I am still a little annoyed with Anthony Hopkins - LA 1995

UPDATE: After I whined (below) about Anthony Hopkins's "star" behavior it occurred to me to check if he had as yet received his Oscar for playing Hannibal Lecter. He had. I don't like actors assuming that I, and the people around me, are potential groupies. (I don't even know who is famous these days, so I would pose no threat even if I were the type.) However, can you imagine the kind of people that were approaching Anthony Hopkins in those days? Maybe he was right to try to hide. I would, however, like to make a recommendation. If you are going to try to hide from the public perhaps holding a newspaper over your face is not the best approach. Hardly subtle. Who knows if I would have noticed you if you didn't have a newspaper over your face, which now that I think of it, I could see right past? At any rate, all is forgiven.

I was in Los Angeles for a couple of weeks in 1995.  I know it was 1995 for two reasons: 1) the OJ Simpson trial was in progress and 2) Anthony Hopkins was looping the movie, Nixon.

Let me start with Anthony Hopkins. His appearance all over social media today (12/30/2020) prompted these recollections. He has been sober for 45 years--since before I encountered him. I wish him well because of his sobriety but I am still a bit angry at how he underestimated me.

When I had to work for two weeks in the downtown LA office of my DC-based company, our travel agent got me a great deal on an oceanfront room in the Sheraton at end of Santa Monica Boulevard. This made perfect sense since, instead of staying around the block from the office, I got to drive the I10 back and forth from downtown to the beach every morning and every evening at rush hour. However, when I finally got home, I had a balcony that overlooked the Pacific Ocean. And, when I woke up I had a bed with the same view. It was worth the commute. Besides, no one at the office was watching the clock.

Many years later I read that Anthony Hopkins lived in that hotel for a while. I only knew he was there because I ran into him at breakfast one morning. I might not have noticed him but, as the hostess led him past the row of booths where I was sitting, he bowed his head, held a newspaper in front of his face and scurried down the aisle. Yes, he scurried. There was not a big crowd in the restaurant. No one was paying attention to him. There was no need to scurry. I took it personally.

Did he think the excitement of seeing him would cause me to leap out of my seat and block his way? Did he think that I would be so overwhelmed that I would stop him to ask a million questions? Did he think that I would eavesdrop on his conversations? Okay, I did that. But I couldn't help it. He sat in the booth behind me facing in my direction. That was how I discovered he was looping Nixon.  

I listened to his conversation but don't recall anything he said. However, he was very friendly to the waitress. They seemed to have an ongoing friendship. My only conclusion is that he was very nice, and I would have had wonderful things to say about him but all I remember is that he dissed me. I'm almost over it.

Luckily, I had the OJ Simpson trial to divert my attention. But that's another story.

PS I've also had a grudge against Mary Steenburgen for much longer.

I still think of that bird . . .

For at least a week she had harassed me.  Flapping her wings in an effort to keep me away from the tree that overhung the driveway. Someone had to explain to me that she was probably protecting her nest. I just thought she was a nasty bird. I didn't know a lot about nature. Still don't. 

This bird was pretty annoying. I had to walk about twenty yards from my front door to the car and that brought me seriously close to her nest. Looking back on it, I should have backed the car in. That would have allowed me to put some distance between the tree and me. Maybe she wouldn't have swooped and squawked so much.

Then one morning when I opened my front door, she was waiting, standing on the rock that was my front step. I can still see her standing there. Not angry but somehow upset. She chirped. Not a happy chirp, but a sad sound, a plaintive sound. I had no idea what she wanted or what she wanted me to do.

Fruitlessly, I talked to her in a calm voice asking her what the problem was.  She followed me to the car, not harassing me but flying quietly, beseeching me. I had no idea what to do. I could only guess that something was amiss in her nest.
 
I didn't have a ladder or any idea what to do when I got up in the tree. At the time, I didn't know to try the town's animal control. 

I still think about that bird, that mother. I know given the lifespan of a bird, she would be long gone.  But I still feel bad. I understood.  I tried to be kind, but I didn't know how to help. It still pains me that I let her down.

Wandering into an alternate reality . . .

Oddly I entered both of these alternate (alternative if you’re British) realities in Cambridge Massachusetts. Could there be a portal?

Those of you who read Spenser novels knew that Robert B. Parker's detective, Spenser, often took his girlfriend to the Harvest Restaurant, an actual restaurant in Cambridge Massachusetts. Based on his cover jacket photos, Parker seemed to bear a strong resemblance to his character.  And, based on pictures I'd seen of his wife, although she was not a dead ringer for the dectective's girlfriend Susan, there were certainly similarities.

Simply dining at the Harvest put me in Spenser's world, but I really felt I had crossed the line from reality to fantasy when I looked across the room and saw Parker dining with his wife. It was as if Spenser and Susan had come in for dinner.  I would have found it interesting to run into the Parkers anywhere.  But in that restaurant? Magic.

It didn't hit me at first when Matt Damon walked by me on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge. I was outside Harvard Yard waiting for a shuttle bus to the Longwood Medical Campus. The night was bitterly cold and he was appropriately dressed in a peacoat and dark wool cap. He passed the bus stop, crossed Mass Ave and headed down the street the name of which I've long forgotten. For years I thought of it as an interesting diversion until I realized he could easily be his character from Good Will Hunting heading out to find Minnie Driver.  How about dem apples?

I don't know why I didn't think of this when I first wrote this. It is kind of a twist on the same topic. I once left a Kurt Russell movie on 23rd Street in New York and walked down to the Tribeca Grill. My friend and I hadn't been seated that long when Kurt Russell walked in wearing the wardrobe from the movie.

It's nice to get away from reality once in a while.

ADDED APRIL 2023

I forgot a somewhat similar incident with James Stewart - although it took me years to confirm it. 

I was walking along Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills when I saw an elderly man in out-dated and ill-fitting clothes standing on the corner looking a bit lost. I recognized Jimmy Stewart but figured it couldn't be the actor because if Jimmy Stewart was in such bad condition, someone would be taking care of him.  But, I never forgot.

Enter the Internet. I found clips of a movie he made with Bette Davis about the problems of the elderly.  There was a scene on a nearby block and Jimmy Stewart was wearing the same clothes. Actually, it took decades and the invention of the Internet to verify this. 

I guess this isn't really the same. It might be better included in a post about film sets I've wandered into. I"ll start a list.

Rocky II

Sex and the City

Michael J. Fox

Miracle on Thirty-Fourth Street

Three Men and a Baby

Wolf

???

Look at Me. I'm Walking Down the Street

Christopher Reeve is the reason I know I am not psychic. 

When you live in New York you get used to running into celebrities as well as to the idea that they do not make eye contact. So it was really odd when Christopher Reeve, at that time a movie star best known as Superman, not only made eye contact with me, he held it. It was as if we were sharing a secret, as if he were saying, "Look at me. I'm walking down the street." I know that was what I thought because those were the words I used to describe the encounter the next day to a friend who had missed him by a few minutes.

About ten years later, the actor had the horseback-riding accident that left him paralyzed. In the years between the date of his accident and his death in 2004, I never once doubted that he would, against all odds, walk again. 

I have no idea what I thought, but I knew what I believed. I was certain that someday he would walk down Columbus Avenue and marvel at the fact that he was, in fact, walking down the street, that he would look at someone and say, "Look at me. I'm walking down the street."

Sadly, I was wrong.

Still a Buffoon Fifty Years Later

Rachel Maddow recently wrote a book about former Vice President, Spiro Agnew and the scandal that drove him from the vice-president's position. In interviews, she talks about how people have forgotten about Spiro Agnew. And, I am sure that is true for most people. I can't recall the last time anyone mentioned his name.

I too had forgotten him sometime in the 1980s when, shopping in Bergdorf Goodman in New York City, I walked by the door and glanced outside and saw a tall man with a short wife walking up Fifth Avenue. The words "Who is that buffoon?" ran through my mind. It took me a few minutes to figure out who he was but my initial reaction was clear. This man was a buffoon. I've heard the word used about him recently.

What did I learn from my brief encounter with Spiro Agnew? Try not to be the person that when someone catches sight of you, their response is "Who is that buffoon?" Or, any other negative word. Be the person that even if someone can't place you right away, they think "Who is that lovely individual?"

Not being convicted of tax evasion can help.