Friday Celebrity Gawking Blogging

I worked in New York City for thirteen years, from 1980 to 1993, and I rarely saw anyone famous. Perhaps it was because I wasn't looking hard enough, because most people see celebrities all the time. Three sightings I do remember are Bryant Gumble, because he was very tall and ridiculously handsome; Paul Shaffer, because he's about my height, and Steve Tyler, because who else looks like that?

A week ago, Mr. Brilliant and I did a dry run for my stint as "ambassador" (read unpaid traffic cop) at today's Drama League Awards by waiting in line for 2-1/2 hours to get a copy of Phil Lesh's book signed by the man himself. For Mr. Brilliant, this was an Extremely Cool Experience; for me it was mostly a surprise that someone who's past sixty could look that good, but for coolness, it wasn't quite on a par with the time at last year's Tribeca Film Festival when I got to shake hands with 96-year-old Lawrence Lucey, who had played with Fletcher Henderson's orchestra.

So today I set off for my two hours of ignominy, hoping I wouldn't be too much of a dork. Fortunately, that distinction went to the young ladies from Sacramento, California, who while on lunch break from some "wealth building strategy" seminar, stumbled on a "star-filled event" and proceeded to corral as many actors as possible for photo ops. (For the record, Jeff Goldblum was very accomodating, and I'm very glad that the young lady to whom he remarked about her oh-so-80's shoulder pads didn't understand what sarcasm was.)

What strikes one after watching people come up an escalator for two hours and try to determine a) who we're supposed to recognize; and b) how to determine whether they are Drama League members or press/nominee/publicist (because people in the latter category get very huffy when you ask if they are but mere Drama League members), is just how much smaller most of these people are when viewed in real life instead of on a big or small screen, or on a Broadway stage -- and how ordinary-looking they are when not swathed in Harry Winston and Vera Wang. Very few of these people look like what we think of as "stars", though this is a comparatively dressed-down event. A notable exception is Kathleen Turner, who exudes "diva" from every pore, has a booming voice that's even more pronounced in person than on screen, and is morphing into Tallulah Bankhead before our very eyes.

In Sunset Boulevard, Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond says, "I AM big...it's the pictures that got small." Well, after today, I disagree. The pictures are big. The shows are big. But on the street, everyone's just as large as life and no larger.