I was lucky enough to have a brief time where I could hang out with him.
[Background: Everyone knows about the club in West Hollywood that is called Chippendales. What most people did NOT know, is that it turned into a "normal" nightclub at 10pm. Being math guys, my friend and I used to be in a crowd of about 30 guys waiting to enter at 10pm while about 300 females were getting all worked up during the actual show. We liked those odds and had quite a laugh when guys drove by yelling homosexual-related insults - if they only knew! Anyway, despite the odds in my favor, I ended up going out with one of the waitresses instead (another interesting story since she became a famous porn star - lol). That relationship, however, gave me a "safe" status compared to rest of the crowd.]
Back to Eddie. I'd pull up in my "cheap" sports car, then he'd pull up in his white Lamborghini followed by a second car carrying his two body guards. This was in early 1985 whenever Valerie had to go back to New York (I think they were filming a new year of One Day at a Time that never happened). During those times Eddie would go out to the club. Since I was "safe" we'd sit at an edge table or at the bar with the body guards standing outside us to keep the fanatics away. Since he was "off work" we always talked about other topics (like golf). The only music-related areas I got to hear about were his father and his piano abilities. He's Dutch and immigrated here at a young age (as told in the interview) and my family on my mom's side is all Dutch (my grandfather immigrated here JUST before WWII brokeout) so we had topics to talk about. He never knew I could even spell "guitar" let alone had been in a band that had just opened for Blue Oyster Cult the year before.
I'll never forget one event though. I got to hang out with him a few times, but the last time was when David Lee Roth showed up. David walks in and goes directly to the DJ booth where he proceeds to get on the mic, look at all the girls and yell "So which ones of you will be going home with me tonight???" Eddie put his head in his hand and you could tell that there was some heavy tension going on between the two. Eddie left soon after (without any interaction with David) and, not long after that, David wasn't in Van Halen anymore. Unfortunately, Eddie never came back to the club either.
Yes, Eddie was a nice, easy-going guy.