Celebrity Wet Dream

I know a lot of people have their opinion on celebrity and what it means. How important is it?
God, i wish I could be them.
No, actually you probably don't.
I was brought up on the movies. Barbara Stanwyck, Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Cyd Charisse, Joan Fontaine, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Mickey Rooney, John Wayne, Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn...and then as I got older a new cadre of celebs filled my life, Jane Fonda, Sally Field, Robert Redford, Julie Andrews (who, to my amazement and grand joy, become a quasi bud later on in my life), Elizabeth Taylor, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh (Psycho, the best), Lee Remick, Warren Beatty, Shirley MacClain, Natalie Wood...
The Oscar telecast was a ritual. Homemade french fries, grease drained on ripped-open paper bags, lots of salt, and lots of star gazing. My mother had been a National Enquirer, Photoplay, and Star reader from the very beginning so I got the real scoop on all the Hollywood movie stars as they paraded up to get their award or tried to hide their disappointment as the camera caught them not getting their award.
"Elizabeth Taylor is such a whore."
"Rock Hudson is a he-she you know."
"They say Barbara Stanwyck sleeps with both men and women." Did that make her a she/he/she?
Always observing that celebrity. Always envious of it in a way. Wishing for it. Who knew that I would enjoy my own form of celebrity back in the 80's and then more recently, when at Target.
I don't know how many remember a little magazine show called PM Magazine..it started right at the time as Entertainment Tonight. PM was more a regional show, each major market had its own PM Magazine and ET was National. As you can see, by the one that survived, which was the better strategy.
Nonetheless, from 1980 to 1984, I was part of a two man team called The Movie Goers, and we would review movies once a week. One movie, once a week. Because both my partner and I were deeply embedded in improvisational theater at the time, we would also produce a themed segment around the movie...a little, four minute sketch.
During the course of the show we were exposed to celebrity in a couple of different ways, our own and being in the company of others.
We had done the show for a few months, when I began noticing changed behavior in those around me. Maggie was a baby then, and we'd be out eating or shopping, whatever, and I would notice people staring, and whispering, and yes, pointing. Jan and I would ask each other, 'Do you think they recognize me from t.v.?" After about six months on the show, past the point when I wasn't asking any longer if they recognized me, people got a bit bolder. Total strangers. "Aren't you a movie goer?" Yes, I am." "You guys are great." "Hey , thanks." "Is this your little girl, hey honey, look it that..a little mini-movie goer. Isn't she adorable? Can I hold her?"
No fucking way. Of course, I didn't say that, but we would find ourselves more then once, whisking Maggie away before some rheumy stranger could grab her up, just because he or she felt they had the right to because they thought they knew me because they had seen me on t.v.
This gave me a pretty good base for appropriate behavior for when I found myself on the other side of the fence and dealing with real celebrity in my role at Target or when interviewing various stars for the movies we critiqued on PM.
After a couple years on PM, these perfect strangers practically became family. They were entitled to know everything about you, they were perfectly rational about what their perceptions were of you, and felt no compunction in interrupting a dinner, rolling down a car window ("HEY! HEY MOVIE-GOER? YEAH, ME! ROLL DOWN YOUR WINDOW! YEAH, HEY ARE YOU ONE OF THE MOVIE-GOERS?"), or swooping down on one of your kids like a long-lost Aunt or Uncle with, "She's adorable. Wonder if she'll take after her movie-goer daddy? Do you have any more. How often do you and your wife have sex?"
Not really, but I know it was the next question.
Keep in mind, a regional show, couple hundred thousand viewers, big fish in a very small pond. At the time, I couldn't imagine if that were reversed.
Once in awhile a movie review would take us to New York or L.A. for a press junket, where we got to experience the other side of the coin.
The first movie we pressed for was a little Tom Hanks ditty called Splash. Brian Grazier produced, Little Opie directed (Ron Howard). They would string each of the reporters into a hotel suite, each being occupied by one of the stars. In the case of Tom Hanks he was with Ron Howard (he was just coming off of Bosom Buddies and was a newbie) Daryl Hannah was with Brian Grazier (I think she might have been fucking him...just my opinion), and John Candy was, well, with himself. As we went into Hanks room you could see the deer in the headlights look and the deepest need to be liked (you like me, you really, really like me), and I resolved right then to not make myself too familiar, or to pretend like we were long lost buddies or that his first born should be mine.
It actually was a very civil conversation, short but civil. I talked more about Bosom Buddies, which Jan and I loved, which I shared with him. He seemed to relax, especially when I brought up the fact that he's now becoming 'known' and how had that affected his personal life, blah, blah, blah. He was very honest, forthright, and human. Ron Howard, the same. He said very little, but here are these two guys, just prior to developing a personal world-wide platform of recognition and status, and they just wanted to let us little nobodies know how scary it was.
John Candy was hysterical. Off the grid funny and couldn't have given a shit about us.
Moving on to Target, again, both sides of the coin, one side, me in front of the camera, spewing out key messages to Matt, Katie, Mayor Bloomberg, the New York Times or Wall Street Journal, or sidling up with Pink and Sela Ward (huge crush) to promote a concert and pop up store supporting Breast Cancer Awareness month, or George Clooney, helping us to promote the LA Film Festival (now FIND...Film Independent blah blah) with a Target Award Show for outstanding Independent Film Maker. Yep, I said George Clooney. It's amazing how one can rationalize when one needs to. If you're giving out an award for outstanding work in independent film and George Clooney is available, then George Clooney becomes the best fucking independent filmmaker in the world. Hey, the year after we gave it to Charleze Theron. Go figure.
But the Celebrity Wet Dream of all celebrity wet dreams has to be the Night Before event. It takes place the night before the Academy Awards, which means that just about every star in the world is in Beverly Hills that night. Dreamworks and Katzenberg and Variety put it on and its for the Television and Motion Picture Fund. There are very few sponsors and no press is allowed (except Variety of course). The first year a colleague and I went really by accident. We had gotten the tickets through our media agency and even they weren't going to go with us but ended up being there, which was a good thing, because we ended up being a sponsor through my tenure at Target, just because of our experience that first night.
Because there is no press, it would be harder to name a celebrity who wasn't there, then the one's who were. We sat at the bar and one by one they'd walk by: Steven Speilberg, Clint Eastwood, Jamie Foxx, Oprah Winfrey, Sally Field, Tom Hanks (20 years after Splash and there I am with TH...once we sponsored the event and I met him more personally, I recalled the press junket for Splash. We had a laugh or two over that), Jack Black, Jude Law, Goldie Hawn, Alec Baldwin, Will Smith, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston (in fact, all the Friends), the list, as they say, went on and on.
And we weren't just gawkers either. Like I said, very few sponsors, but the ones that were there gave shit away and whether you were Faye Dunaway or Harvey Weinstein, we all stood in line and waited for our free stuff. Nike gave out free shoes, you picked the color, the style and gave them your size and you were given your shoes at the end of the night. The stars went crazy for those shoes.
As we became sponsors and had our own cabana in which to shill the latest Target Designer and their goods, it became a contest as to whose stuff was the best and whose line was the longest, with Hollywood's biggest names. We usually won. Isaac Mizrahi pajama's, six different styles to choose from, men and women's. Thomas O'Brien. Cocktail glasses and various party favors. All stuffed into a big old, custom-designed bag to carry it all home.
With Target its all about branding, so the cooler the branded bag and the graft that went in it, the bigger mentions in variety and ancillary press we got out of it, as well as being cemented all the more in the hearts and minds of the stars. Target's version of reputation management by a network of top-line celebrity influencers.
Also, as sponsors, we were able to enjoy a pre-party cocktail party hosted by the committee heads where we rubbed shoulders with the likes of Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, Tom Cruise, George Clooney, Will Smith, Jimmy Smits, Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson...again, the list goes on and on. The stars would circulate the room, driven by their publicists to where each sponsor was pre-stationed with it's celeb's of CEO's and top executives (or whomever could connive an invitation within the corporation), so pictures could be taken. Celebrity wet dream with a happy ending!
The first time Janet, my wife, came to the event, she more or less ended up in the periphery of the photo taking. She was with the 'working' guy, so we would have our pictures taken later, or not at all, since our relationship with the celebs was more organic and friendly (we weren't considered the suits) and we had to maneuver the publicists, and eventually, the stars to our execs, so, in essence the Target worker bees and the celebs were both 'working' the room.
However, the piece de resistance, was watching and listening as I saw Brad Pitt approaching Jan, who, trying to be invisible, as is her want, hovered near the patio doors, slamming liquor.
He walked up to her, reached out his hand and said, "Hi, I'm Brad Pitt." She hesitated and said, "I know who you are." Then she reached out her hand, took his and said, "Hi, I'm Jan Remington." and without a pause he said, "And now I know who you are."
Think that's what celebrity really boils down to, no matter which side of the coin you're on and no matter what kind of celebrity you own, (keep in mind, to your five year old, you're the biggest celebrity in the room) and that's to know who each other is.
Just knowing each other's name sometime qualifies both participants to enjoy some moment of celebrity.
But don't stop there. That's how we really become stars.