Anonymity Is The New Fame

Sun Herald

Sunday November 20, 2005

TERRY SMYTH

JUST lately, in shops, cafes, public places, from the corner of my eye I've noticed people looking at me sometimes furtive glances, at other times outright stares and often accompanied by nudges and whispers of "It's him!" or words to that effect.

Ah well, I knew it would come to this. I knew it from the moment curiosity drew me into a crowd milling outside a theatre, wondering what all the excitement was about. The attraction, I discovered, was celebrities arriving for yet another of those TV awards shows. It seems every week these days Australian television has a night of nights, or even a night of night of nights, and the red carpet looked a little threadbare and in need of a steam clean.

But what struck me was not so much the sad state of the rug but who was strolling down it everyone. On parade were not just the usual teen soap stars, casts of axed sitcoms, out-of-work actors, cheesy game show hosts, idle idols and dancing newsreaders, but the crowd too.

There were no barricades because there were no onlookers. The crowd of people I first took to be adoring fans weren't standing watching and waving. They were queuing to take the walk of fame.

Among them, I spotted many familiar faces.

Naturally, Big Brother's extended family was well represented not just housemates but droves of relatives and friends Gretel Killeen had asked "So is he the same at home?" and who had replied "Yeah no, pretty much."

There were game-show contestants aplenty round-one dropouts, mostly, with posses of serial studio audience members.

Applauding themselves, because no fans were there to do so, were dozens of blink-and-you-missed-it witnesses interviewed in TV news reports. I recognised a woman whose claim to fame was saying the accused murderer next door "kept pretty much to himself", and the bloke who described a horrific road accident as "not real good".

Apparently very pleased with themselves were first-time carpet strollers who had accidentally or deliberately appeared in the background of pieces to camera, gurning or gawping behind some unsuspecting reporter. Many among this group were wearing T-shirts emblazoned with "As seen on TV".

Others boasted more substantial talent. There were people whose searing, evocative docos had featured on such programs as Australia's Funniest Fatalities or Kiddies Falling Down And Hurting Themselves.

Anyone who had ever popped up in a crowd shot at a televised sporting event or street scene was there, all dressed in their best and flaunting their fame. Even thieves, robbers and vandals immortalised on security cameras were there, shamelessly strutting their stuff. With celebrity the great leveller, they were no less welcome to the congratulations and canapes than were the Eddies, Rays, Sandras and Moonfaces.

It was there, for the first time, I sensed heads turning in my direction and I scuttled off into the night, vowing to keep a low profile.

So I live quietly these days. I venture out in public only when I have to, and even then I try to keep to the shadows.

I suppose it will catch up with me one day, and sometimes I'm tempted to stride out into the spotlight and accept my fate. But a line from an old Gilbert and Sullivan song keeps running through my head. It goes: "When everyone is somebody, then no one's anybody."

And that's why I'll keep running and hiding for as long as I can. They'll hunt me down eventually, I know, and I'll be probed, prodded and paraded as a human curiosity. But until that day I'm proud to be who and what I am: the only living Australian who has never been on television.

© 2005 Sun Herald

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