A lot like life.

The first time I saw it, it freaked me out. I thought it was a real person.

Bookstore statue model loved acclaim

Charles Shugarts loved being "Charlie" at the Tattered Cover Book Store.

'Shugarts, who was the model for the store's statue of a man seated, reading a newspaper, died Jan. 31 after a long illness. He was 88.

But Charlie lives on, delighting some and startling others.

Shugarts often visited the Cherry Creek Tattered Cover and, later, the new location on East Colfax Avenue. He would sit down next to the statue and assume the pose, said his wife, Beverly.

Shugarts would say later: "People would look at me and not know whether I was dead or alive."

Shugarts' outgoing personality and affability were the reasons his niece, Margaret Quinn, chose him for a project to put art on the downtown 16th Street Mall in 1988. She was working for developer David French, who wanted the art, and she came up with the idea of life figures. They hired college art students to make the casts of each person's body.'