NATIONAL TREASURE

There are many moments and events in history (both real and possibly invented) I would love to have been a fly on the wall to witness, but none intrigue me quite as much as seeing Nicolas Cage arrive at the home of the reclusive J. D. Salinger to acquire his signature at the request of Patricia Arquette, who would only agree to date Cage if he obtained three impossible things, the mysterious author’s signature being one of them.

According to Arquette, she first met Cage in 1987 in a Los Angeles deli, where, like some beach-dude knight-errant, he insisted she give him a quest to carry out. Thinking on her feet, she asked for a black orchid, a Bob’s Big Boy statue (essentially a giant fast-food sculpture), a wedding dress from the Lisu people of Southeast Asia, and a signature from Salinger.

After spray-painting a purple orchid black and proudly procuring a Bob’s Big Boy statue, Cage never explained how he acquired the signature from the author of The Catcher in the Rye. I personally like to imagine he went on some adrenaline-fuelled road trip from Hollywood to Cornish, New Hampshire, strode right up to the semi-mythical writer’s house, and talked his way through the front door.

Of course, Cage may have simply obtained the signature via an auction house or had someone forge it for him, but as it’s one of the most unlikely and hilarious historical encounters I can imagine, I much prefer to believe it was real.

And, typical of the endless lore surrounding the Boo Radley–like enigma of Salinger, it only adds to the myth-making to imagine that Cage, one of the most ostentatious and expressive movie actors, the very definition of an extrovert, would meet the world’s most famous introvert.

There’s a 'buddy' movie right there.