieve a very minor version of fame in my home nation. I quickly found that I really could not handle it and was lucky enough to be able to fade back into obscurity. But as a result, I know a great many people who’ve gone on to be household names, and – as you so rightly note – very few of them are necessarily very happy. Being a sleb does have its advantages, to be sure, but I find they are easily outweighed by the many negatives.
Oh, and if I may be so bold; “blog” and “post” are not interchangable words, just as newspaper and column or book and chapter aren’t. Some may want mroe down-and-dirty *posts* from you, but the blog is merely the framing page and content holder. Me, I quite enjoy the wordy and thought-out posts, but I’m certainly far from being representative of anything.
Mr Fry,
Your new found blogtasm has journeyed its way to me, english girlwoman relocated in Iceland, and received with glee. It was only a few months ago I had begun polluting my young Icelandic friends with the likes of a bit of Fry and Laurie. Being a blogger and one who is missing truly fantastic use of the english language (Icelanders do scarily well, but most not to the same degree that I crave) I am ecstatic to have your blessays to mull over.
I am one of those people who feel they like you regardless of personal interaction and it stems not from TV or film or somesuch but simply from your written description of how it feels to want to sing and not be able to do so. I have never heard anyone put it so and it stained my memory for a decade.
Please, blog away, I am enjoying it massively.
x Kitty
http://www.kittys-reykjavik.blogspot.com
Since my only experience of ‘slebs’ is avoiding a vomiting sean hughes in the edinburgh fest, and demanding that bill bailey tell my friends he was NOT bill bailey (which he very kindly did, what a nice man) I am well cheered to hear of horror fans far worse. On the other hand, your fame enabled my cousin to embrace being gay. As a monosyllabic hulk of a traumatised teenager in the 80s, he claims (now that he speaks) that you saved him. Living proof (at least on the telly) that he might fancy boys but that didnt mean he had to be one of the camp fey outrageously gay people in order to do so. In fact he could be intelligent! and still prefer lads… so since he’s the only one of my generation who’s married, thanks for that – twas a cracking do!
THE SURGERY
by Bruther Will
That catch yare eye as yew go in
Large red letters “No Smokin”,
Seems them fags got a lot o’tar in em.
Clog yare lungs, make a lot o’flem.
So oi sits down to wait me tarn,
Several others are in there as well,
You’ed think the way they look at yuh,
I’d cum tew dew ‘em some harm.
They sits there wi’ faces orl strait an glum, Daresay sum on’em are ill, else they woull’nt cum, Them ole gals in the corner, torkin in low tones About operations, an’harnias, an’broken bones.
Ole Garg hobble in wi’his sticks
Wi’owt him thuh sargery’s incomplete
Bin cummin’here now this larst twenty year
‘Yuh see doctor, it’s me poor ole feet’.
How menny toimes hev he said it
Thuh poor doctor must know it by heart
But he’ll greet im wi’a cheery word
An’say “Well Garg, yew haint fell apart”.
Oi on’y cum for a prescription
Thass reddy now, so Oi’ll go
Leavin sum on ‘em torkin about their ills
An’others clutchin’ them littl’ boxeso’ pills.
Got to this a little late but enjoying it nonetheless
Got to this a little late but enjoying it.
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antiques collectibles uk…