I make my living as a feature writer and celebrity interviewer for a large San Francisco newspaper. The process is fairly simple: celebrity has book, movie, TV show to promote; journalist wants to write article. A slam-dunk. Right? Wrong. Especially in the case of actor Burt Reynolds, who, when he was in our city, proved that nothing in this world is a slam-dunk.
Reynolds wrote his autobiography, ““My Life,’’ and I was scheduled to interview him in his hotel suite. He hated the interview, took exception to every query, crumpled up my typed questions, ripped up my notes and ground the pieces into the carpet with the heel of his blue denim cowboy boot.
““You’re not going to write about me,’’ he hissed through his teeth as he ““escorted’’ me to the door, almost crushing my fingers in a handshake that you couldn’t mistake for friendly. What did he think? That I didn’t have a memory? Or a mouth?
I did a call-in on the Ronn Owens show on KGO Radio the next morning, comparing notes with Owens, who experienced, on the same day, some of the same divalike behavior when Reynolds took exception to just about everything Owens said.
““What did you say to him to make him so mad?’’ Owens asked me.
““Hello,’’ was my answer.
Meanwhile, Jeannie Williams of USA Today got wind of what happened, and this was when I became the story as much as Burt Reynolds. Tabloid-TV editors get leads from their morning Jeannie read, as do all news directors and deejays in the country. So once Williams had it, everybody wanted it. The phones started ringing. By afternoon, they were white hot.
By the time I left San Francisco in a rented car two days later, I had repeated my story, in varying forms, 25 times – for the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times Morning Report, ““A Current Affair,’’ ““Premiere Story,’’ two local television channels, media in Palm Beach, Fla. (Reynolds’s home territory), four supermarket tabloids (including one in London), numerous radio stations and the New York Post. I ignored requests from Sacramento, Phoenix, Seattle, Portland and Chicago.
A freelance photographer called. He needed a picture of me for an image bank to service three magazine stories, he said. I said: no tabloids. He lied. Turned out he was on assignment for the Midnight Globe. Gotcha! I fell for the oldest yellow-journalism trick in the world. I believed him.
Another tabloid stalked me for my picture. The calls escalated to four and five a day. Sample call from photo editor in New York: ““Just tell us where you’ll be and what you look like; we’ll grab a shot. You’ll never know.’’ Then, changing his tack when I demurred, ““Just tell us the name of a friend and we’ll get a party photo of you from them. Nobody will have to know. We’ll pay you.’’ The fee went up geometrically. I was tempted. I still refused.
By then I was fast fraying at the edges. Burt bounced me on Wednesday, Jeannie Williams called on Thursday and on Friday, I devoted the entire day, starting at 6 a.m., to the media, telling my story. My own work was languishing. My deadlines had been blown. And the publicist at my paper, who jumped into this thing when it was already out of control, stoked the fire. Film crews from ““American Journal’’ and ““Hard Copy’’ trekked through my newsroom. I hid in the bathroom. ““A Current Affair’’ was enough.
An old boyfriend I hadn’t seen in 13 years heard me on radio and called. We established that both were single and he invited me out to his beach house to get away ““if it gets too hot.’’ Four days into this thing and I was ready to go, so I took off, leaving the story lying there, breathing and mutating like some beast.
There are people, I understand, who would give their right arm to be in a society column. They even hire publicists to get them there. There are others who spill their guts to Geraldo or Montel or Phil or Oprah. They tell their inmost secrets. They reveal things I wouldn’t want to know about my best friend. And I found myself caught up in this same slipstream, unable to do my legitimate work.
When the reporter becomes the story, it might be good PR, but it sure isn’t conducive to work. Unlike the other 99.9 percent of those who feel legitimized by being in print or on TV, I only want to do my job. I am not comfortable on the other side of the pen.
I’ve been trying to figure out why. I think it’s the loss of control. They don’t spell your name right. Sometimes, as in the case of the L.A. Times, they don’t even ask. One of the biggest complaints I hear from interview subjects is that I don’t quote them accurately. Now I know how they feel. They don’t quote you accurately . . . or they simply don’t hear you.
It starts you thinking about what you do. Are we really on the side of the angels? Or are we so-called legitimate journalists just part of this same hungry, insatiable media maw that will romance a subject, tickle his ego and do everything it can to get a story, fill the assigned space, only to leave when it’s finished, like a broken romance?
Being a reporter on a story is a lot like beginning a new love affair. The adrenaline is high. The romance factor, huge. And it is all over before boredom has a chance to set in.
In the case of Mr. Reynolds and his ongoing personal woes, the story hasn’t had a chance to get old, cold or boring. The public never gets enough and the media mouth keeps chewing. This time, it caught a journalist in its slavering jowls. I have this continuing nightmare: for my 25-year career, I will always be the Babe Who Bested Burt.
As much as I’d like to have killed this particular beast, I nurtured it. My newspaper went on strike for two weeks in early November. I needed to generate some cash. The easiest way was this story. ““Geraldo’’ called. I said yes. Yeah, I was doing tabloid TV. I stoked the fire a little more. I figured, why the hell not. I might get work.
