Once, when the movie Roxanne was new, I went into an eatery in the town where I live. A 13 year-old girl was having dinner with her parents and her younger brother. She looked at me, looked at her parents, looked at me, looked at her parents and said, "Mom, Dad, look! It's...it's... The Nose Guy."
Some time later I was walking through the parking lot at the shopping center where I go to the grocery store and a woman I don't know was driving along in her station wagon. She looked at me, put on the brakes, and told her kid to roll down the passenger's side window. She leaned over toward me and said, "Did you see Parenthood on TV last night?" I said I had seen a bit of it. "Has anyone ever told you that you remind them of Steve Martin?" "Yes," I said.
In 1995 I was in Cape Town, South Africa, for an astronomy meeting and a guy said to me, "If you ever get tired of astronomy, you could always have a career as a Steve Martin impersonator."
A friend of mine was paying scant attention to what her kids were watching on the VCR in the other room. It sounded like one of my theatrical videos. But when she went into the other room, she discovered to her surprise that it was a Steve Martin movie.
There are undoubtedly people who look more like Steve Martin than I do. I suppose it's the combination of the voice, the delivery, mannerisms and looks. So, Steve, if you ever need someone to play your younger brother in a movie, please call me. You can tap dance and juggle, but I think I'm a better singer.
Here I am with a still from the movie 'The Man With Two Brains'.
To access the Steve Martin home page, click here .
"The Kevin excess" by Russell Baker
Send me an email message at kevin@astro.washington.edu.