Whoopi: 'Ma, Don't Freak Out. But, Yes, This Is Marlon Brando'

I would love to say something smart and witty but all I can come up with is geez I envy you all. Brando would have topped it but they all seem like a once in a lifetime experience.

Oh, jeese, I’m freaking and wasn’t there and he’s dead. What a terrific man and what a terrific story. He just had to come and see who Ms. Thang was herself. I heard a story that he and Jackie Kennedy, when she still lived in Georgetown after JFK’s death, went to a dark Georgetown restaurant/bar….got a little hot and tipsy and slid down on the banquette and necked. Who knows if it’s true but like the image!

Cool story Whoopie, made me smile, thank you. Your mother sounds like my mother, a peach.

I just watched Gorilla’s in the Mist for the first time, and lo and behold dian fossey tortured some poachers. She pretended she was going to hang them, and she even kicked the stools out from under them - but the ropes weren’t tied. (Would it be OK to waterboard a poacher for a few seconds to save an entire band of gorillas?)

Whoopi that is the wildest story, and Liz’s and Lesley’s. Mine is: I shook the hand of a man who shook hands with Adolph Hitler. He was a retired professor of economics who had visited Germany while a Rhodes Scholar. He told me about the strangeness of that encounter and how interested Hitler was in knowing what the British were thinking and saying about him. That makes me 2 degrees of separation from Hitler!

Amazing stories, all. I’m jealous, teee heee!

That story is one of the many reasons you are my idol Whoop. I don’t have an agent but maybe someday someone will call my house and say …Whoopi Goldberg wants to meet you….LOL…you are the best Whoop love ya by the way thanks for the pic.

You would not think that an old antique shop owner in a small NC town would have a celeb story but I have one I cherish a lot.
Perry Como and his wife Roselle used to come in our mini mall and have a lunch with their friends. One day Perry came into our shop and talked a bit with us. I quickly told him that he sang at our wedding (tape of course). Then he left and immediately returned saying : “Roselle wants to know if I got paid for this performance at your wedding. ”
I said “No, I am late with that” and immediately handed him one of my husband’s paintings.
He refused to accept it over and over again but finally went out with it.
Next day, both Roselle and Perry came back to say thank you to us.
Whenever he was in for lunch he would put his head in the door and say “hello”.
I am still giddy thinking about these moments.

The closest celebrity story I have is about Charlton Heston. When he died recently, I pulled out pictures taken in the summer of 1954 when he was filming the movie “Far Horizons in Jackson Hole Country. It was after my freshman year in college and I was working at a “ranch” - cabins, restaurant, Horse back riding, etc and when we waitresses were off work, we would sneak on the movie sets. We told some of the cast and crew about a “hot pool” at our ranch - hot springs, and cooled with moutain streams. One night Charlton Heston and some of the crew showed up at the restaurant…ate dinner there…and wanted us to take them to the Hot Pool. We did, and were very shocked to find that they “skinny dipped”. It really was too dark to see anything…only moonlight and car headlights to find our way to the pool. We gals kept our swimsuits on, and we had a fun evening. My daughter loved to shock her friends by telling them that her mom went “skinny dipping” with Charlton Heston…..and sometimes the story said “Moses”.

Marlon Brando at the piano. Now, that’s a Wow moment!!

Thanks for these stories, ladies. Glorious, but I did like Joan’s best.

I’m so glad you got to have that Dian Fossey moment Leslie. Never would have happened if not for Dian as the mountain gorillas would be extinct by now. The fact that this still might happen is simply unthinkable.

Wow. Yes, the surreal moments in our lives. Thank you all for sharing them. I do have a question for Leslie.
How have you used that moment of communication to improve your own skills as a journalist? What is the gift she gave you?