Yesterday as I was picking up my mail, the mailwoman and I had a chat, and it went something like this:
Postwoman: I bet you get told a lot that you look like someone famous.
Me: Not really. There’s only one person I’ve been told I look like, or even have been mistaken for.
Postwoman: Who is that?
Me: You’re probably too young to know this guy: Cat Stevens, the singer.
Postwoman: No, I don’t know him.
Me: Well, who do I look like, then?
Postwoman: (mumbling) Shavonz (that’s what I heard).
Me: Shavonz? Who’s that? How do you spell it?
Postwomen: No, the Fonz–the FONZ!
Me: Oh, the Fonz! Henry Winkler!
Postwoman: Yep.
Me: You really think I look like him?
Postwoman: Yes.
Me: Well, nobody’s ever told me that, so I guess I’ll take it.
But in reality I look nothing like the Fonz. Here’s Henry Winkler recently:
I don’t think there’s much of a resemblance, so I guess I won’t take it. You be the judge.
However, when I was younger and had long hair and a beard, I was told I looked like the singer Cat Stevens, and when I visited to Greece as a hippie, just when Stevens was popular, I was mistaken for him twice by the locals, once in a taverna where his picture was hanging on the wall. Stevens, whose birth name was Steven Demetre Georgiou, is about six months older than I. His father was from Cyprus, so he was widely admired in Greece.
I maintain that yes, I looked like him back then. Here are some photos. First, two of Stevens, then two of me from about 1974 when I was in grad school.
Cat Stevens:
Me:
Of course neither Cat nor I look like this now, but the resemblance was noted decades ago. As you may know, Stevens stop singing, converted to Islam, became a hard-line Islamist, and then deconverted.
Here’s one of the songs I like from the Cat. He was very good before he went off the rails:
And another good one, this time a live performance:
Now this is a good excuse for a thread. Who do you resemble, either in your own view or in other people’s? Do you have a Doppelgänger?
If you want, send in photos of you and your Doppelgänger and I may do a post if I get enough of them.
I had no idea who Henry Winkler was, so I looked him up.
Have you seen the bearded, young Winkler? Looked like Cat. So if you looked like Cat at one time, and Cat looked like Winkler at one time…
Ceiling Cat, you and Winkler don’t resemble each other much now. You are more handsome! But you, at your current age (73?), do look a little like the Fonz (when Winkler was young). It’s something about the shape of the face and the slant of the eyes.
I agree. After having googled the man.
I was going to suggest your younger self was a Doppelgänger for the incomparable Diana Rigg (in drag, of course) in the grand guignol 70s horror classic ‘Theatre of Blood’.
You DID look a lot like Cat Stevens! (That’s a compliment
I was recently pulled aside in a restaurant by a stranger who told me and the waitress that I looked just like Jerry Garcia. She appeared to agree. I was wearing a hat so he couldn’t see my bald pate! It’s gotta be the beard.
My uncle looked like Frank Zappa and once a guy refused to believe that he wasn’t Frank Zappa at some bar somewhere.
Mine (I’m told) is Dylan Moran (though make him about ten or so years older). https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=Dylan+Moran
Well, for what it’s worth, IMHO whether it’s considering their physical, mental or professional capabilities through “advancements of the years” , PCC(E) has done quite well compared to “the Fonz” (aaayyy) – let alone (don’t get me started) “Yusuf”. By the way, it may be just me but the “aviator shades” image may (have) qualified Dr. Coyne for a stunt double gig for Cat Stevens back … uh…. then.
I had two: Jim Henson and Ray Stevens
All of us, when younger, were bearded with receding hair lines.
My hairline hasn’t receded, though my hair is thinning, like Prufrock’s. But you can’t speak for all of us!
When I was younger people used to say I looked like Valeri Bertinelli who I always thought was gorgeous and I never could get as thin as her but we have a similar face and eye shape.
People have been telling me since my 20s that Clare Danes could be my sister.
I was manning a booth at the local fair a couple of years ago. Nothing was happening and I was sitting with my eyes closed half asleep when I got a call from my niece. She said a friend had just been to the fair and said she’d seen Will Ferrell manning a booth. She had a picture. It was me. My niece thought it was absolutely hilarious. Though I don’t think her friend really thought I was Will Ferrell I can see some likeness.
I was at a weekend National Guard drill and a lady came up to me and said I looked just like her son, who was also in the Army National Guard but in a different unit. She took me over to see him and we could have been twins! We even wore the same style of eyeglasses. It was weird and like looking in a mirror. Nobody famous but definitely a doppelgänger.
Here’s a recent performance of Peace Train with Cat Stevens appearing at the end.
“Peace Train” featuring Yusuf / Cat Stevens
This is a really good joint performance. “Peace Train” was of course the Cat’s most famous song.
George Clooney.
Pretty sure someone said that, once.
Oops – simple typing error – I meant Rosemary – Rosemary Clooney.
In the 1960’s.
…[ almost lost my anonymity for a second there]…
Mickey Rooney..?
Me? The late, great Jim Croce. Here’s the pic that comes closest: https://www.allmusic.com/album/jim-croce-the-lost-recordings-mw0002586172. I was playing guitar in my office in graduate school one evening, and I had a Jim Croce album on my desk. My advisor (who seemed never to stop working) asked me if that was me on the album. I was probably singing a Croce song at the time, which probably accentuated the resemblance in his mind. But the resemblance is there nonetheless.
My twin brother. 😉
I don’t have a twin and I don’t look like my older brother (anymore) but we still have the same voice, esp. over the phone. No one can tell us apart on the phone, not even the folks. It’s funny…we don’t exploit it, but we are twin-voices. 🙂
I have been told I resemble Billy Bob Thornton on a sufficient number of independent occasions (once in Bermuda!) that I take it that the, to me, slight (at most) resemblance nonetheless is notable to some people.
GCM
Yes to The Fonz and yes to Cat.
The late Philip Seymour Hoffman.
What do these three have in common? Cat Stevens, Mel Gibson, Ben Affleck.
Artists I enjoy much less after learning some of their views. Affleck in particular – whenever I see him on screen, the image of his rat faced indignation confronting Bill Maher and Sam Harris with his ignorance comes to mind.
Jerry, you once posted a black-and-white photo of a famous academic/scientist/author that you were the spitting image of. His name escapes me now.
About 45 years ago, a couple of people told me I looked like an English tennis player called John Lloyd.
Nowadays, the person I most look like is my father, when he was my age. If he was still alive, he would be 106. “Eheu, fugaces labuntur anni”.
I’m not sure Stevens deconverted; but I base that solely recollections of interviews he gave in the US in 2014 or 2016 – show/interviews broadcast some time on PBS. There he said he remained Muslim, but had taken a more liberal view of the religion and his obligations as a Muslim, including public musical performances and what he would sing.
Once upon a time when my beard turned white but was shorter, I got Kenny Rogers a lot. But now it’s exclusively Billy Gibbons. I just looked, too. Turns out he’s only 2wks older than I am. And, we both like Mando & the Chili Peppers. He apparently spent years trying to find out where Mando had gone, only to discover that he’d been in Chicago all along, with Eddie “the Chief” Clearwater. Never heard of M&tCPs? I gave a friend a copy of their only album from 1957 and his reply was, “Why have we never heard of these guys?” A number of the tracks from that album are on YT. Congo Mombo is a favorite.
Anyway, in certain places in town they apparently call me ZZ, and over a decade ago I got a free beer in Slovenia due to the resemblance..
Tom Selleck.
Julie Andrews – alas, given I’m a man in my sixties …
Victor Victoria!
For one whole summer when I was younger a camp counselor called me Gene Wilder because he thought I looked just like him.
For me – no one. However, back in my twenties, I took home a very attractive young woman to introduce her to my parents. As soon as we left, she turned to me, rather too excitedly I thought, and said “Wow! Doesn’t your father look like Alan Ladd?” We broke up. Also, I have an Irish friend who is tall and with a black beard and black hair, and some colleagues have said he looks like Gerry Adams. He didn’t agree, but he dropped into a bar in a small village in Ireland for a quiet pint of Guinness once, and when he finished, and went to pay, the barman said “Oh no, there’s no charge for you Gerry.”
At school, back in the early nineties, I was nicknamed Rob, after Rob Lowe – the very handsome American actor. People thought I was a dead ringer for him, but as I had zero self-confidence, I never believed it and thought people were just taking the p**s.
It certainly never led to any success with the ladies, but that was due to my personality. I had no clue how to be sociable or how to make small talk and while other lads found it so easy to flirt and talk to girls, I was terrified by the thought. I just couldn’t do it, I still can’t. Instead I would talk about science and maths and would flinch at every hint of flirting or physical contact, even though that’s what I longed for.
I did have a wife but she left a few years ago. Her biggest complaints? She said that rather than a wife, what I really needed was another mother to look after me! She also said I was very quiet and stand offish with her friends and family. I hate to admit it, but she was right on both accounts.
In later life, everything has started fitting in to place. I was diagnosed with autism, and suddenly realised why I was scared of certain situations, and couldn’t do small talk. That was a few years ago, since then I’ve worked on my social skills, which have improved enormously. I actually feel like a valid member of the human race now, but I am still terrified by flirting and/or physical contact with women.
Now I look back at pictures, I realise I was a handsome lad. However I certainly don’t look like Rob Lowe any more – he has aged much better than me. He’s 58 and nearly 10 years my senior, but he looks better than I did when I was 30!
That was interesting.
One’s actor/actress lookalikes always age better, they get plastic surgery/laser etc help with that because looks are so enormously important to them. I always wonder why age/aged look discrimination is not more of a topic in the intersectional bubble.
That’s a very good point! Taking a guess it might be because most people in that intersectional bubble are in their twenties. To them, getting old is terrifying but very, very distant. They think it will never happen to them, instead, they concentrate on ‘injustices’ ‘suffered’ by their contemporaries.
They think us older people deserve what’s coming to us because we’re callous and uncaring. We had all the best luck, but we’re terrible people for not agreeing with their views on gender identity, male pregnancy, mathematical colonialism and the terrible evils of cultural appropriation.
I am repeatedly told Ms Cybill Shepherd.
With long, silver – white hair now.
Blue
Actually, more my likeness is as of this person of the late 1800s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matilda_Joslyn_Gage#/media/File:MatildaJoslynGage.jpeg
Ms Matilda Joslyn married to a man by the surname of Gage.
Blue
I had a nickname of Ras for a while due to being and skinny with long unkempt hair and scruffy beard. I might even have been a little mad.
Rasputin.
One of my teachers once told me I looked like I’d been the model for a statue he’d seen once, “The Indo-European.” Which probably means my double is dead.
The bearded Cat resemblance is stunning.
I’ll tell a related story: Strangers always take me and my lifelong best friend for sisters. One day a complete stranger accosted me and said: Do you have a sister called G.K.? You look exactly like a smaller version of her! It turned out he had been to some seminar with my friend.
Together, none of us looks her best. The size contrast is a bit bizarre and accentuates the less flattering features of each (in the days when we still cared about such things). Not that this ever kept us from going anywhere together, even hand in hand.
I’m rather glad I don’t resemble someone who said of Salman Rushdie, “He must be killed. The Qur’an makes it clear – if someone defames the prophet, then he must die.”
Never liked his music, either!
Thomas Dolby after his “She Blinded Me with Science” video in the 80’s. I was in high school, 17 years old. I had just got those trendy spectacles with large oval-frames? plus I had his hair style w/o trying. I did look like him in the video, but I don’t think we have similar facial features. Argh…it went around for awhile. It’s not like Dolby was ugly or anything, though some thought him an oingo boingo ripoff iirc.
I’ve liked Cat Stevens’ music since first encountering it as a kid in the ’70s.
But I still have trouble, all these years later, listening to his work because of his despicable, chicken-hearted endorsement of the Ayatollah’s “fatwah” on Salman Rushdie.
Stevens took a few years to figure out that his radical Islamic stance translated into fewer sales of his music, and less money. Once he did, he tried to soften it somewhat, and has (largely) regained his iconic status as a musician.
But to my knowledge, he has not fully disavowed his odious views on the matter, so I remain ambivalent about supporting him or his music.
Now, does this make me a hypocrite, since I am generally against the idea that we should ban, banish or ignore art based on the foibles of the artist?
I think it does, but I’m not sure how to change my sentiments.
I used to be told that I looked like Neil Young, Jackson Browne, and Iggy Pop. Presumably when they were my age…! The first two I’ll take – despite their dissimilarities from each other, yet alone myself – but I’m not sure that I ever looked quite as wasted as Iggy back then.