Beckhams and L.A. seem like a mismatch
When David and Victoria Beckham arrived in Los Angeles nearly three years ago, the list of Hollywood power players who came out to greet them was as long as a wall of free-kick defenders: Ron Howard, Will Smith, Steven Spielberg, Demi Moore and Tom Cruise were among those who turned out for a party at the Museum of Contemporary Art. While the vibe was celebratory, ostensibly welcoming David Beckham onto the roster of the L.A. Galaxy, the message that July evening was all business: We’re here, the assembly implied, to usher your entry into Hollywood.
But as Beckham’s native England prepares to take the field against the U.S. at the World Cup this Saturday (he won’t be playing in the tournament because of a torn Achilles tendon), the feverish interest in the match reminds how few promises the Beckhams’ Southern California sojourn has fulfilled.
With a checkered U.S. playing career that has more often seen Beckham off in Italy or sidelined because of injury, the Beckhams’ Hollywood dreams have also fizzled like so much squandered stoppage time. The couple and their three sons reside in Beverly Hills but outside the occasional party with the likes of family friends Cruise and Katie Holmes, the Beckhams’ presence in Southern California has been virtually non-existent.
Creative Artists Agency and 19 Entertainment, the Beckhams’ management company run by “American Idol” magnate Simon Fuller, had designs on a diverse film and television careers for the couple. But those plans have yet to materialize.
A planned reality series about Victoria Beckham was compressed from a six-episode arc to a one-hour special. Her initial appearance on “The Tonight Show” — in which she presented Jay Leno with a Los Angeles Galaxy jersey, an item that several hundred thousand Americans bought after David Beckham signed an estimated $250-million contract with the team — became not the first of many late-night appearances but a historical footnote.
Victoria’s husband didn’t fare much better in Hollywood. David Beckham’s most notable film appearance since arriving in Los Angeles has been in “Goal! III,” the middling soccer franchise in which he had a cameo playing himself. The movie went straight to DVD.
Perhaps the exemplar of what happened to the Beckhams came in spring 2007. Several months after signing with the Galaxy, Beckham committed to a role in a World War I soccer movie called “Truce.” The film was being developed at Warner Independent Pictures. Less than a year later, the company went belly-up. So did any immediate hopes for a Beckham film career.
“A lot of people who bought tickets and merchandise and wanted in on the Beckham experience have been left with mixed emotions,” says David Carter, executive Director of the Sports Business Institute at USC’s Marshall School of Business. “He didn’t live up to a lot of people’s expectations.”
What exactly went wrong? The Los Angeles sports scene, after all, has historically been an effective launching pad for screen celebrity; numerous players on the Los Angeles Rams in the 1970s, such as Fred Dryer and Merlin Olsen, parlayed their athletic prominence into prolific television careers. And superstars traded with great fanfare to Southern California teams have become a part of the local culture; when Wayne Gretzky arrived at the L.A. Kings two decades ago from Edmonton, Canada, the star center and his actress wife, Janet Jones, quickly became media fixtures.
But experts point out several reasons why Beckham’s run has deviated from Gretzky’s. Beckham didn’t land in Los Angeles in the prime of his career. He didn’t tally impressive scoring numbers over full seasons (partly because of injury but partly because Beckham is not a pure goal-scorer). He didn’t carry his team to the league finals (in fact, as Grant Wahl’s book “The Beckham Experiment” documents, some of his teammates resented him). And he never was able to break the public perception that he was a mercenary instead of a welcome import.
“This could never have been about the media persuading each other. It had to be about the public being persuaded,” says Neal Pilson, a sports consultant and former head of CBS Sports. “And the American public never really adopted Beckham as an American sports figure. They saw him as an over-the-hill athlete who was parachuting in.”
For their part, the Beckham camp says it was never interested in becoming a part of the entertainment firmament. Asked if they are satisfied with their Hollywood run, a representative for the Beckhams responded: “Your questions imply that David and Victoria have an interest in becoming involved in the entertainment industry. This is simply not true. David’s focus has always been and will continue to be soccer, in whatever capacity that leads him. Victoria’s focus is raising her family and her fashion line. Her dress line is going into its fifth season and is extremely successful. They do have friends in the entertainment community, as many people do that live in Los Angeles. They both enjoy living in Los Angeles and look forward to many happy, successful years here.”
But observers say that perhaps most urgent factor in the couple’s modest output was the game Beckham played. Instead of elevating soccer in the U.S. to greater prominence, the sport seemed to bring the athlete down to its low-visibility level. “He was participating in a sport that few people pay attention to more than a few times a year,” Carter notes.
There remain some who believe the couple’s Hollywood profile will change after Beckham, 34, retires from football But there’s little to support the theory. Since arriving in Los Angeles, David Beckham has continued many of his endorsement deals, and Victoria Beckham has ramped up her fashion-designing career. As Hollywood entities, however, they remain merely substitutes.
