When Sean Penn was good, he was very, very good-just punching out photographers. But when Roseanne Barr was bad, she was horrid, i.e., murdering the national anthem at a ballgame in front of 27,000 shocked witnesses.
They are the ”bad boys/bad girls” of the entertainment world: Penn, Barr, Rob Lowe, Madonna, Luther Campbell, Donnie Wahlberg, Mickey Rourke, Sam Kinison, Robin Givens and on and on.
Bad boys/bad girls are celebrities whose real or alleged drug, sexual and other exploits are splashed all over the tabloids, broadsheets and television screens. They end up being better known for their infamous reputations than for anything they`ve done as actors/singers/comedians. Oh, you might be able to name a movie or two that Penn has been in since ”Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” but it`s much easier to recall he was Mr. Madonna for a few short years, during which time he beat up more than one paparazzi. ”The Donald”
was just an ordinary millionaire until his ”friendship” with a certain fuzzy blond Georgia peach set off a reporter feeding frenzy.
Wreck a car, become a star?
On the surface, it seems to work that way. The Diceman has rocketed Andrew D. Clay above his fellow rude-and-crude comedians into celestial stardom, while innocent Andrew keeps insisting he`s not at all like that bad guy. Yeah, right.
There is such a thing as being too bad. Barr`s grab-the-crotch routine was apparently too offensive for the American public, and her sitcom has shown signs of vulnerability since then.
But don`t think that means the public has grown tired of these real-life soap-opera antics. For some in Hollywood, even a possible murder rap isn`t bad enough to cool the hot attraction for a bad man.
”You know women who see me on TV at the courthouse taking pictures
(during the Christian Brando murder trial) come up to me at nightclubs and say, `Can you give me Christian`s phone number?` Yeah babe, sure,” said Phil Ramey, one of Los Angeles` most infamous celebrity paparazzi.
During the heyday of the studio system, publicists manufactured private lives for the stars, with studio chiefs going so far as arranging marriages for their stable of actors and actresses. The system has changed since then. Ramey and others agreed that most publicists today try to protect their clients` private lives, but added they do call the tabloids to let them know their clients can be seen at Hollywood hotspots.
”I think if the publicist is not finding ways to get their clients`
names in the papers or on the radio, then he or she is not doing their job,” said Iain Calder, editor and president of The National Enquirer, the nation`s most popular tabloid, which lately has come under assault from celebrities and journalists alike.
Calder said publicists feed tips to The Enquirer all the time to get their clients` name in the paper, but then deny they are the source of the information. But he doubted that ”bad” behavior-like getting into a fight while the cameras whirr-is planned.
”The danger is that the stars do too much and people turn off from them,” Calder said. ”The major stars don`t have to resort to this kind of behavior, although even if you go back to the old days, Bette Davis is very proud of how she would disrupt sets and demand things.”
Celebrity journalists and publicists said most of the bad boys/bad girls simply have the misfortune of getting caught in the act. Charles Fleming, West Coast correspondent for Variety, said he, too, doubts that rude behavior is orchestrated.
”There`s another thing that`s clearly at work,” Fleming said. ”What`s not uncommon is a very wide and self-destructive bent in Hollywood, all the way from Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor-who were the best-looking people of their generation and who became self-hating-right up to the present.”
Ramey agreed. ”They (mess) up all by themselves,” he said. ”They`ve got the emotional maturity of a 12-year-old and the bank account of a Kuwaiti prince.”
Linda Brown, a publicist whose client list includes bad boy Bart Simpson, agreed that a notorious reputation can bring a star more publicity than a public relations firm could ever afford to buy. But she believes that as America`s mores become increasingly conservative, most of that behavior has become unacceptable.
”In the cases where they are drinking and they are violent and they`re getting into trouble a lot, nowadays with the whole anti-drug thing, it really hurts their image,” Brown said.
And as far as most publicists are concerned, seeing their clients` dirty laundry-or underwear-paraded across newspapers and television screens coast to coast is more like a bad dream, Brown said.
”We`re trying to protect their personal lives while promoting their professional lives,” she said.
Some actors can rebound from the bad-boy syndrome, Brown said, citing Rob Lowe as an example. Lowe, the quintessential brat packer, found his reputation reaching new lows when a videotape showing him frolicking in bed with two young ladies became public.
”Rob was already established as an actor, a personality, and he`s talented and there is no getting around that,” Brown said. ”I don`t think it helped his career anyway . . . I think it was somewhat of a nightmare.”
Lowe`s reputation was salvaged not just because of his reputation as an actor, but because his publicist managed effective damage control, said James Grant, former West Coast bureau chief for Life magazine and now the editor-in- chief of a new movie magazine, Scene at the Movies.
”She (the publicist) had him do only one very brief interview with Bryant Gumbel on the `Today` show about the production of `Bad Influence.` She had him say in a couple of places he had made a mistake. In a controlled atmosphere, the scandal died down,” Grant said, adding that months after the ”Today” appearance, Lowe did so many interviews, the public became bored with the whole affair.
”I think that the two of them together have really rehabilitated his image,” Grant said. ”I think it depends on what level of career you`re on. When you need to resurrect a career, like with Margaux Hemingway, then you have the requisite Playboy pictorials.”
But he, too, agreed there is a limit to what the public will tolerate.
”You can`t go too downscale or you`ll be stuck there forever,” he said, citing Jessica Hahn as an example.
But the woman who has been anointed the Queen of Downscale is Roseanne Barr.
”Either she`s really clever and did this to stand out from the crowd or she really is sort of nutsy,” said Enquirer editor Calder.
”Clearly, she does not know how to conduct herself in public,” Grant said.
And Ramey added: ”Dropping her pants, grabbing her crotch . . . she hasn`t endeared herself to working America. It was a . . . travesty.”
Fleming agreed, and then waxed philosophical.
”I think we almost start waiting for chinks in the armor to appear, and inevitably we tend to find them. It`s almost like she didn`t realize how far she could push before she offended people, and with the National Anthem, she offended people.”
Fleming added that, ultimately, Sam Kinison, rock star Axl Rose-who was recently arrested after allegedly hitting his neighbor over the head with a wine bottle-and Andrew Dice Clay will find little to enjoy about their notorious reputations.
”I think the American public is generally smart enough not to be manipulated by a created public image.”
