All the Youthfulness You Need
“Hume Cronyn,” she said, squinting her eyes in my direction. I was standing in the grocery store aisle. “Excuse me?” I responded, clueless about what she meant. “Hugh?” “Hume, Hume,” she emphasized, “Hume Cronyn, the actor. You look like him.” This was a bit unusual, at least for me. I not used to being stopped by a complete stranger in the grocery store and learning that I look like someone I’ve never heard of. On occasion, I have had people who read this column tell me they thought I looked taller in the newspaper’s photo than in real life. “But, it’s only a headshot,” I want to say. And, one lady told me my nose isn’t as big as it looks in the column’s picture. I walked away wondering if that was a compliment or a criticism. Then, a number of times, I’ve been told I look younger in the picture than when they met me. The being younger comment brings me back to Hume Cronyn. “Look him up,” the lady in the grocery store told me. “He was Jessica Tandy’s husband. You look just like him.” “Okay,” I mused, smiling at what I supposed was a compliment, “finally someone relates me with a movie star.” I was anxious to tell my wife. Jessica Tandy was a beautiful lady, wasn’t she?” I said to myself as I searched Aisle 12 for almond butter, which is high in Vitamin E and more likely to keep me healthy as I age. “So, this Hume fellow had to be a handsome dude,” I reasoned on the way to checking out. “Hume Cronyn, Hume Cronyn, Hume Cronyn,” I repeated to myself as I carried my groceries to the car, fearful that my memory, which doesn’t seem to me as sharp as it was years ago, might fail me. I googled his name, humming Buck Owens song, “They’re gonna put me in the movies,” as I searched. Much to my dismay, Hume looked, well, more seasoned than I had assumed. Not one to give up, I viewed pictures of him in his younger years, which were more flattering to him, and by association, to me as well. But the movies I remember him being in, once I recognized his character, pictured an actor beyond his prime. I scratched my head. “Did that lady think I looked like the young Cronyn, the old Cronyn, or the somewhere in–between Cronyn? Surely not the aging and shriveling Cronyn who starred in the movie, Cocoon.” …