Talk about a clash of the titans.
According to a Vanity Fair cover story on Mad Men and Million Dollar Arm star Jon Hamm, he and fellow big-shot Paul Rudd once had eyes for the same young lady. We’ll let Vanity Fair give you the details:
Preston Clarke, a friend of Hamm’s from high school, recalls a Paul Rudd–Jon Hamm showdown. Hamm had taken Clarke’s sister, actress Sarah Clarke, to the prom in high school, but when Sarah met Rudd, who was Preston’s roommate at the University of Kansas, there were sparks. Rudd came to St. Louis to visit the Clarkes, of which Preston tells Windolf, “I thought he was coming to visit me, but obviously he was coming to visit my sister. Hamm was there because he was always at my house. And Paul knew that Jon had taken Sarah to prom. He was slightly intimidated. And then we started playing Trivial Pursuit.” Rudd recalls that night, telling Windolf of Hamm, “He seemed like he was a good-looking, athletic guy who possessed qualities I did not possess. We were playing Trivial Pursuit in teams. Sarah and I were on one team and Jon and Preston were on the other team. Jon would want to go right to Yellow, which was History, and I was like, ‘Oh, great, this guy is smart too.’ They would ask a question like ‘What is the largest lake in Africa?,’ and Jon immediately went, ‘Lake Victoria.’ I felt so emasculated in the game that, as a result, I started reading atlases.” Hamm and Rudd later became friends, after Hamm moved to L.A. from St. Louis.
As for the fate of the principals involved in the story, we all know that Hamm and Rudd have gone on to achieve great fame and success. Clarke has done quite well for herself too; many will remember her as Nina Myers from 24 and as Renee from the Twilight film series, and she has had a recurring role this season on the CW’s The Tomorrow People (which was canceled yesterday).
Anytime you use board games to settle a romantic rivalry, you know you’ve reached a different level. If there’s any way the Trivial Pursuit people can parlay this story into a new ad campaign, they owe it to the world to make that happen.
[via Vanity Fair]
