Why would you look so much like yourself?

Living in New York, you get used to running into celebrities who do not want to call attention to themselves by looking like their public persona. They dress down to blend in although they must realize they call attention to themselves by wearing baseball caps and sunglasses or, in many cases, simply by being extremely thin. People they pass may not know who they are, but they have a pretty good idea they are somebody. 

I understand trying to camouflage yourself, but I have always been floored by celebrities who go out looking like themselves.

Rod Stewart

I once asked a friend with ties to the music industry who that guy was who was always walking around 57th Street looking like Rod Stewart. "Rod Stewart," was his answer. I could not believe a rock star would go out looking so much like himself. If you want to see what he looked like, check any online photo of Rod Stewart.

Madonna

I once saw a woman standing on the corner of 72nd and Columbus and wondered why anyone would dress up to look so much like the Material-Girl-era Madonna. She had the Marilyn Monroe hairdo, very high heels and a mink coat.  Who would anyone spend $25,000 on a mink not to mention whatever it cost to hire a Rob Lowe lookalike to walk her dog just to look like Madonna? Then it hit me. A fake Madonna with a fake Rob Lowe? I don't think so. That guy is so handsome, I don't know if they could have found a look-alike for him.  (It took decades before Rob Lowe admitted he had ever spent time with Madonna. He didn't mention the dog, but he did confirm they had kind of a date.)

Sophia Loren

When I got off a plane from New York to Los Angeles c.1990, I regarded the woman standing at the desk with a a bit of disdain. Isn't she trying a little too hard to look like someone? She was wearing a short tweed skirt, with a patterned blouse, lace stockings, a leather jacket and very high heels. She was wearing glasses. I suppose they were sunglasses. Overdone, I thought.

I don't recall when I realized she was someone.  Maybe when I arrived at luggage claim and saw her standing alone with the prime area at the end of the chute to herself. No one stood within thirty feet of Sophia Loren.

Hugh Grant

 

This involved no glamour, no special effort. Standing on a corner in New York somewhere in the fifties (streets) and eighties (years). He was dressed like one of his characters. Pink shirt. Sleeves rolled up. Arms akimbo. He wasn't famous yet although it might have been the weekend he would become famous.  He looked exactly like one of his 1980s rom-com characters. Come to think of it, that might have been hard to avoid. He looked very much the same on-stage at the 92nd Street Y decades later.

Robert Palmer

In the 1980s, the singer had a hugely successful video for "Addicted to Love." It was so big that it was often parodied largely because of the expressionless supermodels behind him "playing" guitars. So, it seems to me that if he wanted to go unnoticed in Manhattan, he might have avoided charging across 59th Street dragging a model behind him. (No scandalous accusation here. She seemed willing to go with him. Just not that quickly.)

NOTE: You ran into another Madonna with the Morans. You should write about that.

© 2021 Jane Kelly