Executives at Bobby McFerrin`s record label were not happy. After years of struggle-performing in the Ice Follies and motel lounges-the singer had finally hit the top of the pop charts in 1988 with his platinum-selling, Grammy-winning number ”Don`t Worry, Be Happy.”
Most new stars would have cashed in with a quick follow-up. McFerrin went home and played hermit.
”I did what I`d always done,” he explains. ”I never gave a thought to the hit-making machine. I don`t put stock in fame at all. It`s just a by-product of my work. It doesn`t interest me.”
Isn`t that refreshing?
Modern stardom was born in the Hollywood of the `20s and it didn`t change much until around the time Andy Warhol coined his phrase about everyone having 15 minutes of fame. By the time People magazine made its debut in 1974, celebrity was growing from a cottage craft to a multinational industry.
Four years later, the contemporary concept of fame reached its apotheosis at New York`s Studio 54, deemed a new Olympus by habitues. It turned out they were suffering from a bad case of hubris. With a few notable exceptions (Hi, David Geffen!), it has been downhill for celebrity ever since. The recent unmasking of Nancy Reagan by Kitty Kelley is but the latest example of how the rules of fame have changed. If you`re going to masquerade as a celebrity in the new climate, there better be something substantial behind the image to back it up.
”Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain,” the Wizard of Oz commanded, and if it hadn`t been for Toto, Dorothy might never have learned that there`s no place like home.
These days, however, the scene behind the curtain is all most people are interested in. They still have their genuine stars-their Elizabeth Taylors and Tom Cruises-but they especially relish celebrity stumbles. They want to peek into Nancy Reagan`s closet and over the walls of the Kennedys` Palm Beach estate. And if they feel a little dirty afterward, so be it.
In the `80s, celebrity took over the newsstand and the TV screen. The media gave celebrities the store because they attracted readers and viewers. At any moment, you had your choice of dozens of personality publications and people columns. TV viewers could dial-hop for star gossip almost around the clock.
As more and more ”personality journalists” chewed over the same old names, the hunger for fresh faces grew. Celebrity had to lower its standards to include everyone from Baby Jessica to Claus von Bulow.
The thundering herd of new stars flattened fame into a plateau where every no-account counted. Carol Alt, Tama Janowitz and Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and Phoebe Legere were all equals, at least in the world of Amaretto and Rose`s Lime Juice.
Celebrity`s traditional prerequisites of creativity and dues-paying were forgotten as the media scraped the bottom of the talent pool.
”There will always be the 15-minute people,” says Robin Leach, executive producer and star of ”Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” ”But the game has changed. They get less than 10 minutes now. There was a time when whatever rose to the top won, but that was crazy business that only worked in crazy times. You can`t be artificial anymore.”
Thus, new species of celebrities are emerging.
You could see them on display at this year`s Academy Awards. It is Kathy Bates and Whoopi Goldberg who engage our attention, not Kim Basinger and Michelle Pfeiffer. It is Jeremy Irons in black tie and the sneakers he says keep his feet on the ground. It is Kevin Costner, fighting small, important battles, winning big, but reacting with modesty and going off to party privately.
Change in priorities
The new celebrities are human first, famous second.
Like McFerrin, Michael J. Fox thinks celebrity is a by-product. ”For the media, it`s the product,” he says. ”You become an actor because you`re a 15- year-old geek. Ten years later you`re on magazine covers because you focused your neuroses in a malleable craft. But when someone whose movie did $30 million gets coverage while the leader of an embattled nation is ignored, things have gotten a little bizarre. That`s when you`ve just gotta suck back and worry about your kids and your car and your laundry.”
Those who study public attitudes see clear reasons for an evolution of the relationship between stars and the public.
”In the last couple of years, there`s been a basic change in priorities,” says Susan Hayward, a senior vice president at Yankelovich Clancy Shulman, the social-research firm. ”We`ve seen the end of the glitz, glam and sparkle of the `80s. Celebrity and success as measured by money, power and P.R.-it`s over. The word we`re using is `substance.` What`s important? What`s real?”
In the gospel according to Yankelovich, the fast living of the `70s finally caught up with the public in the `80s, and a terror set in. Ronald Reagan-”The Wizard of Oz,” says Hayward, ”great big voice, nothing behind it”-sent the message that all was still OK. Like him, the hot personalities of the `80s were psychic crutches for people-can-do, confident, conspicuous types: baseball players earning exaggerated salaries, fashion designers, and money men with an exaggerated sense of their own importance. As the public regains a sense of stability, it is more cautious, less easy to impress.
Many celebrities got caught in this attitude shift and couldn`t understand why the public turned on them. ”Something has happened to the wheelers and dealers, the people who lived close to the edge, like Mike Milken and Pete Rose,” Hayward says. ”There`s not much public support for people pushing the limits anymore. Who did these people think they were? They allowed totally unreal images to be created for them. They were asking to be shot down. People who fell for the image, I imagine, might feel a lot of anger.”
”Celebrity became cheap,” says novelist and critic Jon Katz, an ex-producer of the ”CBS Morning News.” ”It`s been devalued. It doesn`t count to be a celebrity anymore.”
Strategic retreat
The big names of the `80s-especially Wall Street`s bulls and their babes- have retreated into bear caves. Their glittery social cohorts are dimming their party lights. ”Fame,” the magazine, has gone belly up. America`s media-driven culture has so devalued celebrity that it has lost its power to excite.
”In the `80s, when money was all over, celebrity didn`t seem as grotesque as it does now,” says Katz. After the shock of war in the midst of recessionary retrenchment, ”it just seems tasteless and inappropriate.”
So the new celebrities cope by self-consciously using fame to do good. Some eye this cynically, thinking that a cause is often no more than an excuse for a party or a publicity stunt. It is also easy to mock stars as political dilettantes in a time when the personal cause (Todd Rundgren`s is hearing loss; Meryl Streep`s, pesticide controls; Mel Gibson`s, cloth diapers), the personal foundation (”Cheers” star Kirstie Alley`s environmentalist Alley Foundation, for instance), and the personal political adviser (Don Henley, Norman Lear, Jane Fonda, Richard Dreyfuss and the Brat Pack all have had them) have replaced the personal trainer as must-have celebrity accoutrements.
”Every client I meet these days wants to have a lasting effect,” says Susan Blond, who does public relations for the music business. ”They want to be important, not just famous. I saw Alec Baldwin and Ron Silver at a dinner, talking knowledgeably about sewage. They seemed to have studied it.”
Stars of the `90s
Helayne Spivak, executive creative director at Young & Rubicam New York, thinks it all comes back to the Baby Boom. ”We`re facing an age we never thought we`d reach,” she says. ”And now we`re going to improve things with the same verve we used to end a war and make money.”
”I see the star as working parent,” says actor Christopher Reeve, a leader of Creative Coalition, a celebrity-studded activist group that encourages stars to attend seminars and study issues before speaking out about them. ”We`re middle-class people, you know? Yes, we`re well off, but our lives are not that different.
”Sheer glamor doesn`t make it anymore. The people who are leads in movies are often real people with real lives and real concerns who participate in their communities. That`s what gives us legitimacy. People imagine stars to be larger than life. It`s possible you would admire them even more if you only knew them.”
So who will be the stars of the `90s?
Steven Levitt, whose research firm issues Performer Q ratings, a measurement of celebrity familiarity and likability, says top film, sports and TV stars have nothing to worry about. Businessmen, on the other hand, are falling victim to new times. In 1987, Donald Trump had a Q rating of 15
(compared with 69 for the year`s top-ranked star, Bill Cosby). In 1990, Trump`s Q dropped to 12. His negative Q-a number that represents how many people know and dislike him-is more revealing. In 1987, it was 34. Last year, it soared to 49.
Every day, hundreds of people call Celebrity Service`s offices around the world for information on the approximately 200,000 stars in its card file. And indeed, queries about Donald Trump have dropped off. But there are always fresh stars on standby.
”When someone makes it big, it`s obvious,” says Celebrity Service researcher Nancy Preiser. ”They immediately go into the file. Usually, they`re already there.” That was the case with Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who`d had a card on file ever since the Vietnam War. But until this year it had languished, virtually untouched.
Now, though, ”he`s the biggest celebrity in the world,” says public-relations woman Peggy Siegal. ”Stormin` Norman. Friendly, classy, down-to-earth. He has risen from nowhere.”
Young & Rubicam`s Spivak jokes that next year`s hot celebrity fragrance could be Norman Schwarzkopf`s Camouflage.
”He`s the biggest around,” agrees Preiser. ”We get more calls for him than for Elizabeth Taylor.”
