Getting back to less serious matters...

I'm leaving the behind the scenes world of Star Wars for the moment (well, sort of) and retelling a story of my brush with the famous...Since Mission:Impossible III just opened, I felt it only fitting I discuss the time I spent with Tom.

Cruise, that is...

Now this was back when Tom wasn't jumping on couches and ranting to talk show hosts about the dangers of psychiatric drugs. No, this was the Tom of yesteryear-a charming and reserved man, happily married to his Australian bride and raising their two children. A simple family man.

It was late 1995. My Australian bride and I were driving along the streets of San Rafael one day and spotted a Delorean in the showroom of a car dealer. Now for those youngsters out there, the Delorean was not made for "Back to the Future"-it was built as serious competition to the Chevy Corvette and other high end sports cars. The company folded amid much controversy regarding shoddy business practice, drug-money laundering and entrapment-much too long to go into here. The "BTTF" movies hopped on the idea to utilize the car, utilizing it as a timely in-joke for it's day. We thought it looked cool, so we checked it out, expecting it to be very expensive. We were surprised at the price, however-we found out it there were about 8500 cars made, keeping it from becoming too much of a collector's item. If the "BTTF" movies hadn't used the car, it probably would've been a lot cheaper. So we took it for drive, talked about it...and bought it. A late 1981 model, similar to the one used in the first "BTTF".

I'm not what you call a car buff-I don't really care to work on them and I don't know intimate details about engines and that kind of stuff. I like sporty looking cars. This was really just purchased on a whim...

After buying the thing, I started researching the company and the history and became quite the local authority in all things Delorean-at least within our circle of friends. I also found out people either love the car or hate it...not to mention all the cocaine jokes you get to hear driving the thing around. It does get a lot of attention-even George stopped to talk to me about it one time on the streets of Marin County.

I'm getting close to the Tom Cruise part now.

So I'd drive it to the archives at Skywalker Ranch, as I was working as the archivist then. Occasionally, we'd hear if a big celebrity was on the ranch (beside George, of course), and then everyone hoped to get a glimpse of him or her. Out of respect for them, however, we'd never bother them-we're all professionals. But you'd still try and sneak a peak here or there. I've seen Harry Belafonte, Huey Lewis, Linda Ronstadt, Dennis Hopper, Robert Redford, James Cameron and Jodie Foster-who I personally was happy to see.

Skywalker Sound was doing post-production work on the first Mission:Impossible, and rumor had it Tom was on the ranch. People would talk at lunch about a Tom sighting. I'm sitting in my office one day with Brian Wong, the computer support guy and my wife, Anna, who was doing some work for Lucasfilm. The phone rings-it's Grant Imahara (now of "Mythbusters" fame, then he was testing speakers for the THX division).
"Guess who's walking by my office window right now" Grant teases.
"I don't know-who?" I ask.
"Tom Cruise!"
I turn to Brian and Anna. "Tom Cruise is walking by THX" I tell them.
They startle. "You're kidding! Let's go see!"

I'm not usually star struck-famous people fascinate me, but I don't get too weird around them. But this was Tom Cruise, and I like his movies, so I thought, why not?

The three of us jump into the Delorean-mind you, it's a two-seater-and wing our way to the other side of the ranch and park in front of the Main House. We jump out of the car and walk into the foyer of the building, where we're greeted by the entire female staff of the research library.

"We hear Tom's walking around here", someone states.
Jo Donaldson, the head librarian nods. "He's walking around to the front of the house."

I turn to Jo. "Hey Jo, don't you want to take a good look at the Delorean now?"

She agrees enthusiastically, and we walk out followed by Anna and Brian and a few other staff. We get to the car and I open the doors-the gull wing feature looks impressive. As Jo and I pretend to look at the car, around the corner of the building and out of the corner of my eye, we see Tom walking with a woman (not Nicole). They stop to talk, and he glances over. I pretend not to notice-I'm professional, you know-as he looks harder. Finally:

"Hey-is that a Delorean?" he shouts from across the distance.

"Why, yes it is!" I answer, pretending not to know him. His interest is piqued now-he's walking over to us.

For the next twenty minutes, Tom and I talked about the car. I impressed him with my knowledge of its history, while he sat in the car and kicked its tires. I felt a kinship with him--after all, we both liked sporty cars (at least the Delorean) and we both had Australian wives. At one point, I looked back to my companions, who had all vanished back inside the building-but as I looked at the main house, I saw people in almost every window pressing up against the glass, watching me and Tom shoot the breeze.

As we looked at the rear engine together, a truck full of ranch maintenance guys pulled up-the car was still attracting attention. Most of them I knew; one, however, was a contractor that only occasionally came onto the ranch. The guys, Tom and I continued discussing the car-I'm sure we all felt real manly-I know I did.

Eventually, Tom had to go. We never got to discuss our other common interests, or compare notes about that Australian delicacy Vegimite, but maybe we would sometime in the future. Perhaps our wives could get together and reminisce about their home country while we talked cars...He shook my hand, thanked me and walked off. I continued showing the car to the other guys.

Epilogue: (I'm big on these epilogues-I'll probably use them a lot...)

The next day, I saw the maintenance guys at lunch, and they filled me in with what happend after I left them.

After looking at the car, the contractor with them confessed that he thought that was cool. He elaborated:
"You know, I come out here every so often, and when I go home, my family and friends ask me: Did you see anyone famous? Did you see anything cool? I always tell them no...Except for today. Now I can tell them I did see something cool. I saw a Delorean."

One of the ranch guys was shocked. "Don't you know who that was that you were talking to?"

"No...", the contractor admitted. "Who was it?"

"That was Tom Cruise!" the ranch guy exclaimed.

The contractor was flabbergasted.
"It was? The guy with the Delorean?"

Ever since, I can honestly say that I was mistaken for Tom Cruise.