Creating Television: Conversations With the People Behind 50 Years of American TV
A Volume in LEA's Communication Series, © Copyright 2004
Robert Kubey (kubey@scils.rutgers.edu)
Director, Center for Media Studies (www.mediastudies.rutgers.edu)
Professor, Dept of Journalism & Media Studies, Rutgers University
What's It Like Being A Celebrity?
(power & rewards are nice but can isolate you, success not all easy, being
a sexual trophy, myth & addiction of celebrity)
Each quote is followed by the page number in Creating Television where the full quote can be found.
Ed Asner:
How much have you enjoyed it?
I love the power and the rewards that being a star can generate. I love being seated at a restaurant.
I love being able to get theater tickets when I want them. When you go to certain places you can
expect them to recognize you. And you might be disappointed when that doesn't happen. On the other hand,
you mentally prepare yourself for Europe. 318
When you go abroad, there are countries where Lou Grant has not been seen.
Oh I miss it. Sure. I like to be able to be greeted warmly with a smile. I just started up with a new cleaners near
my house. There was a young, pretty girl in there. And I'd bring the stuff in and she treated me very nicely, but I knew
she didn't know me from Adam. Around the fifth time, someone either told her or she had seen me on the tube.
The whole attitude changed. I'm not talking about adulation, I'm just talking about smiling into your face. . . .
If you're having this and this (Asner slowly caresses and strokes his face) and you don't get it anymore. . .
I don't care who you are, you're going to miss it. It's a wonderful, wonderful god-sent feeling to have people
demonstrating that they like you. Not saying you're gorgeous, adorable, a great human being, just
"Hi, how are you, nice to see you". 318-319
As for actors. . . Many of us are not happy. I am not . . . I don't think I am a happy person. My therapists have said,
at least one of them said, that I felt such an emptiness inside that I was busy attempting to stimulate and breathe on the
outside sufficient for the inside. So, maybe if I felt happier, I wouldn't need the strokes. 319
Matt Groening:
But there’s so much work. I’m not basking in a hammock, drinking a coconut drink and saying, “Ah, fame.” Because the
work doesn’t go away—it's still here. The most surprising thing about the attention is how isolating it can be with friends,
who are put off for one reason or another. So simple social interaction has changed to an extent with a few people and
I was surprised that it did. That’s isolating and sad. But, most of it’s really great. 150
Question to Henry Winkler: Do you think it’s healthy that we make so much of actors in this culture.
That they become “stars.”
Europe has a 1,000-year-old tradition. Their actors are not deities. They are well respected members of society
who do what they do. Here in America, if you make a mistake and your project doesn’t make a lot of money, you have
very few chances to continue to do what you dreamed of doing. In Europe, people will take small roles.
They say, “Hey, I’ll do this part. It’s fun.” 339
What does this say about American culture?
It says that the most important thing is money. The process of doing it, which is the most fun, is no longer
what’s important, that’s what it says. It says that success is not that a human being has met a potential, it’s
that a human being has helped meet a big monetary potential. 339
Also, when you become a celebrity, you immediately become a public figure. People adore you. People expect you to
become an authority on stuff you had no idea about 10 minutes ago and you start to replace all the homework you never
did with cotton. So you're actually living on no structure whatsoever. You start to believe that you are more than you are.
And when the reality hits that you are still the same guy, everything starts to shake and fall down. 338
Why does the public put you on a pedestal?
It's hard for people to take responsibility for their own actions. They look outside of themselves for the answer and they
are hoping against all hope that you have it. If you don't have it, they discard you like Kleenex.
Furthermore, if you dare go for that pool of power that people imbue you with, they resent it. Power comes from other
people thinking that you have power, ergo you have power. If you believe you have power and go for the power, it becomes a mirage.
Instead, you use what you need. You must find a steady stream--the ying and yang of power--which is very, very important.
There has to be a steady stream of releasing. Because I'll tell you something, there is a lot of energy and I literally felt it
objectively. I was the King of Bacchus in 1977 in one of the major parades down in New Orleans. There are doubloons
with my picture on them that are thrown to the masses. Four million people are in the streets yelling up to you.
You know about the mirror exercise? About the energy that comes off you?
Tell me about it.
All right. Just put your hand up for a minute. Let's hope I can do it. Put your hand up a few inches from mine just
like a mirror. Don't move. Feel anything between us?
Yes, I know what you're talking about. It occurs in tai chi and in the martial art of aikido. The word “chi” in tai chi
or "ki" in aikido means energy.
Imagine four million people giving you ki. My psyche hurt. I literally was overloaded by that energy to the point where
I was only a shell. I literally was sapped of all my energy.
I wonder how the Pope feels.
Trust me that he feels close to God. I mean it's big. The feeling is too big to hold in your body. The problem is if you think
it's you, that you are more important than you are. That's why you have so many actors who go off the deep end. Because
you're never prepared for success. You are never prepared for success. Success is not normal. We are not built to be that
kind of successful. The mind and the ego are very delicate. 338-339
Former child star, Paul Petersen:
I sat down once with Tony Dow from Leave it to Beaver This happened twenty- five years ago, and mind you we were both in
our late twenties. We recognized that the trouble with our early success was that it had driven out the spice and the ambition
of being a young man trying to make a mark. We had already made a mark, and found that it was lacking. 377
There are a lot of marginal people in the entertainment industry making huge amounts of money. I mean these people are not
talented, they can not hold their own in a wide setting, meeting them is a disappointment. They have no animating sense of
principles on which they operate. Conversely, let me say that meeting Paddy Chayevsky was like an atomic bomb going off
because he was brilliant. 37
I was doing the Fabian, Frankie Avalon thing. Young girls, for the most part, would see me as some sort of sexual trophy.
What I’m trying to explain to you is that at the same time I had the opportunity to take advantage of women coming into
their sexuality, I was being subjected to that kind of humiliating objectification, where on sight, someone saw you as a trophy. 382
|
