When I lived there before, many years ago, I saw Julia Child at the airport one time. Another time a famous person came into the store where I worked and bought a toy. It might have been Chevy Chase, but I can't remember. Another time (1984 L.A. Olympics) the entire U.S. Olympic rowing team came in. Celebrities? Close enough. And then there was the time a friend of mine saw Steve Martin filling up his car with gas. That was so cool that I decided to appropriate the experience as my own.
This last visit was no exception. I saw a guy who, according to another customer, was on some reality TV show and is "really famous," but she couldn't remember his name. Not that it would have made any difference to me, since I don't watch reality shows, but still.
I sat in a lot of doctor's office and hospital waiting rooms, and on my last day, I swear Graham Greene came in to say hi to the nurses at the Cancer Center. Must remember to check imdb to see if he has suffered a bout with cancer recently, although it may not be necessary--I heard the nurses call him "Alex." Must remember to check imdb to see if Graham Greene's real name is Alex.
My all-time favorite celebrity sighting story, however, happened twenty-five years ago, in Santa Barbara, at the bus terminal. The celebrity in question? Me! Sort of.
There I was, sitting on a bench, waiting for a bus, when the elderly gentleman beside me became very excited. He turned to me and stared for a minute, then said, "Natalie? Natalie Wood?"
I had been compared to young Natalie Wood before, but this was the first time I'd ever been actually mistaken for her--partly because she had died two years earlier, and partly because she was thirty years older than I. I never saw the resemblance other than dark hair and eyes, but you be the judge. (Natalie Wood's photo is first.)
O, how I loved the 80s!
Anyway, I smiled at the sweet, senile old man and gently broke it to him that I was not, in fact, Natalie Wood. When he refused to believe me, because it was entirely plausible that a movie star would be sitting at a bus stop reading an astronomy textbook, I was forced reminded him that she was dead. I hated to disappoint him, but really. I thought he was about to ask for an autograph.
It totally made my day. After all, who doesn't love to be compared to a gorgeous movie star--living or dead? And now, when I look in the mirror and realize that I haven't aged anywhere near as gracefully as Natalie did, well, at least I had Santa Barbara.
4 comments:
My mom worked at Jackson Hole during the summers as a waitress while she was in college. One day a customer asked her out and she said no because he seemed like a "slimy Italian guy". Turns out it was Mario Puzo (author of the Godfather books). Guess I could have been Italian...
I see the resemblance in the mouth, some in the nose, but not the eyes. My celebrity sighting: Robert Conrad jogged right by me on the beach at Malibu. Of course that was in the 80's when he was still kinda hunky.
Thank you for sharing that picture of yourself. It makes me feel not so bad for my awful teenage pictures. Not that you are ugly in this picture as I was ugly in my teenage pictures, but that the cheesiness of this photo is on par with the ugliness of mine.
When my brother Richie was traveling a lot in California, he'd always take his guitar as carry-on. So people would see him, his long hair, his beard, his sweat band, and his guitar, and they'd just assume that he was someone famous and ask for his autograph. They didn't care which famous person he was.
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I would have done what you did then always regretted not lying. Not sure which of us is the better person.
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