Vignettes #28

I guess it happens to everyone once in a while that you're told you look like someone else. Over time my 'lookalikes' have been Oscar Wilde, Woody Allen, James Spader, Elvis Costello and even that mad drunken outsider locally known as the 'punker Mike'.

The most persistent comparison, however, was that to Woody Allen. It lasted for several years, and I was getting it even from close friends and, most depressingly, from my own mother! It's not that I don't like Woody Allen, but it is something else to be compared with him barely on looks.

In 1992 Ursula and I visited New York City, and even there I was approached by people on a daily basis thinking I was the guy. On one occasion we were both sitting on a bench in Central Park taking a rest and a young businessman walked by telling us: "He, you two look just like Woody and Mia!"

One day we were stuck in a traffic jam with our rented car on the West Side highway. For about 15 minutes traffic came to a complete halt, and next to us was a car with 2 young African-American couples inside. All of a sudden one of the women started screaming: "Oh, look, it's Woody Allen!" They started shouting over to our car, but I gently signaled to them that I'm not the man. I must have shown the wrong reaction, since that made them even more convinced and the two women didn't stop screaming: "It's really him, it's really him!"

Luckily I have grown out of that lookalike phase of my life, but I'm sure those women are still telling their kids and grandkids about that one time they actually met Woody Allen.