I seem to be thinking a lot lately about celebrities and fame, maybe because I used to want to be one and have some. And I have to say, it's such a relief to be thinking about that instead of about politics. A friend and I walked 3 miles around a lake today, as we do twice a week, as we've done for a year. And we got halfway around the lake before we even began to talk politics, and then only because I said "We've gotten halfway around the lake without talking politics." For most of the year we've been walking together, politics was our only topic. It's ever so nice to find that the subject has shrunk down to proper size and isn't taking up so much space in the ol' brain pans.
Anyway, last night I was getting set to dance my ass off to some Rod Stewart, which got me thinking about his ex-wife, Alana Hamilton. George's ex-wife too. Decades ago she and I were in an acting class at the same time. I didn't get to know her well at all, despite the often intimate atmosphere of an acting class. She seemed serious and unapproachable, not very friendly, and not at all happy. At the time I accepted that assessment of her personality, but now, with a little more wisdom and a lot more experience, I find myself wondering if perhaps she had taught herself to harden so that people would leave her alone. She'd become famous, not for anything she'd done but for who she had married, and both marriages had ended. I won't say failed because they might not have. In fact, she and George co-hosted an afternoon talk show for a while, the gimmick being that they were divorced, but it was awful. They had to work at it to look as though they were enjoying themselves and each other. It seemed so fake and I found it cringe-y to watch.
Anyway, her marriages ended, which must have been painful. So here she was, famous but with nothing to back it up, and alone. It seems to me it would be difficult to be happy inside a life like that.
Once you're famous and a lot of new people come into your life, you're never again going to know who wants you for who you are as a person and who wants to be near the reflected glory of your fame. It sounds just awful. Even the people who have always known you probably start acting different. Maybe not everyone. If I became famous, I would want to be appreciated by my siblings for whatever I had accomplished that put me into a spotlight, but I wouldn't want them to see me any differently. I'd want them to downplay my success as though it were no more important than one of the little community theater productions I get so many of now. You know, show a tinge of pride, as though I'd made a good pie crust, and then on to other topics.
I realize I'm making myself famous in this little fantasy, which is almost laughably unlikely at this point. First of all, I've made it this far without a blowout, so why would I think my upcoming work will be more extraordinary than what I've already written? Besides, even if I had a play go whatever the live theater equivalent of viral is, I would still probably remain safely obscure. I mean, tell the truth: Is there any playwright in the world you would recognize on sight? Okay, Shakespeare's ruffled collar might give him away. But most of us are ciphers to the public. This is one arena in which it's possible to be wildly famous without being known.
And the crazy thing is, I might actually become one of those much-produced playwrights and get all sorts of awards and see my stuff produced on Broadway and translated into seventeen languages and turned into movies and TV series. It's no likely, but it is actually possible. I don't want to be famous any more, though, not at all. Gives me the heebie jeebies to think about it. What I would like is to be a good enough writer to deserve to be famous, even if I never am. That would be pretty sweet. And I'd like it if my plays became famous. I hope they do, because I am just nuts about them. Writing them is like getting to live out my dreams. That is the true prize. Fame is just the price.
It's possible that I'm full of shit and am still just dying to be famous. But all I have to do is think about Alana and I shake it off. Life is good here in Nowheresville.
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