Okay, so you’re like young and gorgeous and you want to be a star but you don’t have a clue. You live next door to Midway Airport and Hollywood is–wherever. Modeling agents look at your boobs–which are totally awesome (more later)–and they’re like, “I don’t think so. Why don’t you try Playboy?” And you’re all, “Playboy! Yuck, gross!” But–whatever–you do it and then you move to Hollywood and then you’re on MTV and then you’re on the cover of Newsweek–which is so amazing because that is like for presidents!–and now you have your very own network sitcom.
You are:
A. Meryl Streep
B. Jodie Foster
C. Winona Ryder
D. Jenny McCarthy
Easy question. On Sept. 28, “Jenny,” starring Jenny McCarthy, premieres on NBC with a 22-week commitment. Most new shows get a six-week commitment. Who gets a 22-week commitment? Bill Cosby. Kelsey Grammer. Ted Danson. After years on “Cheers,” Kirstie Alley didn’t get it. And they didn’t call her show “Kirstie.”
So, why did NBC, Must See home to “Seinfeld,” “Friends” and “Frasier,” give that kind of deal to 24-year-old Jenny McCarthy, who is unproved, untested and pretty much unknown unless you read Playboy or watch MTV?
“There was a feeding frenzy around Jenny,” says Warren Littlefield, head of entertainment at the peacock network. “We just did what we had to do to get in business with her.”
And why are they papering their hit shows with wall-to-wall promos for “Jenny”?
“It’s how a network says, ‘I love you,”‘ says Littlefield.
–
She loves you too, Warren.
You’re allowing her to fulfill her destiny. She wanted to be a weather girl. Then she wanted to be Wonder Woman. But she always wanted to be a star.
“There was some emotional thing I got from watching TV when I was young; it did something to me inside. It hit some chord,” says Jenny. “I still remember in 4th grade, I used to constantly practice my autograph. On Halloween I’d dress up like a movie star, but the movie star was always me. I’d ring the doorbell in a fancy dress and hair and a lady would say, `Who are you, honey?’ And I’d say, `I’m Jenny McCarthy!’ Some people don’t want the fame, they just want the work. I wanted it all, the whole package.”
Jenny McCarthy is in her suite at the Four Seasons in Chicago, wearing sweats and a T-shirt, drinking Coke and cracking her knuckles. She is adorable. Cheerleader adorable. Peppy, perky, bubbly, bouncy. Blond hair, blue eyes, centerfold body. She could be the universal symbol for Male Fantasy. But she’s through with the heavy-breathing, lip-licking, `Oh yeah, baby’ thing. Phase I: Sexy Jenny is over. Phase II: Gross Out Jenny is winding down. Jenny is in transition. Phase III: Jenny Forever is about to begin.
Phase one: Sexy Jenny
At 20, Jenny McCarthy was washed up. She grew up in a lower-middle-class family with three sisters and one bathroom. Her father worked three jobs to send them to Mother McAuley High School on the city’s Southwest Side, but college was their responsibility. She’d spent two years trying to work her way through Southern Illinois University and all she wound up with were $15,000 in debts and a bleeding ulcer. She came home and got a job slicing salami in a Polish deli. For a girl who “had” to be MVP of her baseball, softball and field hockey teams, it was humiliating.
“That was the most stressful time in my life. I said to myself, `Great, I’m a dork. My friends think I’m a loser. What do I do now?’ ” Sink lower. She found a modeling agency that charged her $5,000 and then went bankrupt. So now she was $20,000 in debt with no education, no contacts, no prospects and a big dream. The only thing standing between her and a whole lot of Polish sausage was Playboy.
“I went there saying, `This is the key that’s going to open the door.’ It paid $20,000 and it would give me a clean slate. Other girls have said they did it to liberate themselves. I must be like the only person who didn’t want to liberate herself. I don’t even like going to the gynecologist.”
“She did some test shots, we thought she was good, not spectacular,” says Gary Cole, Playboy’s photography director for 22 years. “I don’t think anyone thought she was anything but a pretty girl.” Cole’s opinion changed when he saw Miss October 1993 interviewed on a local morning show.
“She was so comfortable. She had great on-camera presence. That was the first time I thought there might be another element to her.”
The issue with Jenny as the All-American playmate–she’s wearing penny loafers in her centerfold–didn’t sell particularly well. On the cover was a phone booth stuffed with eight girls. Six are big-haired blondes and two are dead ringers for Jenny, who listed her ambitions as: “To succeed in TV land, and eventually get a house, a husband and Beaver Cleaver family.” At this point, a major career seemed highly unlikely to everyone but her. She was picked Playmate of the Year, but Cole said it wasn’t a shoo-in. “Hef wasn’t sure.” The issue, June 1994, was a “good, solid seller, but no one was going out and buying extra copies.”
Playmate of the Year gets $100,000 and travels around the world for Playboy. “Some of them can be brats,” says public relations director Elizabeth Norris. “Jenny was always on time and in a good mood. She was always professional. I saw her recently and she hasn’t changed a bit. There’s none of that star attitude.”
As soon as Jenny’s commitments to Playboy were through, she loaded up her clinker of a Jeep Wrangler and drove 30 miles an hour all the way to Hollywood.
“She was really focused on becoming a success,” says Cole. “A lot of girls want to make it and then they sit in East Podunk. She moved to L.A. immediately and immediately started to make it happen.”
Show Biz 101:
– Everyone in Hollywood is blond and beautiful.
– If you’re blond and beautiful you are a bimbo.
– If you’re blond and beautiful and a playmate, you’re a double bimbo.
– If you’re blond and beautiful and a playmate and you make it, they say you’re lucky.
“So many times I called my mom crying, saying I’m moving back home. L.A. is the worst place in the world to try to feel secure. The girls that moved out there at the same time as me, I watched them fizzle and turn into walking on the streets at night. You see that in the movies and hear about casting couches–which I thought were just big fluffy couches–but you don’t know till you experience it how corrupt it is. I was the only girl in my clique who wasn’t sleeping with someone to get a job. There were so many times I could have gone that way, but I wanted to be MVP of Hollywood.”
New Age books like “The Celestine Prophecy” kept her going. “They were like my church. I was so alone and there were so many scumbags, I had to keep focused. I read and then I went `ahhhhhh.’ They helped me. When I didn’t get a job, I knew it was for a reason. There was something better out there. Totally.”
It was about this time that someone told Jenny she ought to meet Ray Manzella. He managed Vanna White and turned her into a marketing machine, with Vanna dolls and Vanna teeth-whiteners. He separated Pamela Anderson Lee from the “Baywatch” pack and made her millions.
Jenny told Manzella she didn’t know exactly what she wanted to be but she didn’t want to be sexy anymore. Manzella told her he didn’t know exactly what he could do for her but he wanted to do it. He heard MTV was looking for a co-host for a new daily dating game show, “Singled Out.” Was she interested? Oh yeah.
“I said to myself, `I’m getting this one.’ ” But Manzella had to call a dozen times before they would agree to even look at Jenny.
“I saw playmate on her resume and I thought, `This is going to be quick,’ ” says Lisa Berger, who is in charge of development for MTV.
“When you’re a playmate, Hollywood doesn’t take you seriously,” says Jenny. “They go, `You’re going to do comedy? Yeah.’ I would go to auditions and when I left I could hear them laughing at me. Playboy got me to Hollywood and I’m grateful, but a lot of doors got closed.”
At the audition, they handed Jenny a piece of paper with a few lines. She read the lines, then threw away the paper and started improvising, dancing, mugging, making weird sounds and funny faces. Sticking out her tongue.
“I’m going, `whoo-hoo’ and they’re going, `Finally! Someone with energy.’ The other girls were all (whispering) `Bachelor No. 1. Bachelor No. 2.’ “
She was adorable.
“She lit up the room,” says Berger, “and she wasn’t acting. She was just being herself.”
She got the job. “That was the best moment of my life so far. I thought, ‘Things are going to start happening to me now.’ “
Not so fast. Before the show went on the air, Jenny was told that she was only the co-host, the host was Chris Hardwick, and she would get just three minutes of camera time. She knew what she had to do. “I figured when that light goes on, I’m going to make people notice me.”
“We could see in the first week she could do more,” says Berger. “She didn’t want to just turn the letters, if you will. She wanted to get her hands dirty. She liked to have fun. And she was funny.”
“They finally handed me the mike and said, `Jenny, you be you.’ And I thought, `Ohmygod, this is great. I don’t have to be sexy.’ I went really crazy.”
Phase Two: Gross-out Jenny
How crazy? Fingers-up-the-nose crazy. Fart-jokes crazy. Eyes-crossing crazy. Pimple-popping crazy. Arm-pit-sniffing crazy. Tongue-waving crazy.
It was weird. A gorgeous girl in sexy little midriff tops and minis picking her nose. “Jim Carrey with boobs,” says Jenny. This we have not seen before. This is different. There have been funny, sexy women from Mae West to Marilyn Monroe to Goldie Hawn, but none of them pushed it like Jenny. Brooke Shields is a klutz on “Suddenly Susan,” but that is her comedic limit. No men have taken this road, either. Brad Pitt would not talk out of his butt. Robert Redford would not walk away from the camera with a wedgie. But Jenny was sexpot and clown making fun of sexpot at the same time. She talked about her zits and her stretch marks and her brown roots.
(A shrink could have a field day analyzing why a good Catholic schoolgirl who poses in the nude then does a 180 and grosses everyone out. Is she doing penance? And why would a girl who fainted when she had to talk in front of the class be driven to get into show business? And why does someone who is having all her dreams come true have nightmares about dying?)
The schizoid image worked. Guys loved her. She was a babe, but a goofy one. She was safe sex. And girls liked her a lot, too. She was one of them. Playboy’s recruitment on college campuses has tripled since her success. The girls mention Jenny. “If she can do it, we can do it, too.” “Singled Out” became the number one show on MTV. A phenom. Jenny was hot, hot, hot.
Manzella went to work. Posters, personal appearances. “Jenny McCarthy’s Surfin’ Safari,” a CD of old beach music with Jenny’s butt embossed on the cover. Not exactly class stuff, but the point was to get her out there, get her known, create more heat, more buzz, more action. More Jenny!
Neil Cole, chairman of Candie’s shoes, has been called the Howard Stern of footwear. He likes to push it. He did marketing surveys and for recognition with his customers, the 12- to 24-year-olds, Jenny was right up there with Madonna. He wanted her in his ads and he wanted his ads to be noticed.
Dari Marder, head of InMarketing, came up with the concept: Jenny on the toilet. “Cindy Crawford would not do this ad,” says Marder. “Jenny is the only person who could get away with it. And she loved it. She said, `This is how girls want to see me. They don’t want me beautiful and glamorous like a model. They want me real.’ “
“I was so sick of models being anorexic,” says Jenny. “I thought, `This is great. They’ve got to know I eat if I’m going to the toilet.’ “
This was breakthrough advertising. So breakthrough some magazines refused to run it. What will they do about the next series of Candie’s ads?
The Toilet Campaign has been a huge success. Candie’s sales have more than doubled. “Not everyone likes it,” says Cole, “but the ones that don’t aren’t our customers.”
“The ad was a tremendous risk for Jenny–it violates every taboo–but she’s not afraid to look foolish,” says dissident feminist Camille Paglia. “She’s a great role model for girls and they need it. They’re like zombies. They need to be shown they can be loud and boisterous and talk back to men. Break all the rules!”
Based on the success of “Singled Out,” MTV gave Jenny her own show. “The Jenny McCarthy Show.” Manzella is listed as a consultant on the credits. Shortly after he started managing her, he started dating her. He has a thing for former playmates and was involved with several. They live together and Jenny credits Manzella, who is 50, with a lot of her success, but it’s no Svengali relationship. “I wear the pants,” says Jenny. “He wears the jewelry.”
The theme song of the show, sung by Suzanne Somers (another Manzella client, he got her into infomercials), is “Who’s that girl I see everywhere? She’s Jenny!” It’s a surreal half hour of wall-to-wall Jenny. Jenny talking about her life: her high school boyfriend, her eating habits, her near-death experience, her graduation, her churchgoing. (She liked to slide her butt along the pew and listen to the sound it made.) Jenny in sketches, playing dozens of roles, including Helga, a waitress with long underarm hair. In one memorable bit, Jenny throws up and then eats it. And then there are sketches about Jenny, like the one with two girls (one is Jenny) trashing Jenny.
“I don’t get the whole Jenny McCarthy thing,” says the (Jenny) girl.
“It was definitely ‘The Jenny McCarthy Show,’ ” says Jenny. The critics called it the worst show on television, but Jenny’s fans, especially the 12-year-olds who see the humor in singing pimples, loved it.
Now Jenny was beyond hot. She was smokin’!!!! She was on the cover of “Rolling Stone,” “TV Guide,” “YM,” “Details.” She ruled on the Internet. Boys voted her celebrity they most wanted to play games with, above Jim Carrey, Jerry Seinfeld and Dennis Rodman. “Saturday Night Live” did parodies about her. “Entertainment Weekly” started a regular feature, the Jenny-O-Meter.
“They said I was the girl of the moment.”
Hah!
Phase Three: Jenny Forever
Did you ever see a show on TV and think, “How did this get on the air?” Here is a case study they could analyze at the Harvard Business School. MTV is owned by Paramount. One day, Dan Fauci, head of comedy development at Paramount, gets a call from a friend over at MTV who says he should meet Jenny McCarthy. He says, “Why?” He never heard of her. Because she would be great in a sitcom. She’s never been in a sitcom, but hey . . .
They meet. Jenny is adorable. Fauci signs her. Paramount will develop a sitcom for her and take it to the networks. But first he’ll get her a little experience. “Wings” is a Paramount show. Fauci calls the executive producers, Mark Reisman and Howard Gewirtz, and tells them to write her into an episode. They are “not that familiar with her.” So they meet with her. She is adorable. They write a part for her: goofy babe. She can handle that. NBC promotes the episode, which aired last October, like crazy.
“They wanted to see if I was able to pull people in. All season, ‘Wings’ did a six. When I was on, it did a 10.”
Are those shares or ratings, Jenny? How many people do those numbers actually represent?
“I have no clue. I read the trades. I’m totally into the numbers side, now I just have to learn what they mean. But I know it’s like the stock market–if it goes up, it’s good.”
It’s very good. Jenny hooked up with Reisman and Gewirtz. They came up with the concept for “Jenny,” which is based loosely on Jenny’s own life. Small-town (Chicago has become Utica, N.Y.) Catholic girl with a penchant for trouble moves to L.A. She has a best friend and two guy pals. Sound familiar? It’s “Jenny and Shirley on the Sunset Strip.”
They take the idea to Fox. Huge banners all over the lot. People holding Jenny signs, shouting “Jenny, Jenny.”
“I’m going, `Ohmygod . . .’ “
They take it to NBC. No banners, but a 22-week commitment. Why? The network needs those slobbering boys and Jenny-clone girls, her fans, as their viewers. They are the future. Jenny is the way.
In really round numbers: It takes a million viewers to make a show a hit on MTV. It takes close to 15 million to make a show a hit on a network. It takes more to make a megahit. “Frasier” has 20 million. “Friends” has 25 million. “Seinfeld” has 30 million. How is Jenny going to get 14 million more viewers?
“She’s not going to stick out her tongue or cross her eyes,” says Reisman. “On MTV she was wild and outrageous and that’s fun, but there’s another side to her, a down-to-earth, sweet side. That’s what we want to show.”
“We’re saying to people, `If you’re not familiar with Jenny or if you just know her from MTV, take a look,’ ” says Gewirtz. “She won’t be sitting on a toilet.”
There has been some industry talk that the pilot for “Jenny” is a bomb. In terms of sophistication and ensemble acting, it’s not “Friends.” It’s being, as Littlefield says, “futzed with.”
Jenny is not worried. “I’m going to make it work. I know the reviews will be bad, but the ratings will be good. I’m going to be around for a long time. Just wait. Just wait.”
There is no network big enough to contain the drive, ambition or ego of Jenny McCarthy. Her show hasn’t even started and she’s already itching for more. The perfect movie role. She’s been in two films, “Things To Do in Denver When You’re Dead” (three scenes, one line. “Hello.”) and “The Stupids” (one scene, she plays a “Baywatch” babe).
She gets offered roles. Last year they were all versions of “Bikini Car Wash.” This year it was a movie with Chris Farley, but it was the part of “the no-no girl.”
“My lines were, `Stop it! No!’ That’s not my thing. I should be the one where someone goes `Stop it! Don’t!’ “
She turned down a role in “First Wives Club” even though Goldie Hawn, who survived her giggle-puss “Laugh-In” image to win an Oscar, is her idol. She refused to play the girl who sleeps with the director to get part. “I can’t even act that. It summons up everything I hate about Hollywood.”
Actually, she turns down a lot: $2 million to endorse a beer, $1 million from a clothing company, $500,000 for a poster. “I said to Ray, `$500,000 for a couple of hours work?’ He said, `I don’t think you should do it. You don’t want to go that way. If you whore yourself, you won’t be respected for what you want to be respected for.’ “
“Jenny’s a brand,” says Manzella, who is the associate producer of “Jenny.” “I want her to be diversified, with film, with TV, with commercials, to get involved in some very sophisticated money-making businesses, but they have to be the right ones.”
So, no more posters, no more “Surfin’ Safaris,” no more Playboy, although they keep recycling her old photos.
“That was to launch me and get me known. That is done.” She did agree to the cover of Newsweek. She smoked a stogie for a story on the popularity of cigars. The magazine was looking for someone young, with attitude. Some readers wondered why it had to be her. “What’s more inexplicable: the popularity of the cigar or Jenny McCarthy?” asked Russ Kohn of Ashburn, Va., in a letter to the editor. And she agreed to the cover of George, which was looking for someone who said “summer fun.” They thought of her as the “epitome of a free spirit.” Still, she turned down JFK Jr.’s first two ideas: Jenny covered with whipped cream, spread-eagled on the flag and Jenny in a bathing suit, in a cocktail glass. She okayed having her tongue painted red, white and blue. “It was the Fourth of July issue and I decided it would be my farewell salute to sticking out my tongue. I’m finished with that. Definitely.”
Even for Hollywood–“in a week, maybe two, they’ll make you a star”–Jenny McCarthy has made it very fast. And it’s a darn good thing.
“If I didn’t do it this fast, I would have gone crazy, I was so determined. But now it’s even harder. I have to make it last.”
TAKE THE JENNY CHALLENGE!
1. How many times has Jenny met the President?
2. What is the word most often used to describe Jenny?
3. What is the word least often used to describe Jenny?
4. What are Jenny’s measurements?
5. How many times has Jenny appeared on the cover of Playboy?
6. How many songs does Jenny sing on “Jenny McCarthy’s Surfin’ Safari”?
7. How many girls auditioned for the co-host job on “Singled Out”?
8. How often does Jenny use the word “like” in an hour?
9. How often does Jenny use the word “Jenny” in an hour?
10. Who does Ray Manzella look like?
(THE ANSWERS: 1. Two 2. Bimbo 3. Subtle 4. 38-24-34 5. Four
6. None 7. Hundreds 8. Totally too many 9. More than like 10. Bob Guccione.
`I WANT SOMEONE WHO RESPECTS ME’: THE WORLD ACCORDING TO JENNYSPEAK
What was college all about?
“Exactly. I was following what everyone else was doing. My deep- down dream was so gigantic, it was ridiculous to say, `Mom, Dad. . . .’ So I figured I’d give college my best shot. If I would have had the money, I would have become a nurse. But Destiny–which I love–has a way of showing you, `You’re not supposed to be here!’ “
Jenny and the acting lessons
“When I first moved to L.A., I took acting lessons for three weeks and then I quit. They were trying to change me to somebody else, completely. They’re like, `Jenny, your energy is sooo big and (whispering) we’ve go to push it down.’ And I’m like (whispering), `Why?’ I go, they’re trying to change me, this is ridiculous, I’m leaving. But if I get a movie role that’s not close to me, I’ll get an acting coach. Definitely.”
Jenny goes on auditions
“I hated them. You stand in a room and you’re doing this serious dramatic thing, like `Oh, Dad, no!’ and they sneer at you right in front of your face. They’re like, `Uh, what are you doing?’ It was horrible. I auditioned for `Baywatch.’ You have to wear a G-string. All these guys are staring. I’m like, `What are you looking at? Stop it! I’m here to read.’ Fortunately I failed the slow-motion jog.”
I’m rich!
“For the first time, I went shopping and I didn’t look at price tags once. I wanted to do that because all my life I’ve walked into stores and my credit card has been denied every single time. It’s such a horrible feeling, I could cry thinking how I’d say to myself, `This has got to change.’ So, this summer, I go to a friend, `We’re going to Neiman’s.’ And I take this and this and this. And I’m thinking, `My card’s going to go through and I don’t care how much it is.’ “
The Boobs: Real or Memorex?
“My book comes out in a month and I talk about them in very much detail. So I can’t really talk about them now.”
What’s the deal with Ray?
“He’s a bigger dork than I am. He’s very goofy. He’ll walk around singing opera, joking. It’s a good relationship. Guys my age are so immature and I’m a little ahead in maturity for my age. And I want someone who respects me, and one thing about Ray, he’s the first guy that really respected me and he didn’t play any games.”
That hurts
“The New York Daily News is always bashing me, saying I’m a joke in the industry, I have zero talent and I should just show my boobs and make money that way. And God, I’ve been working so hard. And Joan Rivers, on the Academy Awards, said I looked, in my dress, which I think was a very nice dress, which was Valentino, like I just stepped out of a whorehouse and I should have just laid down on the red carpet and spread my legs and let every guy go up to me like I do anyway. My mom sat in front of the television bawling. People don’t know, we’re so human.”
Win one for Jenny
“At the Notre Dame/Ohio game the coach goes, `Hey, everybody, Jenny McCarthy. Give the team a pep talk.’ I said, `Listen, you guys, I’m going to go on Ohio’s side and shake my butt and distract them.’ And then I said, `Who got the winning touchdown last week?’ and one guy said, `I did,’ and I gave him a big kiss and that was it.”
