by Bruce Feiler
He was right. At exactly the same time Fred was camping outside Trilogy, hoping to get a shot of Wynonna he could sell to the National Enquirer, Becky Goode, a stringer for the Globe, was about to make the most daring move of her fledgling career as a tabloid reporter by attempting to sneak into the reception itself. Her move was so bold that the handful of other tabloid reporters outside the restaurant watched in stunned silence as the youngest member of their underground pack stepped out of her car in a killer black dress with white polka dots and proceeded to walk up to the door. In her bag she was carrying three portable cameras, a tiny pad, and $10,000 in cash.
Once completely unconnected to the music business, Becky’s life was totally redirected by the boom of the 1990s. She was born in Hendersonville, just north of Madison, Hazel’s beloved “butthole of Nashville.” Her father sold cars. Her mother worked in the home. After graduating from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Becky sold credit reports for a few years, then advertising. Eventually she trickled back to Nashville and settled in a spacious apartment not far from Belle Meade, in the heart of 37205, the poshest zip code in town. There she went to work selling credit information to private investigators, reading The New Yorker every week, and nursing her ambitions to be a writer. When the National Enquirer placed an ad in the local paper saying it was looking for sources, two friends insisted she call.
“I didn’t hardly know any music people,” Becky said. She was bobby-sock blonde with freckles, a penchant for brightly colored clothes, and an accent that could swing from Southern cheerleader to New York cynic in the flash of her charming grin. “But I am from here, and therefore I know all the people around the industry—the doormen, the chauffeurs, the nannies.”
The first thing the Enquirer asked her to do was find the address of one of the members of Alabama. “I felt it was a test,” Becky said. “I hung up the phone, made two phone calls, and had it in ten minutes. They were real excited. They paid me seventy-five dollars.” Eventually the Enquirer flew her down to Florida for a two-week stringer orientation. “I think it just flatters the stringers, makes them feel needed,” she explained in the uncanny way she had of getting to the heart of people’s motivations. “But it was a really neat experience. I interviewed a Miss America and got my name on a story. My mother was thrilled.”
Back in Nashville, Becky went to work on the types of stories the Enquirer craved—Dolly Parton visits a chiropractor, Vince Gill goes on a mystery diet, Conway Twitty’s children try to exhume his body. First purchased in the 1950s by Generoso Pope, the National Enquirer (it had been the New York Enquirer) was a source of close-to-the-street news. In the 1960s, Pope observed that the two subjects Americans most like to talk about were health and celebrities. He changed the focus of the paper and circulation soared, reaching 5 million readers a week at its peak. In time the Enquirer began paying sources for information, most famously showing a picture of Elvis on its front page taken after his death. Though cameras were not allowed at his viewing, an Enquirer reporter learned that after a corpse is embalmed its hair grows for twelve hours and that a barber would have to come in to shave Elvis before the funeral. According to a story in The New York Times about the new respectability of tabloids in the 1990s, the reporter paid the barber to smuggle in a tiny camera and take a picture of the King. That issue sold 6 million copies.
Though Elvis might have provided the paper’s biggest coup (its biggest disaster had occurred the previous year when Carol Burnett successfully sued the paper for falsely reporting that she had been drunk at a restaurant), the editors had little interest in country music. With content driven by box office grosses, television ratings, and album sales, country hardly registered. When country sales started soaring in the 1990s, though, and its stars started landing on the front pages of mainstream publications, the tabloids quickly followed. Within no time, 5 to 10 percent of the paper was devoted to covering Nashville. “It’s a formula,” Becky said. “They’d want something every week if they could get it.” Because of the tabloids’ enormous circulation, many stars, particularly newer ones, actually try to place stories in the papers. Before Shania Twain became big, her publicist routinely pitched her sexy body and heart-wrenching history to the tabloids, emphasizing her parents’ tragic death in an automobile accident; after she became big, when Shania’s grandmother accused her of fabricating her Native American heritage, the tabloids covered that, too. In the tabloid universe, Reba was always good for a story; Vince, if he did anything wrong; or Garth. Dolly is almost a guarantor of space. Becky once rode up and down a hospital elevator fifty-four times trying to find out if Dolly’s brother had cancer. He did.
But for sex appeal, star power, and downright kookiness, nobody beat the Judds. Almost blue-plate royalty in Nashville, the Judds had mythic reputations in town. Becky remembered watching them as a child on “The Ralph Emery Show” on Channel 4. “They would be there every Monday and Thursday,” she said. “Naomi would give out these lye soap recipes made from boiling down pig fat. And Channel 4 would have the graphics to go with it: ‘Half a cup of animal fat…’ I said to my mother, ‘Do they really use lye soap?’ And my mother said, ‘No, it’s a marketing thing.’” Even at that early age, Becky felt sympathy for Wynonna. “She was like me,” Becky said. “I was twelve years old, looking at this awkward girl with Bozo hair sitting next to her mama. Naomi would sit there and talk, talk, talk. And Wynonna never said a word. I’ve always wanted to know what she thought.”
Increasingly, I was developing that urge as well. Though I had been largely received on Music Row as what publicists call a “cred” reporter, someone who can get publicity-craving country stars into national publications, I was told I would have little chance of penetrating the cocoon around the Judds. Wynonna rarely does interviews and was famous for almost never talking in public. This is why the tabloids loved her: She was mysterious. Becky, for one, had been trailing her for years. Wynonna goes on a date. Wynonna goes on a binge. Wynonna goes on a diet. “I had rung her gate so many times it wasn’t even funny,” Becky said. “But nobody ever answered. The paper kept saying, ‘Go out there. Try it again.’ They’re very persistent. That’s why they’re good.”
The biggest story surrounding Wynonna had been the birth of her son. “I was in the hospital the whole time,” Becky told me. “It was Christmas. They couldn’t find a photographer to work here, so they flew in a photographer from New York. She brought her parakeet, and it ended up having a brain tumor while in Nashville. She was supposed to be in the hospital pretty much twenty-four, seven, to shoot anybody coming or going. But every time I needed her, she was either in the hospital gift shop crying over her horoscope or running back and forth to the hotel trying to comfort her blasted parakeet. We didn’t get anything.”
A year later, Wynonna was pregnant again and word had started spreading around Nashville that this time she was going to get married. For months it was the leading topic of gossip on Music Row. The first date the rumors settled on was Christmas Eve in the Ryman Auditorium. Becky and a photographer huddled freezing in the alley all day, only to be proven wrong. Finally, three weeks later, Becky got the tip she was looking for.
The first thing Becky did when she learned the date of the wedding was call everyone she knew and try to get an invitation to the reception, which was being held at Trilogy. (The ceremony was being held at Christ Church in Brentwood, Wynonna’s Pentecostal congregation.) “I can’t find anybody,” she complained to me just days before the big event. Since meeting Becky when I first came to town (by that time, she was working for the Globe, who had given her a better offer), she had stunned me with her access to information. A rumor had been going around that Shania Twain had made a life-sized nude poster of herself to give to her husband, Mutt Lange. “I don’t believe that,” I said to her dismissively. “I talked to the person who developed it,” Becky responded. One Friday night Travis Tritt’s publicist called me from her car phone to tell me that Travis had just told her he
was getting married. “I was so surprised I was hyperventilating,” his publicist said. The following day an official press release was put out. “Did you see that Travis Tritt is getting married?” I said to Beck)’. “Oh, that,” she said blithely. “I sent that in two months ago.” Through all my time in Nashville, I never heard anything on Music Row that Becky didn’t know first.
This time, though, unable to turn up an invitation (or even the exact hour), Becky resorted to money. She had lunch for three days in a row at Trilogy and hinted to the waitresses that they could make $500—or even more—for a photograph of Wynonna cutting the cake. They refused. She went to see a neighbor who worked there as a busboy. “I’ve already been warned about you,” he said. “Please leave.” Finally, the night before the wedding, Becky learned that the rehearsal dinner was being held in a back room at Choices Restaurant in Franklin. With her editor from the Globe, she went to eat at the restaurant. Once inside, Becky wandered back and forth between her table and the ladies’ room, hoping to bump into someone who had been at the party. It was on one such trip to the ladies’ room that Becky caught her first big break. Ashley Judd was standing at the sink.
“Oh, hi!” Becky stammered, resorting quickly to her best cheerleader accent. “I’m a big fan. I loved you in Heat!”
Ashley smiled and thanked her.
“I saw that interview you did on TV,” Becky continued. “I love how you promote Franklin.”
“Yes, we have such a charming little town here.”
Becky knew she wouldn’t have much time with Ashley. What was the most important thing to learn? She took a breath. “So,” she said, “what time is Wynonna getting married?”
Ashley started to answer—“Sister’s getting married…”—when suddenly a voluminous flush came from a nearby stall and out walked Naomi, flaming red hair, pleasant smile, and deep, frightening glare. Ashley went dumb. The two Judds washed their hands side by side and quietly left the room.
By half past six the following evening, the mood in the bushes around Trilogy was growing surly. The paparazzi had chased so many limousines they were becoming impatient. The two dozen police officers kept shoving the onlookers back into the gutter. The various television film crews were jabbering into their walkie-talkies. One cameraman told me he had followed the couple since early in the morning when a limousine left Wynonna’s farm and headed to a nearby apartment complex, at which point four women in bright red wigs came bounding from the car and ducked into four separate minivans. Confused, the entourage of reporters that had been tailing the limousine was left in a funk.
Meanwhile, at the door to Trilogy, Becky Goode was about to face her first big challenge. A giant sign taped to the front door said PLEASE HAVE INVITATIONS READY. Becky didn’t have an invitation. She didn’t even have a date. As she approached the guards though, the people waiting in line were so anxious to find their names on the RSVP list that they swarmed the security table, overwhelming the guards and thereby freeing Becky to slip by undetected. Once inside, she quickly disappeared into the horde. “It was packed,” she said. “Wall-to-wall people. Peter Frampton was there. Kenny Rogers. Steve Winwood. Donna Summer. I saw this strange guy with long hair and somebody said it was Pee-Wee Herman. His sister lives in Nashville.” More surprising was the number of Becky’s friends who were there. “It was like going to a big party in Nashville,” she said. “I kept saying, ‘Are you friends with Arch or Wynonna?’ And they would say, ‘Well, we knew Arch when he was fifteen…’ or ‘We bought a boat from Arch ten years ago.’ He must have invited anybody he ever met. I think he was showing off.”
No sooner had Becky gotten in than a set of blinking police lights appeared atop the hill. A line of vehicles approached. Three police motorcycles led the way, followed by two squad cars, a minivan with security, a white limousine containing Naomi, her ex-husband, her current husband, and Ashley, and, at the tail end, a 1952 black Cadillac, driven by Arch and containing his bride. It was as though the Emperor of Japan was making a state visit to Trilogy. As soon as the cars came to a stop in front of the valet parking stand, the horde of photographers rushed forward with such hysteria—cursing, screaming, flashing, and shooting—that they forced themselves to tumble like a band of Keystone Kops directly into the thicket of shrubs. Ashley emerged first and glared at the comic assembly. Naomi and her husbands followed, hurrying the few steps to the door. Finally Arch, in a white Nehru suit, scurried around to retrieve Wynonna. She wore a cream satin dress with bouffant sleeves and a long satin train. A garland of wildflowers and buds was woven into her hair. She was, as Hazel would say, “in the family way”—four months and counting.
As soon as the family stepped into the restaurant, Becky Goode faced a new challenge. Larry Strickland, Naomi’s current husband, was tipped off that she might be inside and went looking for her. Soon enough he found her, hovering behind the shrimp. Larry lunged at her, but Becky stepped aside and quickly fled to the ladies’ room. Minutes later, two male security guards hurried into the bathroom and, feeling out of place, dragged out the first blonde they saw. It wasn’t Becky, but a friend of hers. The woman started crying. “What do you want? I didn’t do anything! It’s her that you want.” Becky considered fleeing again, but knew she had little chance. Soon two female security guards entered the ladies’ room and apprehended their suspect. “They went through my purse,” Becky recalled. “They patted me down. They grabbed my portable cameras. I was just so delighted I had made it that far.” Outside the paparazzi, having righted themselves, applauded when Becky was escorted from the party. She went across the street to a restaurant to meet her editor. A few minutes later, her cellular telephone rang.
It was George Alonzo, calling from inside Trilogy. Some friends had told him that Becky would offer money for pictures. George used to work for Wynonna and Arch. He was in his early fifties, balding, and overextended—ample motivation, Becky figured, for him to help. On the phone, he told Becky that he had taken two photographs of Wynonna and Arch cutting the cake.
“Where are you?” she said. “I’ll be there in a minute.” She told him the pictures could be worth $500 to a $1,000, maybe more.
“Uh, well,” he said, “I’m taking this girl home.”
“Okay,” she said, “I’ll wait at your place.”
“Uh, well,” he said, “I’m going to spend the night with her.”
“All right,” Becky said, “I’ll come to her place.”
“I can’t do that,” he said. “It wouldn’t be cool. I’ll call you at eight in the morning.”
At seven, Becky started calling his house. There was no answer. She kept calling. At nine, he called her. “I’m running late,” he said. “I can’t meet you until ten.” At ten, she and her editor, Jim, went to his apartment. Nobody was home. Becky checked the front, the back, the garage. He wasn’t there. At eleven-thirty he called. “Meet me across the street at Woodmont Baptist Church,” he said. They raced across the street. He wasn’t there. They waited, but he never came. They waited some more. After two minutes Jim said, “He isn’t coming. He wanted us to leave so he could pull into his garage.” “Shit, I’m sure that’s what it is,” Becky said. She leaped from the car and sprinted across the street. She rang the doorbell. Nobody answered. She looked in the window. It was dark. She ran around to the back and looked in the garage. There was his Lexus, parked at an angle, and behind it a red rental car. In the backseat was a copy of the National Enquirer. Becky pounded the hood and burst into tears.
When Jim arrived, Becky got on the mobile phone and called his house. “All right, we know you’re in there,” she said. “We know the National Enquirer is there. We’ll offer you more money: five thousand dollars.”
“But I don’t have any pictures,” he said.
“Ten thousand.”
He didn’t answer.
“Fifteen.”
He refused to come to the door.
“Twenty.”
He was silent.
“Thirty.”
Finally he hung up.
“He’s a first-class jerk, if you ask me,” Becky said. “First he sold out Arch and Wynonna. Then he sold out me.”
Two days later, the National Enquirer ran five photos of Wynonna (including one cutting the cake), plugged on its front page as a WORLD EXCLUSIVE: NAOMI ENDS FAMILY FEUD AS WYNONNA WEDS. Pleased with their coup, their story was positive. “Naomi toasts her daughter’s new hubby—the man she once called a ‘gold digger.’ ‘Arch, I know you are going to take good care of my daughter. I thank you for that.’” Two days later, the Globe ran a photo of Wynonna on its front page that clearly appeared doctored. Scooped, they spun the story negative. BRIDE WYNONNA’S TWO-RING CIRCUS. “200-pound pregnant singer tripped as she walked down the aisle. Groom and his mother-in-law fought like cats and dogs. Hungry guests fled Naomi’s restaurant to eat across the street.”
The following week I received a call from Wynonna’s publicist. Wynonna was fed up with all the tabloid coverage of her; she was finally ready to talk.
FOUR
THE TOWN
It was the funeral to which they all came. They gathered in a line of town cars and pickups in the sheeting rain just south of Nashville. They nodded solemnly to the waiting cameras as they straightened their black suits, winter hats, and dark glasses and hurried between the stark white columns into the Brentwood United Methodist Church. They paused in the marble foyer to shake hands with the man stooped under the doorway who just that morning had pulled down a few limbs of magnolia from his yard and placed them alongside the plain white lilies strewn abreast his wife’s cherry coffin. They shuffled through the doors and into their seats, spilling from the pews and into the aisles until they finally had to prop open the doors. And still they came, in the rain, reaching two thousand strong. Some had driven from half a lifetime ago, from the days when radio was their best friend and the Grand Ole Opry had given life to them all. Grandpa Jones, Porter Wagoner, Jan Howard, Billy Walker, Bill Anderson. Some had come from just up the road, from a newer time, when colors were brighter and lives flickered faster across the screen. Barbara Mandrell, Reba McEntire, Vince Gill, Wynonna, and Garth Brooks, his wife, and their elder daughter. But all of them had come to honor the woman who better than anyone else had bridged the gap between then and now and who alone among them had also bridged the gulf between the country where they had come from and the city where they now lived.
