“胖子”明星脸的成名记_大学英语阅读

“胖子”明星脸的成名记

As a result of being in the public eye, I began to dress better. I wore slacks and a blazer.[6] I kept my shoes shined. I changed shirts every day. I had my hair cut and my beard trimmed[7] every other week. After all, there is such a thing as noblesse oblige[8].

The more I changed, the more second looks I received. From enjoying the attention, I began to crave[9] it. I was only getting my just deserts[10]. I’d always felt I was somebody special. Don’t we all? Now others were finally realizing it.

How do all those other people get to be celebrities? Somebody once said that a celebrity is a person who is famous for being famous. Maybe it’s possible to become a celebrity just by acting like one.

But who did people think I was? I must have been a movie star, or at least a television personality – not a real superstar but a prominent supporting actor[11]. The only such person I could think of was Sebastian Cabot[12], who appeared in many Hollywood productions but was best known for playing Mr. French, the butler who looked after Buffy and Jody in the television show Family Affair. But somehow that identity didn’t feel right.

Then one evening I was sitting at a bus stop in Westwood Village when two young men in an old car with Minnesota license plates nose-dived to a stop right in front of me.[13] Both ducked their heads and swiveled their necks to look up at me with that expression I had come to recognize as a tribute to my talent and success.[14] One of them said, “Hello, Dom!” His foxy tone suggesting that they had outed me in spite of my trying to remain incognito on a bus stop bench – as if I didn’t have my own chauffeur-driven limo.[15]