Robert Pattinson Autographs Guitar for the Midnight Mission in L.A.

As the owner of a rare guitar shop in Tarzana, Calif., Norman Harris sees his fair share of celebrities on a weekly basis. His store, Norman's Rare Guitars, has been visited by Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora, Nick Jonas and Keith Urban. But Harris doesn't use his love of rare guitars and his celebrity connections for personal gain; he uses them for good. This philanthropic spirit is what stood out to Twilight star Robert Pattinson when he stopped by Norm's Rare Guitars to check out the selection and visit a friend in 2009. Tonic spoke to Norman Harris to get the complete story about meeting Pattinson, the Midnight Mission and how rare guitars have helped him unite celebrities and charity.

A few years ago, Harris began volunteering at the Midnight Mission in Los Angeles. According to its website, the Mission provides "a bridge to self-sufficiency for homeless people through counseling, education, training and job placement." It also offers food, shelter, clothing, medical care and personal hygiene products to those it serves. In order to provide these services free of charge, the Mission relies on kind volunteers like Norman Harris, Anthony Hopkins and Richie Sambora.

Since becoming involved with the shelter, Harris has used his musical connections to host benefit concerts in conjunction with the Nokia Theater. One show featuring Tom Petty raised over a quarter of a million dollars for the Midnight Mission. Other concerts have featured Richie Sambora, REO Speedwagon, John Mayall (a pioneer of English blues), Slash and Los Lobos.

In addition to the concerts Harris puts together to raise money for the Mission, he manages to charm most celebrities who come into the shop into signing guitars to auction off for charity. Seriously, check out the "Famous Faces" section of the store's website. We asked for just the short list of musicians who have signed guitars to auction off for the Mission, and Harris reeled off Nick Jonas, Maroon 5 and Jacob Dylan. Of course, none of those names will garner as much attention as the main reason we contacted Harris, which of course was to ask the following question: "What was Robert Pattinson like, and how did you get the notoriously autograph-shy star to sign a guitar for you?"

"He's really a nice guy — very shy, very quiet," Harris told Tonic. "People follow him around like crazy, so he kind of liked it because we’re a little off the path here, and the paparazzi didn't really follow him in here. He's friends with one of the fellows who works here from England. [Pattinson] came in, and he actually bought a nice guitar from us. He was playing this other guitar, so I said to him, 'We're doing this thing for the Midnight Mission, would you sign this guitar for me?' He said, 'I don't do a lot of these things, but you seem like a good guy, and it seems like a good cause.'"

"He was playing the guitar in the store, and we got to take pictures of him playing it. He doesn't really like to do interviews — he'd rather sort of fade into the background a little bit. He loves vintage guitars, [and] he's a pretty good guitar player. It's kind of nice to see [fame like this happen to] somebody who is fresh and not expecting a 'this should happen for me' kind of thing."

So there you have it. R-Pat is nice, shy, musical and charitable. (Not "bothered," Jimmy Fallon.) To bid on the autographed guitar, visit the Midnight Mission website. The auction begins on March 12 to correspond with the opening of Pattinson's new movie, Remember Me, and the winner also gets the picture above showing Rob with the guitar. We expect it to bring in a lot of money for the cause. Just a hunch.

Photo courtesy of Norman's Rare Guitars.