My junior and senior years in college, I was frequently asked if I was “that Paper Chase guy.” NO! Not the old “They EARN it” guy but one of the law students. To this day I cannot tell you the actor’s name: In the show he had longish reddish blonde hair and silver, wire famed round glasses.
I always said no and usually people believed me. One young woman thought I was lying to protect my privacy, however.
My mother was once mistaken for Yoko Ono. (She is one-quarter Korean and looked more Asian when she was younger. Oddly, my father looked more like John Lennon when he was younger. When I was a kid I came across a picture of JL and YO, and asked why mommy and daddy were on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.)
Throughout my day I was compared to Anthony Michael Hall and Boris Becker.
Anybody who has seen me (pucette, weirddave, John Corrado, Wendell Wagner, Falcon, iampunha) can tell you that those people were way off.
Most recently, my students thought I looked like Chris Eliot. They are more on the mark, I guess.
However, I apparently look exactly like some other guy who also attended Univ. of MD. This generated two very interesting encounters while a student there.
I’m sitting on a retaining wall when somebody clamps their hands over my eyes and says, “Guess who”. I respond, “I have no clue.” Clamper person (a female girl of the species) says, “I’ll give you a hint” and proceeds to swirl her tongue on the back of my neck!! Thank God a friend of mine was with me or NOBODY back in the dorm would have believed this story.
I’m at the ATM outside the Student Union when somebody comes up behind me ang grabs my tushie. I spin around to see this cute girl and watch as her eyes widen and her face turns what could only be called “vermillion”. She stammers, “I…I…I’m sorry; you’re not who I thought you were!” As she walked away very quickly, I called back, “But maybe I could be!”
I was once mistaken for Robert Urich Before that, I had now idea how handsome that man was. 
When you say “that Paper Chase guy”, do you mean James Stephens? I couldn’t find a picture of him.
People often ask me if I’m Kenny G. Yes, that annoying horn playing wanker.
I’ve been compared to Tiny Tim - the “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” ukelele guy from the sixties. Not an entirely flattering comparison, either.
And when the movie The Last of the Mohicans came out in 1992 a friend told me I resembled Daniel Day Lewis. I thought that was pretty good, but she was just trying to get into my buckskins.
I’ve always been a big dude, so I pretty well looked like an adult by the time I hit my teens. Anyway, while I was still in high school, some dude whose name is now lost to me won a golf tournament and made the cover of Sports Illustrated. Except for the mustache, he bore an uncanny resemblance to me. So, for the week until the next issue of SI came out, I kept getting stopped by old duffers who thought I was this pro golfer.
If anyone knows where I can find an archive of old SI covers, maybe I can figure out the dude’s name.
People constantly mistake me for Charles Bronson.
Most of the year I look pretty straight arrow: dress shirt and tie and nice slacks. I do have a beard that is more grayish white these days than it used to be and I am getting a rather good paunch around the middle.
Now these identify marks would probably not have set many people to comparing me to anyone of note but a couple of things came into play. The first was that I was on vacation and was “dressing down” a bit more than usual as we traveled. The second was that the Greatful Dead were performing nearby to where were visiting on our vacation in one of their first concerts after Jerry Garcia had died.
This last fact was unknown to me as I sat in a cafe apparently not far from the concert site with my wife. Suddenly I heard, “There he is! There he is! He’s alive I told you he was,” (or something to that effect) and a number of people in tie-died and “dead” t-shirts were rushing towards me. I looked around trying to spot the notable person being sought. That was until they stopped in front of me with faces alight with joy and hope all babbling at the same time.
I tried to explain that I was not Jerry Garcia, but many of the original group to reach the table were,…well, let us say in altered states and the crowd just kept getting bigger and louder and weirder as I stood there trying to explain. Finally, a waitress led my wife and me to a back door and my wife got our car and we escaped, but it was scary for a while. I went to wearing just a moustache and suits and ties for quite a few weeks after that.
I’ve been mistaken for John Belushi several times. Well, not mistaken for him, I suppose, but people have pointed out similarities to him in Animal House.
As a result, I’ve gotten used to saying quoting parts of the movie on demand. It’s a tough life.
Not a celebrity exactly, but I used to get mistaken for Prince Edward (Windsor) a lot, the resemblance was quite striking until he started losing his hair faster than me.
To my ultimate chagrin, I was once mistaken for Chris Farley. Since then, several other people have risked their lives to comment on the supposed resemblance.
I fight better…but he was often funnier.
I am sorry to say that I was once told I looked like “that Al guy from Home Improvement.” Yes, that’s right. Richard Karn.
I never wore that plaid shirt again, let me tell you.
I’m glad to say that since I’ve started losing weight, this hasn’t come up again. 
Oh, and the worst part of the story was the way the conversation unfolded:
:rolleyes:
Couldn’t I have come up with anything else to say but that?
Not really mistaken, but I look like John Mellencamp and Mike Meyers had a child.
Natalie from The Facts of Life, unfortunately. And it happens more often as I get older. sigh
Elton John/John Denver
I’ve never been mistaken for anybody myself, but a good friend of mine has been taken for Drew Barrymore. My friend, Brandy, was buying gas or something and as she’s paying, the counter guy is freaking out about the “fact” that Drew Barrymore is buying gas from him.
When she told me about it after, it was with a “And what the hell would Drew Barrymore be doing in Framingham anyway?!”
Great story, TV time.
I’ve been mistaken for a bunch, who interestingly enough don’t really look like one another…
A month ago was Paul Walker, I’m about his size and have blond hair but that’s really about it…
Back when 90210 was in it’s hayday I was at Killington Vt and was mistaken for Iain Zehring (however the heck you spell it). My hair gets a bit curly when it’s long, and I was a hockey player then so was about 25lbs heavier. That one still is way off.
Oh and most recently, Doogie Howser…I certainly hope that’s not true, but ahhh well.
Back when I had a full beard and mustache with hair down to my butt, I used to wear a pinstriped Brooks Brothers coat and Stetson cowboy hat to rock concerts.
Many, many times people would point to me and exclaim that I was Leon Russell. This made absolutely no sense until I came across one album of his years later whose cover image bore a striking resemblance to me at that time.
Nowadays, it more of the “Hey, it’s Dan Ackroyd!” sort of thing. I suppose I should feel complimented. At least it’s not John Belushi.
Back in the late 80s, Chris Novoselic, the bass player of Nirvana had a goatee ( http://www.nirvanaclub.com/pics/px_krist/krist005.jpg ). At the time, I also did. We’re also both tall and lanky and walk similarly. Several times people stopped me on the street and asked if I was him.
About the time Nevermind came out he shaved his goatee and coincidentally I did too. Clean-shaven, we look nothing alike.
When I went to an Army Reserve recruitment center, the seargent who greeted me did so by saying “Aren’t you that supersmart janitor from Good Will Hunting?”
