At first sight of the headline, you might think this week’s column is a story about a law firm someplace up North. In actuality, it’s a memory I’d like to share with you from my years of driving limousines in Nashville, Tennessee.
The client I was picking up had requested a van, not a limo. The fact that we didn’t have a van in our new, two-car fleet did not stop us from booking the run. For the eight hour booking, I rented a van, added a Celebrity Limousines tag to the front, and waited at the bottom of the baggage claim escalator with a sign and a smile.
The sign said “Leibovitz”. The client was Annie Leibovitz. And her driver had absolutely no clue who she was, is or does.
Leibovitz’ work as a photographer for Rolling Stone produced some the most iconic images of the pop culture of my childhood. She had photographed John Lennon the day he died, Demi Moore naked and very pregnant and countless covers for Vanity Fair, who had hired her to photograph the 1996 Republican presidential candidates, which brought her to Nashville this day.
I was driving her and a crew of three assistants to former Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander’s house on Nashville’s old-money-west-side. You may remember that he ran a tight race against Bob Dole, Pat Buchanan and Steve Forbes to try and keep Clinton from a second term.
I helped the crew load the equipment into the living room of Alexander’s home where he was freshly-coiffed and looking very presidential for his photo.
After the shoot, Ms. Leibovitz and her crew had me drive them to someplace I recommended for lunch and we still had quite some time to kill before their flight back to New York. So, I gave them the full music city tour.
This was before we could google from our cell phones, but I had figured out by the way her staff and the guy running for president treated her that she must be a pretty big deal.
She asked me if I had ever been to New York and I said, “No, but I’m going my first time this Fall, and I cannot wait.” She had already commented on how charming she found my Henderson accent. And by commented, I mean she said, “My God, where in the world are you from?”
She asked what was the first thing I planned to do in New York and I said, “Go see David Letterman”. She laughed so hard that I was sure it must have been an inside joke I had missed.
“I want you to take my card, and call my office when you get to New York,” she said, handing me her card. “I will make sure you get tickets to go see Letterman”.
I traveled to New York for the first time completely by myself that Fall. My friends had backed out, but I was determined.
I was much more educated about who my Nashville photographer client had been when I called her office and told the receptionist the story. She (the receptionist) called me back about two hours later with instructions for how to get my tickets.
She had me pick them up in her name.
I’ve always quite enjoyed arriving overdressed. This occasion was no exception as I arrived at the Ed Sullivan Theatre in coat and tie, walked to the front of a line of tourists in flannel and fannie packs and said with my head held high, “Two for Annie Leibovitz, please.”
This article first appeared in The Henderson Dispatch.