I've had the privilege of not only getting to meet David (which happened many years ago when I was 12), I also have had the privilege of a continued personal friendship with him throughout the years as I've grown up. I can tell you from experience over the years that he is one of the nicest, most incredible people I've ever met, celebrity or otherwise.
Basically, the short version of how I met David is that obviously I started out as a HUGE Knight Rider fan when I was a kid living in San Diego, CA and I grew up idolizing Michael and KITT on episodes of Knight Rider. Then, around 1991, I was in las Vegas with my family on vacation, along with my aunt and uncle who live in Connecticut and happen to have many friends in Hollywood and one night at dinner we met up with a very nice little person named Billy Barty. Billy, who left this world several years ago, served as a little actor in Hollywood for many years and had many notable parts in film and television, among which was the wizard in the movie "Willow." Anyway, so there we are at dinner with Billy and his friend Saba and he starts talking about people he knows in Hollywood. Of course, I had to ask him if he knew David Hasselhoff and he said he did. I asked him very nicely if he could possibly get David to send me an autograph the next time they talked because I was such a big fan and of course, Billy said he would try.
Fast forward to about a year later. I was in the 6th grade and came down with a very nasty bout of pneumonia that put me in the hospital due to complications from the many medical conditions I was plagued with in childhood and into adolescence. Well, apparently when David finally got word of my request, he also found out that I was currently in the hospital and because of his work with sick children, he wanted to do more than just send me an autograph so he secretly got in touch with my parents. They arranged a secret meeting at a downtown restaurant in San Diego one day in the Fall of 1992 and so my parents pulled me out of school early and told me that they "just felt like taking me out to lunch.'" My dad and I walk in to one wing of this mysteriously empty restaurant and sit down at a long table and I ask "Who else is going to be joining us?" and my dad says "Oh, just a few friends" and then a few minutes later David comes walking in with his then-wife Pamela and his best friend Nick in tow and they proceed to sit down and start talking to me. At this point I'm in complete and utter shock and not really sure what's going on and not even sure if this guy who's sitting here is actually Michael Knight. Then David starts talking about how he's down in San Diego that day filming an episode of a show called "Baywatch" and he invites my family and I to come and join him on the cruise ship they were going to be filming on in San Diego harbor later that afternoon! So of course we said sure and we sat and talked to David, his wife and Nick for about an hour and then met up with them again a few hours later on the cruise ship. I brought David a paper mockup of KITT's dashboard that I had painstakingly recreated out of paper and gave it to him and he was so impressed he said "Wow, I don't even remember all of these lights and buttons on the real car and you have it duplicated exactly!" David then said he had another surprise for me, which was to work me in to a walk-on role in the episode they were shooting. The scene was basically created on the spot and was a scene with me playing shuffleboard on the ship's deck and David and Alexandra Paul were supposed to come up and ask if they could join me in the game and then proceed to do so. The only shot of that scene that made it into the episode was of the 3 of us playing shuffleboard and a brief close-up shot but it was nonetheless awesome when it finally aired several months later.
Since that time, I have kept in touch with David periodically and we send letters back and forth and occasionally talk on the phone. David has continued to support both me and my family over time and has forever earned a special place in our hearts. I for one will always support David in whatever he does and I look forward to remaining lifelong friends with him.
For some video clips and more information about how we met, you can check out this page on my website at
http://web.mac.com/ajkidwell/Adams_Webs ... ovies.html"One man can make a difference. You can make a difference in someone else's life. You can make a difference in your own life." -- David Hasselhoff
