“History is gossip but scandal is gossip made tedious by morality” said Oscar Wilde. Oscar wrote this before his own life was ruined by gossip, scandal and morality.
So this remark is applicable to Wilde’s era and onward (downward?) to our own time of Internet fire-flashes of snark.
And don’t we all always get up on our high horse when somebody is caught with their hand in the cookie jar – wicked, wicked! This is the thing all gossip columnists have to try hard to avoid – becoming a moralist. It’s so easy, you have the bully pulpit of a column, and suddenly you’re forgetting your own life and errors.
It’s hard to give a balanced view. I’ve tried and most of the time succeeded (I think!) but the temptation to go with the flow – Angelina Jolie is a black-widow spider, stealing hapless Brad from poor little Jennifer Aniston! – looms large. Of course, in my case it helps that I’ve been around a long time. I have tried to take the historical perspective. It’s just Liz-Eddie-Debbie dressed up for the new millennium.
***
The other day, filmmaker Hart Perry asked me to participate in a coming documentary on the changing face of fame and celebrity culture, from the 1950s to the 2000s.
It will eventually air on VHI, the youth-oriented music channel. Naturally, being an icon of “youth,” I jumped at the opportunity to enlighten my fans.
Mr. Hart and his researchers are an intelligent bunch. Their questions were dauntingly long and full of literary allusions and references to psychologists, college studies, etc. And here I thought it was all going to be, “So, what’s Mariah Carey really like?”
Still, I thought it might amuse you if I told you some of Mr. Perry’s questions – the ones that didn’t require me to relive my college education! – and then my answers, as well as I remember them.
***
“Why didn’t gossip columnists print that Rock Hudson was gay?”
Because it was the 1950s, children. Nobody “outed” anybody back then. The short-lived but sensational Confidential magazine hinted luridly at things, but that was as far as it went. Homosexuality was simply not to be written about unless you were a figure of antiquity. Generally, reporters and the media were not out to destroy people. You had to go into the street and frighten the horses before a real scandal occurred. In Rock’s case, Confidential “settled” on an innuendo-laced story about another actor, instead of writing about Rock. Hudson then married to calm the waters, divorced when he’d had enough of that and remained Hollywood’s most eligible “bachelor” from then on until he contracted AIDS in the 1980s.
———
“Do you know the movie ‘Ace in the Hole’ with Kirk Douglas, in which he plays a tabloid reporter milking a pseudo-event? Wouldn’t he be a hero today?”
No, he wouldn’t be a “hero” today. He’d be a network. He’d be no different than anybody else in mass media today. (Kirk’s character actually causes the death of the poor guy caught in the “event” – a cave collapse. No way a hero – even today.)
———
The short version of the next question was, "How has the Internet changed celebrity culture?"
Drastically. But it has drastically altered ALL aspects of our lives. The instant nature of the net, of cell phones with cameras, of 24-hour cable news; these have drained our lives of the pleasure of anticipation on the one hand, while creating a frantic and stressful atmosphere on the other. In terms of celebrity, stars are now stripped totally of any mystery or glamour. And the newer ones don’t even know any different – constant intrusion, the expectation of exhibitionism is all they know. I can’t even begin to express the horror of reality shows and those people who are “stars” from that medium – Heidi and Spencer! I still don’t really know who they are, but I can’t escape the names.
———
“Why didn’t the press report on Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy?”
The press didn’t write about Marilyn and JFK and/or RFK for the same reason they didn’t “out” people – it just wasn’t done, until many years after JFK died in 1963. It wouldn’t have even occurred to a reporter to attempt such a thing. Marilyn and JFK would have had to be caught in flagrante delicto in Times Square before anybody wrote about it openly. And, in truth, her appearance at his birthday gala in New York was pretty close to that – it was really shocking, when you think about it. People want to remember it as some glamorous high point, but what was it, really? A misguided movie star and a reckless, adulterous president, taunting the press, having their silly fun. And Marilyn was actually fired from her film because she disobeyed her studio’s demand that she not attend this event. The only thing that could have made it more sordid would have been Jackie’s presence. But she had the good taste to be busy elsewhere.
———
“What was the significance of Marilyn Monroe’s suicide on celebrity culture?”
None. Oh, there was some hypocritical hue and cry right after. Time magazine got it right when they said Hollywood was “Thrilled With Guilt.” But really, there was little for Hollywood to feel guilty about. She was a disturbed girl and her end seemed inevitable. It was in the air for years. Her death deified her, made her the greatest myth and legend ever. The New York Times obit began “Marilyn Monroe, one of the greatest stars in Hollywood history …” Yet she had only been a real star for ten years, and had less than a handful of truly memorable films. In her life and in her death, she was very much a creature of the media – they loved her. They still do. She is always great copy. Louella Parsons got it right about MM when she wrote, before Marilyn’s death, that Monroe was “a greater star off-screen than on.”
———
“Why was 20th Century Fox unable to keep a lid on Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton during the filming of ‘Cleopatra?’”
Because those two stars actually did go out into the street and frighten the horses. They were blatant. She refused to lie to the press. When Eddie Fisher asked her to, she said no, and that was that. Liz and Richard partied, they made out in their bathing suits, they lived la dolce vita.
There will never be another star like Elizabeth Taylor or a scandal such as that one. It was even bigger than Lana Turner’s daughter killing Lana’s gangster lover. The “Cleo” scandal was on the front pages of every New York newspaper for weeks – and this is when New York still had six dailies. Remember, Elizabeth had done this once already, with Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds. Then been forgiven when she almost died, now she took Eddie’s scalp, threw it in his face and said “fuck you” to public shock. And she became an even bigger star.
———
“Elizabeth Taylor wrote: ‘The public seems to revel in the imperfections of the famous … I guess it makes them feel a bit superior.’ Do you agree?”
Elizabeth is right about people reveling in the faults of the famous. And she always talked to me about the yo-yo factor of popularity – up, down, up, down. And then there is her greatest remark: “There is no better deodorant than success.” When she repeated that on the air in an interview with Barbara Walters, John Warner, Liz’s husband at the time, grimaced. She just gave him a look and said, “Well, it’s true John, I should know.”
“Why is there such a great interest in gossip about movie stars?”
There has always been interest in “What the king is doing tonight,” as Alan Jay Lerner wrote in “Camelot.” Gossip and gossip writing is not a modern invention. Read Saint-Simon or the letters of Madame de Staël. Before movies, people were fascinated by royalty and theater personalities. Movie stars were the icing on the cake. You could go to your corner bijou and, for a nickel or a dime, see these fantastic creatures. These images stirred the imagination – and so, of course, you need to know every intimate detail of Mary Pickford’s life. There will always be a need for gossip, now that it is 24/7 on websites like Perez and TMZ, and rather ugly. But it’s gossip and it’s alive and kicking for today’s audience. And truthfully, even back in the innocent days of the silents, it wasn’t so innocent – murder, drug addiction, rape – it all played out to feverish newspaper readers.
———
“Does the pleasure of films with movie stars carry over to gossip about them or is this just the nature of film?”
These days it’s hard to associate stars with their off-screen lives, because the very nature of stardom has become so threadbare. But certainly back in the day, gossip and the film stars melded. If a star lasted long enough, their films would eventually become vehicles for what the public assumed they were really like. (The couplings of screen teams Tracy ‘n’ Hepburn, Liz ‘n’ Dick, for instance.)
If we feel a little burned out by the “new” celebrity worship culture, it’s because the emperors have no clothes. There are very few real stars today. So the public gets an overdose of the “15-minute kids,” the dregs, the pseudo-stars, the wannabes. And it’s boring.
A real star is never boring.
Check back tomorrow on wowOwow.com for Part Two of Celebrity Culture with Liz Smith.