INTERNATIONAL: In 1979 a Hit Song Made This Future L.A. Real Estate Agent a Pop Culture Icon

PHOTO: My Sharona

She is one of the rare people who is internationally recognized solely by her first name, yet still maintains the anonymity most A-listers would kill for after another day dodging paparazzi. She’s the kind of pop culture phenom who has the bragging rights to being both a question in a New York Times crossword puzzle and an answer (er, question) on the game show Jeopardy!. When Alex Trebek asked contestants: “Name the girl in this hit by the Knack who made Doug Fieger’s ‘motor run, my motor run’ and became a star in the real estate world” practically everyone in the audience there and watching at home knew the answer: Who is “My Sharona”?

Before becoming a top real estate agent in Los Angeles, Sharona Alperin hit rock-star-muse status in summer 1979. The L.A. native met Fieger, lead singer of the Knack, while she was still a student at Fairfax High School. “Doug was nine years older than me. I was 17. And he was instantly saying things like, ‘I’m in love with you. We’re going to be together,’” she says. “I was fully in love with my serious boyfriend at the time and he was much closer to my own age.”