Kathleen Turner - a London crossing

    When you see a celebrity you do not expect them to be staring back at you. So when I looked across the road while I was waiting at a zebra crossing I was surprised to have Kathleen Turner staring back at me. Yes, that Kathleen Turner, the one that was in Prizzi's Honour with Jack Nicholson, in Romancing the Stone with Mchael Douglas and Danny Devito, in Body Heat with not much on and whose voice made a female rabbit sexy in Who Framed Roger Rabbit,
    The crossing was outside BBC Radio in Upper Regent Street in London but still it was surprising to see a Hollywood star in London. I was sure she did not have a film coming out at that time, so I wondered why she was there.
    There was not much time to think as the traffic stopped and we started to cross. Personally I am just happy to make it to the other side without being hit by anything. However to a Hollywood star this is a runway with an live audience. You could not help watching as she strutted across the black and white lines as though on a stage in front of cameras. Except that you hear of cases of celebrities causing accidents as motorists are too busy looking at the star to look where they are going, so being on a pedestrian crossing did not seem a very safe place to be. Hence I scuttled across as she strutted pass me. At least I made it safely to the other side.
    It was some weeks later that Kathleen Turner appeared on the front cover of the Radio Times. She was in a radio production of V.I. Warshawski which she had recorded in the summer at the BBC. It must have been strange for her acting to a microphone in a radio studio. So she must have enjoyed showing off as she crossed from her hotel, the recently reopened Langham Hotel, on one side of the road to the BBC studio on the other. It is just not what you expect to see when you are an accountant merely going to collect some mundane information from a client.
    I think she was just assessing her audience but it was still a surprise to look up and see her looking back. And if you have seen Who framed Roger Rabbit, you will know how she walked across that crossing.

©Conor Cotter

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