Panthurdreams made me remember a moment when I was a teenager and I became convinced for a while that I'd seen Dirk Bogarde in person, at a mall in the Pittsburgh area. Yes, you can laugh now.

It was the very early 70s, I think. My mother and I used to watch old black and white classic movies together on the local channel, and I know I saw the film Libel -- in which the actor plays two roles, a man and his evil doppleganger. I also seem to recall a movie he made in which he pushes some old woman down the stairs, his landlady perhaps. The two movies used to mix in my memory, but the face of the actor -- looking at himself in the mirror, as he does in Libel -- is very clear. It's a frightening movie, too, which fixes that face more firmly in my mind's eye.

Anyway, at the Monroeville Mall, I was walking by myself looking around aimlessly, and nearly stumbled right into a man in a wheelchair. It was one of those wheelchairs with a very high back.

I looked up and automatically began to apologize. I think I stopped being able to talk, because this man was glaring at me in the most amazing way, like he was trying to kill me with a look. He was the most handsome man I think I had ever seen. And he looked precisely like Dirk Bogarde in Libel, with that curly hair combed back. He had the same haughty look too.

I stepped back and whoever was pushing him rolled on, neither of them saying anything to me.

I suppose men have this experience more often, spotting a beautiful woman they don't forget. It was like that. I remember that man.

Maybe he had a touch of Edward Fox, too.