Dish: The Inside Story on the World of Gossip

by Jeannette Walls

  Pat Kingsley was having to deal with questions not just about Cruise’s religion, but also his sexual orientation. In 1987, when Cruise was twenty-four, he had married Mimi Rogers, who was seven years his senior. The ceremony was so secretive that even Andrea Jaffe, who was his publicist at the time, didn’t know about it. Stories soon began to circulate that the couple was having trouble conceiving a child. Cruise denied any problems. In late 1989, he told a number of publications how happy he and his wife were. “I just really enjoy our marriage,” he said to Jann Wenner’s Us in December 1989. “I couldn’t imagine being without her.” One month later, Cruise announced that they were splitting and refused to discuss it. When Playboy asked Rogers if she had dumped Cruise, she bristled. “Is that the story—that I was bored with that child and threw him over, chewed him up and spit him out?” Rogers said. “Well, here’s the real story. Tom was seriously thinking of becoming a monk. At least for that period of time, it looked as though marriage wouldn’t fit into his overall spiritual need. And he thought he had to be celibate to maintain the purity of his instrument. My instrument needed tuning. Therefore, it became obvious that we had to split.”

  Almost immediately, Rogers withdrew the comment. According to some reports, Cruise’s lawyers had warned Rogers that she could lose her multimillion-dollar divorce settlement if she didn’t keep quiet about the marriage, but Rogers insisted she got no pressure from Cruise. She went on the Tonight Show and told Johnny Carson that she had made the comments as a spoof of the way tabloids make up outrageous stories. “I came up with the most implausible thing I could think of,” she said. “Like a guy thinking of becoming a monk would be doing Days of Thunder!”* Speculation about the actor’s sex life didn’t die down after his marriage to Nicole Kidman. Cruise’s new wife was put in the awkward position of defending her husband’s sexuality to the media. “I don’t know what [Mimi Rogers] meant, but I can assure you my husband’s no monk!” Kidman once said. “He’s a very sexual guy.” Kidman was even asked, point blank, if her husband was gay. “Gay? Really?” she said. “Well, ummm, he’s not gay in my knowledge. You’ll have to ask him.”

  Kidman, who had grown up in Australia, was once described as “breathtakingly determined … She has pursued her career with the relentlessness of a heat-seeking missile.” Her first big film, the 1989 Australian suspense thriller Dead Calm, got some attention in the United States, but produced no offers of roles, so Kidman took charge of the situation. She got hold of a purloined copy of a script for Ghost, in which she recognized a potential blockbuster, and videotaped a private production of the film, with herself in the role that would go to Demi Moore. She sent the unorthodox audition video—unsolicited—to director Joel Rubin. “I don’t know how she got the script,” a stunned Rubin said. “But the video was an elaborate production—fully cast, blocked and acted with little sets and lights and everything. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Rubin was impressed, but not impressed enough to give Kidman the role. She got her break playing a brain surgeon in Tom Cruise’s Days of Thunder; after the movie appeared, she converted to Scientology, married Cruise, and the couple adopted two children in Florida, where a controversial Republican gubernatorial candidate, Anthony Martin, called for an investigation into the adoptions, calling them egregious examples of “baby selling.” Some critics questioned whether Kidman’s marriage to Cruise was a career move for both of them. Entertainment reporters debated about whether or not the media had an obligation to investigate the possibility. On the one side, there were those who agreed with Pat Kingsley that stars’ private lives are nobody’s business; others countered that celebrities were among the richest, most influential people in the country and that the press should not put itself in the position—as it did in the days of Hedda and Louella—of perpetrating public relations myths. The rumors about the Cruise-Kidman marriage were so rampant, this argument went, that even if they weren’t true, the media had an obligation to address them. Accordingly, in a profile of Kidman, McCall’s ran an anonymous quote, attributed to “a prominent movie critic” who said he had “heard rumors” that Cruise and Kidman had married “to squelch the gay stuff” and that “Nicole was told that if she married Tom, CAA would make her a movie star.” The article also quoted a number of people who dismissed the speculation and said that Cruise and Kidman had an ideal marriage. Printing the rumor, however, spread it beyond the media and entertainment circles that traffic in such things and put them in mainstream America. “I spoke with Pat the day that story appeared,” said a writer. “She was devastated and crazed. When something like that happens, her fury knows no bounds.”

  Cruise and Kidman were prepared to sue, but lawsuits—as everyone in Hollywood knew from the Carol Burnett episode—were too lengthy and too messy. Kingsley wanted a retraction and she wouldn’t wait until the next issue of McCall’s came out; it was delivered through Pat Kingsley’s office the day the offending magazine hit newsstands: “McCall’s knows of no evidence indicating that Mr. Cruise is sterile or homosexual, or that Ms. Kidman is anything other than a highly competent actress, or that they married for any reason other than mutual love and respect, or that any of the other reported rumors is true.”

  Liz Smith also weighed in on the controversy. Ever since she’d been lured to Newsday and her column started appearing in the parent company’s Los Angeles Times, Smith was more eager than ever to make a big splash in Hollywood. The gossip columnist was a frequent house guest of director Joel Schumacher, who had set aside “the Liz Smith” room for her. “All this continuing controversy over Tom’s private life reminds me of a well-known director who was asked what he thought about the much-gossiped-about Cruise-Nicole Kidman marriage,” Smith wrote. “He said, ‘You know, it’s none of my business. It’s none of your business. And frankly, I don’t care.’ Great answer.” The unnamed source in the item was Joel Schumacher; he also happened to be Kidman’s director in Batman Forever and Cruise’s director in The Firm.

  Vanity Fair writer Jennet Conant also rushed to Cruise and Kidman’s defense. Conant, who was married to 60 Minutes reporter Steve Kroft, told USA Today and the New York Post’s Page Six that the McCall’s story was inaccurate and unfair. “What reporters were doing to Tom and Nicole was a rabid invasion of their privacy,” Conant said. Tom and Nicole were “deeply in love” Conant insisted; she knew, she said, because they were friends. “I profiled Nicole twice, and she liked what I wrote,” said Conant. When the writer profiled Kidman for Redbook, she didn’t address the rumors. “It’s nobody’s business,” Conant maintained. McCall’s was just jealous, Conant told Page Six, because it didn’t have access like Redbook. After Conant’s comments appeared, Kingsley called the writer to thank her. The next year, when Kingsley was negotiating with Vanity Fair for the first ever joint interview with Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise, Kingsley asked for—and got—Jennet Conant. The reporter had no apologies for the fawning tone of the story. “This is not an investigation of criminals,” she said. “It’s fun stories about nice people who I happen to like a lot.” Later, when Vanity Fair profiled Tom Cruise’s good friend George Clooney,* also a PMK client, Conant got that assignment too. The Stephanie Mansfields of entertainment journalism were being edged out by writers who were more cooperative with the Pat Kingsleys of the world. “Pat and I deal with each other on a very professional level,” said Conant. “There’s never been any restrictions, she’s never asked me to sign anything … They know they can trust me. They know I never hit below the belt.”

  Indeed, by the late 1990s, negative articles about Cruise, like the one in McCall’s or fact-filled ones like Stephanie Mansfield’s, were a rarity. Kingsley had succeeded in intimidating the entertainment press so thoroughly that it was willing to publish increasingly implausible celebrations of the actor’s good deeds.

  In 1996, around the time Mission Impossible was being released, Tom Cruise, who both directed and produced the movie, was being depicted in the media as a real-lif
e action hero for a series of heroic rescues: he had saved the life of a boy being crushed by his throng of fans and paparazzi, he had come to the aid of a woman who had been hit by a car. In August, Cruise made headlines for saving the lives of a French family whose yacht exploded off the Isle of Capri. Articles and TV segments around the world applauded the actor’s bravery: “No Mission Impossible” declared one newspaper. “Tom Terrific,” proclaimed People magazine. The only problem was—it never happened. While there was an accident, neither Cruise nor anyone on his yacht participated in the rescue in any way, according to a spokesman for the coast guard in Capri, which rescued the family and brought it to safety on the yacht on which the star was sailing. Cruise, according to the coast guard spokesman, never lifted a finger in the actual rescue. The star did, however, visit the victims in the hospital. When questioned about the story, Kingsley at first praised Cruise’s heroics and courage. “If I’m ever in danger,” she said, “I hope Tom Cruise is around!” When pressed for a specific description of Cruise’s heroism, however, she got vague. And when presented with the coast guard’s official version of events, Kingsley backed off.

  “The press made up the story!” she declared angrily. “They got it wrong!” And then she added triumphantly: “They always do.”

  * The word was that Cruise stood on a “cheater box” to make him as tall as Kidman. He also allegedly used one to stand above his Top Gun co-star Kelly McGillis. He also had to use one in Interview with the Vampire so that the six-foot-tall Brad Pitt wouldn’t tower over him.

  * Pat Newcomb, the press agent who had always remained so mum about Marilyn Monroe’s last day, was a partner for a while, but she left to form her own company.

  † Tom Cruise once rejected fourteen writers before agreeing to sit for a Rolling Stone profile.

  * The article alleged that Love used heroin while she was pregnant, a charge the singer vehemently denied. In that article, however, Vanity Fair did clean up Love’s image somewhat. Fearing backlash from readers, Tina Brown had a cigarette airbrushed out of a barely dressed and very pregnant Love’s hand.

  † Vanity Fair was then being edited by Graydon Carter, who in his early years was less sure of his power than Tina Brown. A Vanity Fair spokeswoman, however, denied that scenario, saying hat PMK had nothing to do with the decision and that the magazine just wanted “the best of both worlds.”

  * Cruise knew and trusted Jaffe because her brother, Stanley Jaffe, was his producer in Cruise’s 1981 breakthrough film, Taps.

  * Kingsley recalled the dispute being over something another actress had said, though she couldn’t recall the specifics.

  † Smith called the film “a winner—a lush, romantic, vigorous, sexy and spec-tactular piece of movie making. And Cruise is spectacular as well. He is appealing, photogenic, and charismatic as ever. Yes, yes, he IS a good actor, but Cruise can’t escape his looks and charm…. Relax you guys at Universal; ‘Far and Away’ looks like a blockbuster from my vantage point.”

  * In fact, Tom Cruise as a man of the cloth isn’t as bizarre as Rogers tried to make it sound. When he was a teenager, Tom spent a year studying for the priesthood in a Franciscan seminary in Cincinnati.

  * Clooney once dated Kelly Preston, who was married to John Travolta and was Cruise’s co-star in Jerry Maguire.

  17

  p.r. muscle

  Private Investigator Anthony Pellicano was on the Dangerous tour in Bangkok with Michael Jackson when he got the call: police had raided Neverland, the singer’s 2,700-acre ranch; they had a search warrant; they brought in a locksmith; they seized videotapes and photographs. This is trouble, Pellicano knew, but then again, trouble was Pellicano’s business.

  It was Sunday, August 22, 1993, still before dawn in California, but Pellicano telephoned criminal lawyer Howard Weitzman in Los Angeles anyway. “Wake up,” Pellicano told Weitzman. They had a lot of work to do.

  Hard Copy correspondent Diane Dimond spent most of Monday, August 23, at her cubicle in the Mae West Building of Paramount Studios, tracking down the names in Heidi Fleiss’s little black book. Shortly before 4 P.M., Dimond’s boss, Executive Producer Linda Bell Blue, tapped her on the shoulder. “In about seven minutes, Channel 4 is going to run a story about Michael Jackson,” Blue said. “I don’t really know what it is, but come to my office. Let’s watch it.”

  “The L.A.P.D just a few moments ago confirmed for us that entertainer Michael Jackson is the subject of a criminal investigation,” reported KNBC-TV’s Colan Nolan. This should be interesting, Dimond thought as she and Blue leaned forward, eager to find out why the police were investigating the world’s biggest pop star. They didn’t find out from KNBC-TV. “It was an odd story,” said Dimond. “They said police were looking for something, but they didn’t say what or why.”

  Bell turned to Dimond: “You’re on the Michael Jackson story.”

  Dimond elbowed her way through the crowd of other reporters, photographers, and camera crews that crowded into Howard Weitzman’s Century City office the following day for a press conference the lawyer had called in reaction to the mysterious investigation of Michael Jackson. Bert Fields, the smooth-talking, powerhouse attorney whose clients included Dustin Hoffman, John Travolta, Warren Beatty, David Geffen, and Tom Cruise, was also on the case, but the front man was the more combative Weitzman. “I’m going to make a statement in a moment,” Weitzman told the crowd. “If you guys will act like humans, which is real difficult for you all …”

  Weitzman then introduced Jackson’s “security consultant,” Anthony Pellicano. A slight, well-groomed man with receding wavy hair and hound-dog eyes stepped up to the mike. There is no truth, Pellicano told the crowd, to the child molestation charges against Michael Jackson. A collective gasp came from the journalists. This was the first time anyone officially disclosed why police were investigating Jackson. Then Pellicano threw a curve ball: What the case was really about, the security consultant said, was blackmail. “A demand for twenty million dollars was presented and it was flatly refused,” Pellicano told the stunned reporters. “We had no intention to do anything with it. We wanted to see how far they went.” When Jackson’s people refused to pay, the accusers went to the authorities, Pellicano said. “I am actively engaged in investigating that extortion attempt.”

  Dimond’s jaw dropped. She was stunned—not just by the charges of child molestation, and not just by the blackmail allegations—but because she believed she recognized Pellicano’s voice. After Dimond reported on the apparent ties between the Hollywood Madam and Columbia Pictures, an anonymous man with a Chicago accent began calling her, trying to persuade her that certain people were trying to frame Columbia executives.

  “That’s him!” Dimond whispered to her producer. “That’s the guy who’s been trying to spin my Heidi Fleiss story.” Dimond wondered why the same person would be involved in the two biggest scandals in Hollywood. “This guy must be one slick operator,” she thought. She didn’t yet know the half of it.

  By 1993, the culture of celebrity was so pervasive that movie stars and recording artists were among the richest, most powerful people in the country—and no one was bigger than Michael Jackson. Jackson wasn’t just a pop star; he was a multibillion-dollar conglomerate. He had signed a contract with Sony worth $1 billion, the biggest entertainment deal in history. He had an endorsement deal with Pepsi and was credited with the soft drink’s two-point increase in market share; each point was worth $470 million, so Jackson was a very valuable commodity to Pepsi.*

  The power of celebrities, however, extended way beyond their financial clout. They were modern society’s most sacred icons. Celebrities had a cultural significance and an emotional impact on Americans that they didn’t find in religious or political leaders. In the early 1990s, no performer personified the celebrity-as-demigod syndrome more than Michael Jackson. It was an image Jackson worked hard to cultivate. Although his actual philanthropic work was limited mostly to singing songs about the underprivileged and h
ugging children in hospitals, Jackson was seen as one of the world’s great humanitarians. Presidents wanted to be photographed with him; he was honored by Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley declared a Michael Jackson Day.

  The entire scandal industry, however, was built on bashing such icons. By the time the Michael Jackson story broke, the scandal industry was very big business. In addition to the super market tabloids, there were twelve news magazines on television in 1993—up from three five years earlier—each one trying to come up with revelations more shocking than the other. The scandal business, according to one estimate, was a $28.3-billion-dollar industry.

  With so much at stake, both sides became very aggressive. As tabloid reporters increasingly resorted to tactics like paying sources and going undercover to get the goods on celebrities, an equally combative industry evolved that specialized in suppressing scandal. When a salacious bit of information threatened to wreck a star’s career, when police reports and criminal charges were involved, traditional public relations—even gatekeepers like Pat Kingsley—were useless. At times like those, celebrities turned to a breed of aggressive private detectives usually billed as “security consultants.”

  The best-known of these operators worked in and around Hollywood. Pellicano’s key competitor was probably Gavin de Becker, who for years was on the William Morris payroll and whose clients included Michael J. Fox, Cher, and Bill Cosby. Fox hired de Becker when he married actress Tracy Pollan in 1988. At first, Fox thought de Becker was going overboard on the job. When the actor showed up at the quiet Vermont inn where he was to be married, he was startled to see what he later described as “half a dozen Arnold Schwarzenegger look-alikes in business suits and mirrored shades in Adirondack chairs scanning the woods with binoculars and searchlights.” To execute Operation Fox, de Becker had prepared a thirty-six page manual, referring to Michael Fox as Coyote 1 and Tracy Pollan as Coyote 2. “The National Enquirer and its ilk have the whole industry more or less wired,” the young and attractive de Becker warned a startled Fox. “You’ve got two-bit publicists, chauffeurs, and secretaries all over Hollywood selling information to the junk press. Whenever you go to a restaurant frequented by celebrities, you can assume that the guy who parks your car is working with a paparazzo. He’s got a slip of paper in his pocket with the name of a photographer on it.” Fox came to the conclusion that de Becker wasn’t overreacting after the detective sent Fox’s publicist, Nanci Ryder, undercover answering phones at the National Enquirer’s makeshift headquarters at a nearby hotel. Not only did Ryder discover the Enquirer’s plans—including an idea to rent a llama suit to cross a meadow—but she also got her hands on a copy of the Enquirer’s confidential source list, including some people on Fox’s payroll.