The Starlet Game

The Starlet Game

Inside Television 585
Publication Date: 1-6-12
By: Hubert O’Hearn


We’re going to have some fun this week. It’s a new year, no one has done anything petrifyingly stupid yet, so let’s just relax and have a few chuckles.

The evening before I wrote this column I had a great on-line conversation with the editor of Le Herald de Paris, Jes Alexander. I’ve only just started writing for the Herald and it is an absolute treat to see my name and a dateline of Thunder Bay, Canada on its pages. If nothing else, that ought to send more than a few people running to Google Maps to see where in hell - I mean where on Earth - that is.

Just to finish setting up the story, the Herald is the heir and off-shoot of the International Herald-Tribune which is one of history’s great papers. The current International Herald-Tribune, since the New York Times took it over has turned into the same sort of puffy, inflated bloated faux-liberalism as its owner, whereas the Herald maintains the tradition of giving its writers room to run and precious little editorial restriction short of, ‘Is this going to get us sued?’ As it accepts no advertising, the Herald can kick rather than kiss Biblical equine creatures and I’m a happy boy writing there.

So, we’re tossing around ideas related to a year-long weekly series I’m doing on intelligent women in a wide array of occupations: actors, singers, activists, wrestlers - I cover the waterfront. Jes happened to mention the name of a quite famous female celebrity. I don’t do gotcha journalism, so I’m going to leave the celeb’s name out. Drop by with a bottle of Mordecai Richler’s beloved 15 year old Macallan and I’ll whisper it in your ear. Otherwise, the celeb has starred in no less than four long-running TV series and has sent teenage boys mopping their foreheads from lust for the best part of her run. So my editor tells me that Ms Celeb had befriended her on Facebook then dropped her like a hot potato once she found out that Jes was - gasp! shock! horror! - evil media!

No, not her!

What occurred to me then was what a bizarre life it is being an actor, a celebrity, a star. Without media - hello there, pleased to meet you - there is no publicity outside of paid ads and who in their right mind believes those? Seriously now, if you bought everything advertised you’d be broke, busted, bankrupt, still have breath that smelt like a monkey’s bum, drive some car that won’t start in January and hate everything you own once the new and improved version came out. I’ve never quite understood why advertising is legal whereas prostitution is a crime. At least the girls break a sweat.

Getting back to media and the celebrity, I was also shared a story of one, also female, who was hot as cayenne pepper a short handful of years ago then had her career go as cold as your in-laws when you start to expound on your theories about legalized marijuana in front of their grandchildren. That celebrity’s error? She went for the short-term financial gain of shooting a TV commercial for Botox which in turn reminded the audience that she was not a vestal virgin straight out of High School Confidential. Bad move. Her career vanished like an elephant with a wave of David Copperfield’s hankie.

One understands the paranoia that is the rule of The Starlet Game. You never know when a TMZ camera is going to be peeking up your skirt in search of invisible underwear. But to cast us all as zombie piranha fish in search of a carcass to devour? Oh, there’s a mistake. Without us, there is no honest publicity, no audience, no paycheque, nothing but a one-way ticket to a hard-to-get answer on Jeopardy!

Be seeing you.