Don't you think Uma Thurman looks like Eve Arden's granddaughter? And what about Kathy Bates and Janeane Garofalo as mother and daughter? And is it me, or do Shirley MacLaine and Jenny O'Hara look like sisters? And as I've said a hundred times before, how about Margaret Colin and Elizabeth Perkins? They're practically ringers in my head. I know for a fact that Mary can't get through half a day without being told how much she looks like Ellen Degeneres, but I wonder how much a person's odds are reduced -- or enhanced -- if they roll up the pike resembling someone who is already famous. Or worse, what if you're absolutely lovely but you look like Adolph Hitler? (I suppose you could always shave the moustache.)
I have heard it said at least a dozen times that everyone has a doppelganger, but I am not sure I believe that is true. I do recall, however, back in the '80s in Charlottetown when several people came into the bar where I worked to see if I was still alive. Apparently, a young woman my age had died of a stroke, and she, everyone said, looked identical to me (and vice versa, of course). Subsequently, I often wondered about her life, and why she had had to die so tragically young. But it is true -- I felt more connected to her because of our resemblance -- which isn't exactly a positive trait, if you ask me.
People have often come up to my daughter and me to ask if we are related. A waiter at The Tulip Restaurant on Queen Street East, for example, wanted to know if we were sisters. I nearly dropped an entire handful of mashed potatoes, I was so pleased. (I'm not sure Sarah felt quite as flattered, given our twenty-two year age difference.) Anyway, it isn't that our features are so much alike, but our habits and ways -- the turn of our heads or the way our eyebrows go up at almost everything or the way we gasp and laugh -- things like these that make us recognizable as family.
A few weeks ago, Sarah and Mary and Lainey and I were having lunch on Queen Street West, high above the ground overlooking old City Hall, and from (his) behind we saw a man who looked exactly like Don -- bald pate, brown/grey fringe, identical build, same suit jacket and pants, similar watch (and, like Don, no other jewelry), polished black shoes, cozy but elegant socks, feet resting at odd angles to one another, hands intermittently clasped and unclasped -- I couldn't stop staring at him. When we left the table Sarah and I turned around to see how much he looked like her father from the front, and were surprised that not one of his features was similar to Don's. Frankly, I was relieved, but I am not sure all of the reasons why.
Anyway, I am also not sure why I began this thread or where it's going, except that I was listening to Call-Me-Raif Fiennes on television this afternoon, and he looked like another man named Don that I used to know from long long ago, and I suppose one thing led to another. Which also reminds me of the time Shirley MacLaine was in Toronto doing a film, and Danny (you don't know him, but you probably wouldn't want to: he had tip-up fingernails) happened to walk by her -- she was decked out in frumpy rain gear as part of her role -- and he said, "Nice boots, Shirl." I can't remember whether she laughed, but I would have -- although I confess to a general aversion to flipposity.
Which now reminds me of Bob (you don't know him, either, but he introduced me to Danny) and I racing up Yonge Street back in the '70s chasing after Henry Morgan from I've Got A Secret. We panted our way up to Yorkville Avenue a few steps in front of him and plunked ourselves down onto a sidewalk bench. As Mr. Morgan approached I looked up at him and asked, breathlessly, "Aren't you Henry Morgan?" He pointed to his wife and replied, "No, she is." I gasped, and then I laughed.
Actually, Bob and I followed many legends in those days, including one poor man named Sam Groom -- I think he was a soap opera star, but I no longer remember -- to the point where he had to run to get away from us. We, idiots that we were, had no idea why he was galloping at such a pace. We must have scared the bejesus out of him hurrying up barren Church Street on a cold and windy November night.
Anyway, years ago people used to tell me that I looked like Carolyn Jones, which absolutely thrilled me when she played Morticia because she was so divinely thin. Now I get names like ________ (because of my hair) and ________ and even ________ (her mother, maybe) -- which has to be better than the Friday night I was bartending back in the '80s -- we were swamped with customers -- and Bobby Falls looked up at the muted television movie, Popeye, and yelled, "Hey, look everybody! It's Jennifer!" After the laughter died down about twenty minutes later, I offered up a short impression of Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyle singing, "He's large." (If you can't lick 'em sort of thing.)
Come to think of it, Uma Thurman could have played Olive Oyle equally believably, although in my opinion, she and Shelley Duvall don't much look like one another at all. But she does have that high forehead (did Olive Oyle have a high forehead?) and those long legs and those googly eyes. And didn't Uma Thurman also play in a move called Jennifer Eight (ooh, that's my name and my number) and wasn't she blind and didn't I work for an ophthalmologist and...
The ants go marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah
<:^)
Archived Tuesday, November 13, 2007
