Meeting Famous People

How do you respond when you see a famous person? Why are people so interested in famous people as "real" people?

Yesterday (Sat., June 7) during my language exchange, an older man sat down near my exchange partners and me. His grandson ordered some drinks and brought them to the older man's table. I thought the older man looked familiar, based on some pictures that I had seen on the internet.

Eventually, one of my language exchange partners looked at me and said, "Do you know who that is?"

I said, "That's not Lee Ao, is it?"

She said, "Yes, it is."

Now I know who Lee Ao is about as well as I could, given that I don't know much about Taiwanese culture or language and don't watch TV. I was interested in his novel from decades ago (in which a mother and daughter fall in love with the same man--clearly Edward Yang read that), but it doesn't seem ever to have been translated into English.

I would just look over at him from time to time. One of my language exchange partners held up her phone camera, making an odd pose. It seemed that she wanted to surreptitiously photograph Lee Ao. He paid us no mind, and no one else seemed to care that he was here, at this Starbucks.

I have never had a close encounter with a celebrity. The most interesting experience was meeting Kurt Rambis at a basketball camp. Kurt Rambis was a famous player for the LA Lakers in the 1980s. He was a white guy with long hair and thick glasses. He did the "dirty work": he did things like play defense, rebound, set screens, etc., while the more famous players did more exciting things. Rambis looked very small when he played; in person, he was huge. It was obvious now how much taller than average he was, and his muscles were amazing. I couldn't imagine what a really big player must look like in person if this "little guy" looked so big in front of me.

Meeting musicians is very strange. I don't even know how to describe it. Here is a regular person standing next to me, yet I've listened to him or her on my I-pod and seen him or her in a music video. I've been to small concerts with musicians who had been very famous a few years before. The common is belief is that sometimes musicians are better people than other celebrities, and sometimes worse people.

I've heard other interesting ideas of what "famous people" look like in real life. First, I've heard that some celebrities that just look okay (cute, but not gorgeous) on TV or in movies are very beautiful in real life, even "stop what you are doing and stare" beautiful. I've heard this said about the actress Dana Delaney, who is not unattractive but who just looks rather like a normal person in movies and on TV. Also, whereas I was amazed at how big the sports person was, many people are amazed at how small some celebrities are (e.g. Tom Cruise).

Second, though, I've heard that some people look worse in person. This is certainly true with models. They often look too thin in person, and the make-up that looks good in pictures looks weird in person.