My husband got misidentified as a famous person again. We don’t know who he was mistaken for, but the cab driver - catching only snippets of our conversation and in the dark with a rear-view mirror that may have been smeared with mustard - thought my husband was someone whose work he greatly admires and whose work he loves, and whom he watches on TV every night.
I figured he was thinking of a local TV news guy. My husband has a radio voice, great hair, and was wearing the most prosperous sports jacket in his closet. And we were getting dropped off at a bar. It doesn’t take a genius or even anyone who ever watches local TV news to do the math on that one. My mother-in-law, who was with us, thought the cabbie was thinking of Sheldon Cooper. Bazinga.
He let that roll right off of him. He looked like someone famous and that’s what he was going with. No one’s ego should be given that much of a high-voltage charge all at once. It took me a week to get him to make a dinner reservation in his real name.
This is not a new thing. Years ago, on three separate occasions, people said he looked like Kevin Costner. Again, it had a lot to do with the hair. And as Kevin’s hairline withdrew in retreating surrender and his face got heavier, my husband held onto his hair and waistline. So for the last 10 years we thought he just looked like a normal person.
So who does he look like now? We left the bar (eventually) and went home to investigate. Who is on TV every night? We flipped through the channels and couldn’t tell. So we went to Picadil.com’s Celebrity Look Alike Generator.
That’s where I found out that I look like Peter O’Toole. Also Heather Locklear, Suzanne Summers and Gwyneth Paltrow. You know, it’s not attractive to laugh like that, so stop it. Stop it now.
My mother-in-law looks like Conan O’Brien, Morgan Fairchild, Bill Clinton and - what? - Gwyneth Paltrow.
My husband looks like Jon Voight, Jerry Springer, Kristen Chenoweth, Jon Stewart and - yep, Gwyneth Paltrow. Who wasn’t on his look-alike list? Kevin Costner.
I’m concluding that the cabbie thought my husband was Mrs. Chris Martin and she was out for a night on the town with Peter O’Toole and Coco.
All this made me wonder what would happen if Gwyneth Paltrow put her photo on the Celebrity Look Alive Generator. I have more spare time than her, so of course I did it for her. Gwyneth Paltrow looks like Sheryl Crowe, Anne Heche, Holly Hunter and Renee Zellweger. I was disappointed that that the matches did not include me, my husband and his mom.
