Gigi's Meeting with MacGyver

By Gigi

When I was twenty years old, I experienced the most thrilling celebrity encounter I knew I'd ever have. I met Richard Dean Anderson -- MacGyver himself -- and personally handed him a copy of the MacGyver movie I filmed at age seventeen.

I wrote about the details of the movie itself here, a project I wrote, directed, and starred in with my best friend one summer during high school. We were so sad that our favorite TV show was ending, so for a summer project we put our high school theater tools to good use and made a continuation of the series ourselves, set in the mountains outside of Los Angeles and full of MacGyver-isms.

 Yup, that's our MacGyver Movie, "The Rescue of Mac and Sam," in his hand.

Here's the interesting thing about that experience: Once I gave MacGyver -- er, Richard Dean Anderson -- that VHS tape with my homemade cover, my childhood desire to meet celebrities was over.

Growing up outside of Los Angeles, I had plenty of opportunities as a teenager to attend concerts, music video shoots, Jay Leno episode tapings, etc. It was interesting at the time, and I do think it's cool that I've had my photo taken with my favorite rock stars -- which, to be fair, is much easier to do when your favorite bands are the not-quite-superstars Toad the Wet Sprocket and Teenage Fanclub -- but once I gave my movie to the man I thought of as MacGyver, my childhood hero, what else did I need?

As it turned out, not a whole lot. I never even learned if Richard Dean Anderson watched our little movie (he was wonderfully gracious when he accepted it) but it wasn't really about him; it was about me and my friend doing something meaningful for us. I continued to be enamored with writing screenplays, but I lost my fascination with celebrities. Sure, I'm still going to click on The Daily Dish on the San Francisco Chronicle website, but I was done standing in line to meet someone famous.

At least, I thought I was over it. Fast forward a dozen years, when I started attending mystery writer's conferences. At a convention last year, I saw Aaron Elkins on the attendee list. If you're not familiar with Aaron Elkins, he writes an amazing forensic anthropology mystery series featuring "skeleton detective" Gideon Oliver. I love these books. I've loved them since I was a kid. I knew that if I met Aaron Elkins at the convention, I would completely freak out.

It turned out he had to cancel, so I never learned if I would have freaked out in his presence or not. When I thought about my reaction to this near-encounter with a minor celebrity, I realized there were a few more authors who I'd probably become either speechless or a babbling idiot in front of -- and they're all writers who made a great impact on me when I was a kid.

I've discovered some great authors as an adult, as well, but I don't have the same gut reaction when I think of them. They're people who write amazing books, who I'd be happy to meet and tell them how much I love their books, but I doubt I'd be tongue-tied around them.

Is there something magical about the celebrities we latch onto as we're growing into ourselves? Whatever it is, I hope you'll forgive me if you run into me at a mystery writer's convention and I'm a babbling idiot because I've just spotted Aaron Elkins.