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LAKE VIEW | His job is getting and selling celeb autographs. His method is whatever it takes
Professional autograph hound Justin Wilkie has been arrested waiting for Paul McCartney, tossed through a glass door at a downtown hotel trying to catch baseball star Darryl Strawberry and kicked out of a swanky nightclub at the behest of singer Kevin Federline.
He dressed like a woman -- short skirt, bleached hair, high heels, acrylic nails, the whole nine -- to score Cuba Gooding Jr.'s autograph. He was so convincing in drag that night he wound up cocktailing with Gooding and a gaggle of partiers at the Oscar-winner's hotel suite till 6 a.m.
(John J. Kim/Sun-Times)
"You gotta be aggressive," Wilkie says of the lengths he'll go for a signature. "If there's 30 people waiting and a celebrity is only going to sign five autographs, I have to make sure I get one of them . . . or two."
Scoring celebrity autographs -- and selling them to collectors -- is how Wilkie has made a living for about 20 years. He scours gossip columns for intelligence on when famous folks will be up in town, then tracks them down. He calls hotels searching for their rooms, makes nice with music-venue security guards and swears he knows how to check what flight famous people are on so he can catch 'em at the airport, among other tricks. "I don't want to publicize all my tricks," he says.
There's a chance you've seen Wilkie lingering near the players' parking lots at Wrigley Field or Sox park, lingering around Metro during sound checks or sipping a drink at swanky hotel bars.
His autograph obsession started when he bumped into then-Boston Red Sox pitcher Roger Clemens, who signed a copy of USA Today. "That's when I realized I could make money doing this," Wilkie says.
He cashed in on the Bulls' championship run in the 1990s, stalking team practices to get autographs, especially Michael Jordan's signature. Wilkie says he made $10,000 hawking the Bulls gear in New York.
These days, the 38-year-old from Lake View works exclusively for a rather demanding private collector.
Last week, Wilkie sneaked onto the set of "Public Enemies" to get autographs from Christian Bale and Stephen Graham.
Last year, he says he scored Angelina Jolie's autograph outside a Taco Bell in Wrigleyville, adding to his conquests that includes Bruce Springsteen, Al Pacino, Madonna, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and the late Heath Ledger.
When Wilkie tells people about his autograph exploits, some see him as a paparazzo, akin to celebrity-stalker Perez Hilton. In fact, Wilkie says he has a rivalry going with Hilton, who posted a picture of Wilkie in drag with a caption that called him "Anna Nicole Smith's mother."
"Oh, I got back at him for that," Wilkie says. "He was coming to Chicago for Lollapalooza . . . I called the airline and canceled his flight."
HE'S A CHARACTER: