Anyone ever work for anybody famous?

Benjo75

Treehouser
Joined
Nov 8, 2016
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918
Location
Malvern, Arkansas
I got a call about 10 years ago to cut some trees at an isolated property. 800 acre ranch. Looked at the job and noticed pretty quick that this person had quite a bit of money. Was dealing with the wife. Turned out to be Jerry Van Dyke. He was on Coach, Yes Dear and several other sit coms. There's not a lot of well known people in this area so it was interesting to work for him. Went back a few more times in the last few years. He passed on about 2 years ago. Got hit head on coming back from LA from filming. Got on the county road headed to his house and got hit head on right at the gate at his driveway. He lived through the accident but was pretty bad for a couple years. Never recovered. Had a 15 acre pond in the middle of the woods people would water ski on. I didn't get to see him very much but he would ride around on that golf cart all over the place. They had a special place along a big creek where there was a couple of benches and some chairs. Very secluded. They took me down there to trim some lower limbs. He was a banjo player. Was on the Andy Griffith episode "The banjo playing deputy ". This is from Yes Dear.

 
Closest thing I have is doing some work on the Goetze property. He was the owner of Goetze caramel creams. Nice candy, but don't know how far it's traveled. I was working on a pond, but he was having an addition built on to his historic, and already huge house. It was made with historic stone, and the woodwork inside was all custom, and handbuilt. The carpenter pointed out the dental molding at the ceilings, and said it was all handbuilt. I think he said it took 7 pieces of wood to make a single "tooth" feature, and of course that goes all the way around the room. Handcut/polished Italian marble, and lots of other stuff waaaaay out of my pay grade. Really neat house, but the guy's old(might be dead now). Seemed like a lot of house, and a lot of addition for someone on the tail end of life.
 
Jerry was good! I've liked him since he did "My Mother the Car"

I wouldn't count bluegrass musicians as "famous" so no. I've played shows for some quite that were prominent though.
 
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Didn't find any previous posts about it. Had to look up Bill Frist. Heart and lung transplant surgeon turned politician. Bet he took a pay cut.
 
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I know what you mean about bluegrass not being famous. I've picked with some that have been my heroes for a long time. Most people haven't heard of them. Got to play on stage with Steve Day a couple years ago. Spent quite a bit of time with Dale Morris Jr too. He's about the best Western Swing fiddler I've ever met.
 
Dale Morris Jr

That had to be a treat!


Yeah, I've played with Mike Cleveland on his first paying gig (we gave him 2 $1oo bills and told him they were both fives :lol: ). Been hired for a set or two by Mac Wiseman, and Bill Grant & Delia Bell. Played in a couple different bands with Dana Cupp...that's all I recall off the top of my head.

Got offered to set in with blues man Larry McCray once but turned it down...to much fun listening.
 
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My first trip to SPBGMA in Nashville Michael Cleveland was in the room next to us. Watched them pick. Quite a show. Always liked Mac Wiseman.
 
We had this thread way back in the day. It's probably been deleted by now. I've done tree work for a bunch of the early Orlando Magic players including Shaq and Horace Grant. Also Pat Williams and John Gabriel. Also I worked for Arnold Palmer way way back when I was a teen.
 
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Yep...until friggin Covid hit, 9 years for He who shall remain nameless, I can't get back for my annual gig.
Probably lost it to the bloke I hired on to help after the 2019 hurricanes...sucks.
 
He who shall remain nameless, That is honorable Fi, BUT DO TELL! :/:. At least give us a good story.

I think I started the old thread many moons ago. We had trimmed some coconuts for an older Mrs. DuPont. Since then, we have landscaped a very small property for a younger Mr. Ford (cars). Never met him but his property manager is as nice as he can be. For the most part, both want the work done when they are not there.
We did maintenance for Mr. Stouffer, guy was always behind in his payments. We dropped him, I don’t have time to chase money every month. Years later, he called again and we would not even give him a quote.
We work through a lot of property managers, so who knows. Those three were easy to figure out, inquiring me wanted to know!

Benjo, great story.
 
Being in Delaware I have worked for three* different branches of the DuPont family. Irenee DuPont's estate, Granogue being the one whose property we've spent the most time on. Irenee was a eugenics freak and Nazi sympathizer; his kids are great and allow us to run the annual "Granogue Cross", - a cyclocross bicycle race around the trails in his lands, my wife was the middle school science teacher for his grandkids. (*The Johnson and Carpenter families are offshoots of the DuPonts).
Worked at one of the Gore family properties (GoreTex).
Also we had a crane removal a little over a year ago directly across from the entrance to Joe and Jill Biden's. (Theirs is the blue roofed home to the right of the ball fields at The Tatnall School, where my wife taught for 33 years. Our customer is the huge house directly north of the Biden place).

Working in LA had to sign a nondisclosure order saying I wouldn't mention on social media the pruning of Christina Aguilera's date palm tree...
 
..Suffice it to say the security cameras on the property are monitored in the US of A...and I know where they are :lol: (well probably not all of them)
 
We do work for a couple "local celebs" on a regular basis. Cool to talk to them but neither are even big enough to be anything special. "Jungle Jack" Hanna is one, we also do work at the Columbus zoo on the same work order.
 
Way back in my IT days in the 90's, I was sent out on a task for our department director in AT&T. It was shortly after the AT&T/Lucent/NCR split, and I had to go to his home. Guy's name was Frank Fiorina. While working on his home PC/network setup, we were visited numerous times by his wife, Carly (of Lucent/HP/POTUS run fame). Very pleeasant people, but I could hear from her phone calls in the background where she got her "reputation" from..... ;)
 
I liked her back when she ran for POTUS...she is still plowing political ground...this I just found from a June 2020 article about her...it seems she is able to follow her conscience and morals, not just a party:

She Wanted to Be a Republican President. She’s Voting for Biden.
The former Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina tells The Ticket that she plans to vote for Joe Biden.
 
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