Tag: celebrities

Sexual Harassment Didn’t Slow Letterman Down

I realize it’s a little late in the day to start taking kicks at David Letterman.  The guy’s been seriously unfunny since Reagan went senile and Nancy and Frank were running the country.  I’m not sure anybody without Freedom 55 even watches his show anymore, but I saw a couple of recent Top 10 Lists on YouTube.  It’s really obvious he’s been doing this schtick for a lotta years.  He’s gotten Old Man Mean besides, in that nasty “Oh, yeah! I was funny before you were born” way.  Actually, the only reason he even comes to mind is that Comedy Central just gave him an award.  It’s the Johnny Carson something-or-other award for excellence.  You can’t see the show until next month, though, because Comedy Central taped it early to give everybody an opportunity to swear.  The thing is if Letterman were in any other business, he wouldn’t be getting any awards at all.  In fact, he’d have been booted — long since — for sexual harassment.  You know the story, so I won’t repeat it here, but if you don’t, just think scuzzy and Google it.  The point is, in our society, big-ass birds aren’t supposed to use their power and influence to coax young females into sexual dalliances – especially when those women work for them.  It’s a major no-no!  I can’t imagine an insurance salesman, for example, getting an award for excellence after admitting he’d had sex with a couple of female interns from a local college.  It doesn’t wash.  Letterman got away with it because he’s not the kinda guy you want to cross too many times, and, of course, he followed a unique contemporary tradition.  It goes like this: do whatever the hell you want.  When you get caught, confess and apologize, and that makes it all better.

I’m not sure when this tradition started, but it really got going after Reverend Jimmy Swaggart was caught trying to convert a local prostitute in a New Orleans motel room in 1988.  After initially denying that he been wrestling with her and the devil at the Travel Inn, he finally admitted it and apologized.  His famous “I Have Sinned” speech looks a little over-the-top these days, but it worked.  Swaggart was back in business in a couple of Sundays.  Since then, we’ve been treated to an ever-expanding list of public figures who, guilty as a puppy sitting beside a pile of poo, have employed this technique to good advantage.  The surprising thing is that, even after two decades of overuse, it still works.

I’m sure there’s a whole chapter devoted to “the confession” in the Public Relations Handbook.  However, it’s really a very simple five part program.  So if you ever find yourself in a compromising position, here’s what to do:

1) Once you get caught, admit it.  Whatever you did, don’t deny it, because that only makes it worse.  Call a press conference, or find a friendly talk show host.  Get in there, and plead guilty.

2) Never explain.  You need to be as vague as possible throughout the entire process.  Use words like “poor judgement” and “unusual circumstances.”  Don’t be tricked into giving away too many facts because gossip writers have ways of tracking down infinitely more embarrassing stuff from a few unrelated details.  Remember: reporters are lazy, and if they think they already have a story, they’re not going to go digging around to find one.  Try not to take any unscripted questions, and don’t set the stage for any further investigation.

3) Show remorse.  Say you’re sorry.  Apologize to everybody in sight, up to and including your friends, your fans and your mom.  Tears have become a joke lately, so unless you killed somebody limit the waterworks to something tasteful.  For example, Kate Moss suggested a tear that didn’t even smear her mascara.  Sometimes, it’s good to have the injured party, notably your wife, stand up there with you (but never, never, never any kids.)  This might cost you a bit, but it’s worth it.  Kobe had to spring for a million dollar ring, and nobody knows what kind of coin Jim McGreevey had to shell out.  But whatever you do don’t let the wife talk. (Look what happened to Bill Clinton.)

4) If possible, find a disease, and seek help.  Alcoholism is a good one.  So is stress.  But make sure it can’t be medically verified.   Tiger got away with sex addiction, whatever the hell that means.  Once again, be as vague as possible.  If you can’t find a disease, seek spiritual guidance.  In the old days, guys like Chuck Colson had to actually get born again.  These days, a couple of weeks in a monastery or some therapy is good enough.  And always publicly seek the support of the people who love you. 

5) Never speak of it again.  A good line is: “I’ve already hurt the people I love enough, so I won’t be making any further statements.” This is the most important point of all.  Basically, you just have to outlast the tabloids because, invariably, somebody else is going to do something just as stupid and you’ll be off the radar.

As the circle of celebrity continues to roll deeper and deeper into moral bankruptcy, I have the feeling they’ve hit rock bottom and now they’ve started to dig.  Eventually, we’re going to need an International “I’m Sorry Day” just to try and save the last shreds of polite behaviour from extinction.  It will be a kind of Ethical Earth Day when we gather all our public personalities together, make them look sad and hear their confessions.  At least, then, we won’t be subjected to these continual lame self admonishments that insults everybody’s intelligence.

Here’s the bottom line.  If anybody at Comedy Central thought sexual harassment in the workplace was morally wrong, David Letterman wouldn’t have been honoured.  If anybody at CBS thought it was morally wrong, he wouldn’t have a job.  Finally, if he thought it was morally wrong he wouldn’t have done it.  You don’t need a Top 10 List of reasons to figure that one out.

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton

It’s not very often I feel sorry for young people.  They’ve got tons of brilliant stuff going on — all the time.  They live in a wonderful age when anything is not only possible, it’s downright probable.  And they wear it well, in general.  They’re smart and way more polite than I ever was at that age, but they’re young yet.  However, for the last couple of days, I’ve felt sorry for them – oddly parental – protective, if you will.  Just as if they didn’t get that cool Christmas present, or grandma forgot their birthday, or they’re teenage sad with hungry love –the poor things.   I’m sad for them because they’re never going to sit in the dark and see Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton – the first time.  Liz and Dick are a forgotten cliché now.  They’re on television, Netflix, Yahoo and YouTube.  They’re gone.  They might just as well be Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks.

There’s no way to describe Liz and Dick to the 21st century.  In a world of 24/7 celebrity, they sound trivial — even trite.  They were not.  They didn’t soar above everyone else; they lounged there.  They simply did not share top billing with anyone, and only Marilyn was ever mentioned in the same breath.  There was never any debate.  It was Liz and Dick and then everybody else.  They were celebrities without even trying; to call them Hollywood Royalty or larger than life actually diminishes their stature.  In a time before regulated celebrity gossip, they made news — right alongside Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro.

This isn’t just old man nostalgia either.  I was never a fan.  I didn’t follow them in Photoplay, for example, or tune in when they showed up on Carson or Cavett.  It didn’t matter.  Liz and Dick didn’t care because we were friends.  We, the three of us, shared their movies.  They were on the screen and I sat in the dark, watching them.  We were three consenting adults — together alone.  It just happened that the theatre was full of all those other people who were doing the same thing.

That was the magic of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.  They lived in a conjured world that was real, and they let us watch.  There’s no doubt that it’s Edward who tears his soul apart for Laura in The Sandpiper, but somewhere inside there, it’s Burton and Taylor.  When you see it the first time, it’s personal.  These are people you care about.  You want them to be in love, and in the end, they have such a majestic sadness.  It’s the same in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?  It might be Martha and George screaming insults at each other, but, somehow, you’re not sure it wasn’t Dick and Liz who invited Nick and Honey to watch.

But that wasn’t all they did.  They knew they were celebrities.  They didn’t deny it.  They flew to Friday night parties in Europe and flew home Sunday morning.  He bought her jewels the size of Easter eggs.  They drank and smoked and partied without any self-conscious leer at the waiting cameras.  They didn’t demand a normal life; they chose to be famous.  Remember, it was Dick and Liz who invented the paparazzi when they carried their half-hidden adultery across to Italy during the filming of Cleopatra in 1962.  It was a time before Rock Hudson was gay; when June and Ward Cleaver still slept in separate beds, every Thursday night.  And the Kennedy brothers kept their mistresses hidden behind the curtains of Camelot.  It was a time when scandals ruined people and careers — but not Dick and Liz.  They were splashed across every newspaper in the world and reviled by everybody but the public.  They didn’t care.  They did what they pleased.  And they kept doing it, brawling and beautiful, for two and a half decades.

Sometime I’m going to see their movies again, but even the biggest TV won’t do them justice.  Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor are special, beyond Hepburn and Tracy and even Bogie and Bacall.  You need to be alone with them — sitting in the dark.