High life
Fame and fortune
Taki
have started to write for a new Amer- ican monthly called Fame, a glossy that pays the kind of moolah the late Christina Onassis's husband would consider getting remarried for. Fame is about famous peo- ple, the rich, the powerful, the royal and the talented. It also covers the arts, show business, interior design and the world of fashion. In other words, it is about people and matters Conde Nast deems important, people and things I shall now have to learn to respect, and the sooner the better.
By going straight to the point and calling itself Fame, the newest Yankee glossy left itself open to barbs from people who would never dare attack the powerful Newhouse organs, thus bringing hypocrisy to a new nadir. My only question to those critics is, what is wrong with calling a spade a spade? Although some would like us to believe that mags such as Vogue, Tatter and Vanity Fair are about sensitive souls writing son- nets in a garret, in reality they are con- cerned with those who are sensitive only to the stock market and whose recollection of a garret — if they have one — is very faint.
Fame sells in America, and Americans love fame. So much so, in fact, that even journalists and pop stars — both at the bottom of the totem pole in England — are considered to have . . . high moral stan- dards. A famous face in America means a hell of a lot more than a famous name, or a famous talent for that matter. Because of their famous faces there are know-nothing readers of television news who make in excess of three million dollars per annum.
And speaking of famous faces, I notice that the term 'star' has taken on a wider meaning than it possessed in the old days. Back then it was reserved for stage and screen performers, but in today's world- one can be a star director, a star royal, a star paparazzo, even a star widow like Jackie Onassis or Yoko Ono. Not to mention a star designer, a star socialite, a star interior decorator, or a star door person in front of a trendy night-club. Last but not least, a star politician or a star political family like the Kennedys, the closest an American dynasty has come to resembling the Borgias — without their talent, of course.
Andy Warhol once said that in the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes, but Andy as usual was having us on. On the contrary, in the future everyone will be a star of sorts, but famous I ain't sure. We shall have star criminals, and star prison- ers, and star Wall Street insiders, and star greenmailers, but they'll be stars because of their infamy. My ancestor Alexander conquered most of the known world, named 18 cities after himself, and only then did he become known as Alex the Great. Charles Lindbergh had to be the first to fly the Atlantic in order to become famous, although back in those halcyon days it may have been safer to fly it than it is today. In today's world, all Donna Rice had to do to become famous was to spend a night with Gary Hart, and all Gary Hart had to do to become the household world he wasn't before he did it, was to spend the night with her.
Which brings me to those who are already rich and famous and employ public relations flacks to make them more of the celebrities they already are. These are the ones we read about each day in the gossip columns of this great metropolis — the Trumps, the Kravises, the Gutfreunds and the Steinbergs. They all once desired to be stars, to be famous and recognised by their inferiors and peers, and the more fame they have the more they want. Lee Radzi- will once told me a story about her sister that sounded true. It seems that Jackie would go through the newspaper looking for any mention of her name and if she failed to find one, throw the rag away. I know Jackie only slightly, and have attack- ed her in print a lot, but the story sounds true if only because it's something Lee would do, not Jackie.
Yes, the good thing about the 'new' fame is that it's pursued by people most of us would not really like to sit next to at dinner, the kind I will be writing about in Fame and getting famous money for.
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