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Having lived in Manhattan for about twenty years, I’ve had my fair share of “encounters” with celebrities.
Many famous people -- singers, actors, politicians, athletes, etc. -- live in New York or visit here quite frequently, given that the metropolis is a global center for media, art, fashion, cuisine and finance.
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In the beginning, seeing celebrities in the flesh was an exciting and exhilarating experience. However, as the years passed, I became more of a proverbial “jaded New Yorker” and realized that it was a routine thing to observe people who have been blessed (and, in some cases, plagued) by fame, wealth and celebrity.
As a result, I have seen or run into literally hundreds of celebrities -- ranging from global icons to the Andy Warhol ‘fifteen-minute’ variety -- in Manhattan over the past two decades.
Here are some general observations I have made about such celebrity sightings/encounters:
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*Celebrities generally don’t like being noticed or bothered; they (quite understandably) just want to live their lives in peace.
*Most celebrities look worse in 'real-life' than they do in the newspapers or on TV and films. Typically, they are shorter, heavier and less attractive than you would imagine – indeed, make-up and studio lighting can do wonders for one’s pulchritude).
*Although most celebrities want to be left alone, they concurrently want to enjoy the perks of fame and privilege (that is, they can’t stand waiting in lines or waiting too long for a cab, etc.).
*Most celebrities are ‘normal people’ who cannot believe their good luck and actually want to try to live as ordinary a life as possible.
I would imagine that New York – since it’s so small, concentrated, and densely populated – is a better place to star-gaze than Los Angeles, where the car/driving culture imposes more of a barrier between the famous and the rest of us.
Plus, I make a distinction between an “authentic” celebrity encounter, versus an “artificial” one. What I mean by that is that if one hangs around long enough at Sixth Avenue and 51st Street, near Radio City Music Hall, NBC Studios etc., one will undoubtedly happen to catch a number of famous people who are coming and going from TV interviews or what-not. To me, a “genuine” celebrity encounter is one what happens during the ordinary course of one’s day – in an unexpected manner.
There is also another dimension to this discussion – the quality of fame.
That is, one must examine exactly what “fame” means in this contemporary era of tabloid/trash TV, internet and instant messaging.
There are those few special souls whose fame is based on extraordinary accomplishment and whose celebrity will likely last forever (Frank Sinatra, Beatles, Elvis Presley, Bing Crosby, Woody Allen, Michael Jordan, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, etc.). In the next level down, there are those celebrities who happen to either belong to the ‘right’ family or happened to be at the right place at the right time (most of the Kennedy family, etc.).
