Of course I wanted to be George. No girl reading Famous Five wanted to be the ridiculous Anne left with the drying up. George had a dog, a boat, an island and a fiery temper. George was my first case of Impersonator Syndrome – a virulent variant of the more prevalent Imposter Syndrome (when someone of proven talent, doubts their ability and fears being found out as a fraud). I have this too. These syndromes spell a life lived in constant aspiration. I wanted to be George so much it hurt. Until I wanted to be Isabel O’Sullivan, one of the St Clare’s twins (another Blyton incarnation): lacrosse, tuck boxes, anchovy toast, tricks on Mademoiselle - my grammar school life of Findus crispy pancakes and gas fires couldn’t match the glorious appendages of boarding school life.
Jo March next of course – well actually no. All female writers cite Jo as their raison d’être. But I somehow missed her, diving into Jane Eyre instead who I had no desire to be. Having watched the sumptuous Greta Gerwig film I now absolutely and unequivocally want to be Jo March.
Skip some years and there were the two Kates. Firstly watching Top of the Pops in my nightie and trying to do the high kicks - Kate Bush: petticoats, footless tights and plaited ribbons in my long curly hair I ran up hills in bare feet. Kate gazed down at me from my college wall, with her bronze eye-shadow segueing perfectly into my pre-Raphaelite phase.
Then Kate Two - Hepburn of course - tomboy slacks, rocking-horse nostrils, cheekbones you could file steel on and whipsharp tongue. How I longed to crack ice on a lake and swim every day like her.
Another poster, another wall: Greta Garbo - a face of mathematically proportioned perfection. The heroine of my 1920’s phase - back to front cardigans with pearls down my back and hobble skirts - a challenge when trying to lower oneself into your boyfriend’s MG.
Then Annie Hall – more slacks, brogues, black cloche hat, (clothes, a common denominator) Manhattan and kooky - my modus operandi. A short hop to Nora. All female journalists want to be the Ephron with her gorgeously messy love life, black polos and New Yorker wit. (Sass a recurring theme too) Nora still sits in the firmament.
Still in New York - Carrie Bradshaw, I couldn’t help but wonder – no neither could I, what it would be like if I were her: the Manolos, the boho apartment, the girlfriend gossip…
And throughout all the vicissitudes of my wanabee life I sit in life’s no-man’s land - ready to absorb all the things I wish I were from my next paragon, like some ghostly manikin made of blotting paper.
Moving on, the wedding dress era. A vulnerable time when even the most staid are struck by misjudged flights of fancy. All brides to be hope to transcend their workaday selves and become someone else if only for a day. I am in a fancy London wedding dress shop to which I have dragged my long-suffering mother and best friend. They sit dutifully, wondering how long the madness could last. Whilst I carousel through diaphanous bias cut chic via 50’s New Look to Edwardian lace throated concoction after confection. My final entrance preceded by the deafening rustle of tulle and taffeta. I emerge through the velvet curtains, shedding the papery grey chrysalis of my former self and extend my still dampened wings into the beautiful butterfly I knew I could be. The designer sidles up behind me whilst surreptitiously hoiking the zip to its close and whispers in my ear: “You look like Ginger Rogers.” I gasp – the zip closes – I had made it.
I didn’t buy the dress.
Then there was The French Phase, which I live in still, owning more stripey tops than Jean Paul Gaultier. Call My Agent has given this state a welcome Parisian inhalation of.
Juliette Binoche of course in everything, but most definitely in The English Patient – a heady concoction of French with Land Girl undertones. Land Girl falls into the generic Impersonator state. ( to which you can add vet, actresss, Italian, Editor of Vogue…)
Characterised by headscarf, dungarees, red lipstick and Land Rover Defender. Despite knowing it must have been pretty miserable digging turnips all day and slathering your face in Pond’s cold cream whilst living on an egg a week and sharing your bathwater I still longed to be backs to the land.
But back to Juliette and her Second World War nurse holed up in her Fiesole Italian monastery lit by snail shell tea lights, it was all I could do to stop myself taking a pair of shears to my hair.
Then the two Audreys – Hepburn of course – gamine to die for. How I longed to add gamine to kooky. Then Tatou – chic, chic, chic. I go to my hairdresser Mattieu who being French understands what I mean when I say I want an Audrey Tatou, just as he understands my friend when she says she wants a Juliette Binoche. Because he is an absolute honey he does not laugh in our menopausal flushed faces and screech “Their mothers maybe” No he dutifully cuts our hair without question and for a few brief hours with good lighting we are French. We are our idols. We have arrived.
Now (feeling a little like Andie Macdowell in Four Weddings reciting former lovers), other wannabees include: the Mum (Sally Hawkins) in Paddington (really want her Venetian wallpaper); Lizzie Bennett of course, despite being told I was perfect for the dippy Lydia; Alex Holms (Jennifer Beals) in Flashdance – the steel girders, the legwarmers, the off the shoulder sweatshirt; Martha Gellhorn: slacks, brains and bravery - is it the slacks? And on we go … But why? Why don’t I long to be me?
I was once in a workshop when we all had to give a brief résumé of ourselves and the workshop leader after hearing my patchwork life said “Oh I really want to be you!” “What – no you don’t, you really don’t”
But that is the point, to the outsider, to the wannabee, other lives look like all we could dream of - but for those living them – well it’s just life. We just want to be someone else – someone other. But why? Well the gilded others we hold in such reverence are seem fully formed than we who like stuttering baby lambs wobble around life not knowing what to do. The furrow already furrowed looks oh so inviting. Like Frankenstein’s monster - our poor half made up selves yearn to be complete. To arrive. To make it.
And is that not the nub of Impersonator Syndrome? Why do we not realize what is patently obvious - we are wanting to be people who are already people – that role has been taken by, well, them! The only person you can be is you. But who wants to be me? As the steely makeup artist said to me when people ask her to make them look like Ava Gardner she thinks: “The trouble is kid – the only person who looks like Ava Gardner is - Ava Gardner.”
But standing on the shoulders of giants et al - are we not an amalagam of all that has come before. Am I not all that I’ve seen, all that I’ve read, all that I’ve lusted after in the cinema? A salmagundi of lives lived.
And so channelling Carrie: “I couldn’t help wondering … when will I long to be me? And just like that there I am … wearing slacks of course, French ones.”
I Have a Dream to be Lily James (for lots of reasons) 🙏🏼