Sitting Next to a Celebrity

I never let on that I knew who she was

I saw this question posed at Quora: “Have you ever been at an event and found yourself sitting next to someone famous?” My response:

It was in the early 1990s and I was sitting by myself in a Broadway theater waiting for a play to begin, minding my own business as I read a book. There were two empty seats next to me that were soon taken by a woman and her friend. A few minutes after they got settled the woman began chatting with me and was curious to know what I was reading. I don’t recall what the book was. What matters is that the woman was famous, but I said nothing to indicate that I knew who she was. No fawning, no gushing, no “I love your work.” Nothing. So we chatted about this and that, and I said something that made her laugh. I can still see her throwing her head back. A small achievement, given who she was. After the play was over I said I enjoyed talking to her and as we parted ways my attitude remained the same: I was “supposed” to be starstruck by this television icon but chose to play it deadpan instead. I later wondered if she had asked her friend, “Did that young man know who I was?” It was Carol Burnett.

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It’s been said that famous people — well, some famous people — miss being anonymous. That makes sense to me. Consider Tom Cruise…