20:

From A Distance

Originally aired 04.19.1996
Stories of hero worship, of people admiring someone from afar, and trying to get closer to them.

Act One. In Search Of The Miraculous.

Erika Yeomans sees a young man's photo in an art magazine and decides to track him down. Problem is: he's Dutch, he's a performance artist, and he's dead. Supposedly. That doesn't stop her from creating her own mission to get near him — a mission that turns out to mirror certain things about his life. (The Dutch artist was named Bas Jan Ader.) (17 minutes)

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Act Two. Befriending Your Hero.

Writer Quincy Troupe talks about how, as a boy, he idolized Miles Davis, and how, as a man, he actually became one of Davis's closest friends. And how his picture of the man changed. (21 minutes)

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Act Three. Stalking Snuggles.

A man becomes obsessed with and then stalks Snuggles, the bear in the fabric softener commercial on TV. (4 minutes)

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Act Four. 1000 Women Become Selena.

Eighteen-year-old correspondent Claudia Perez goes to an audition where a thousand Mexican women and girls dress up to play the slain Mexican pop star Selena in an upcoming film about her life. Feelings about Selena run so high that when her fans talk about her, they often cry. (13 minutes)

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Photo: Parl

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