Hart and Rice--They’re the Talk of the Towns

Hollywood’s candidate got people in Hollywood talking this week.

“People in this town just enjoy gossiping generally,” entertainment industry publicist Michael Levine said.

Unquestionably, the reason the scandal hit close to home is Hart’s considerable California connections. The candidate has been the leader in courting show-business power players “early and ardently,” in the words of one. Warren Beatty and tycoon Marvin Davis and son John are just a few of the celebrities and moguls who have been raising money for Hart’s candidacy.

And, of course, Donna Rice had a couple of bit parts as an actress.

Take, for instance, a typical luncheon where Beverly Hills met Bel-Air.

Wendy Goldberg (wife of the 20th Century Fox Film Corp. president, Leonard Goldberg), Jane Eisner (wife of Disney chairman, Michael Eisner), Wanda McDaniel Ruddy (a former society columnist), Susan Strauss and Marcia Wolf were celebrating a friend’s birthday where “we absolutely talked at length about the Gary Hart business,” Goldberg said.

The women all were “very informed” about the incident. “We’d done our homework and read every word,” Goldberg explained. “One of the ladies even knew him pretty well.”

Now, Goldberg isn’t sure she can speak for the entire group. “But the feeling was that everybody was very disappointed in Hart. It showed bad judgment. And although these things do happen,” she noted, “we just felt that he is married and that he betrayed a trust.”

The discussion went on for 20 minutes. Goldberg mentioned that at a Beverly Hills cocktail party she had attended the night before, “If you had taken a poll, the consensus would have been that he had committed political suicide.”

Getting out of his car to attend that same cocktail party, Marvin Davis, a fellow Coloradan, refused to say anything substantive when reporters peppered him with questions Tuesday. “No, I don’t want to talk about it,” he said. “I’ve just been kidded about it all day.”

His son, John, reached at his office Wednesday night, also seemed devastated by the incident. “Part of my reaction to this may be because I’ve grown up with Gary. His was the first Senate campaign I ever worked in. He’s had a forceful impact on my political ideas and beliefs,” he said.

Still, he clings to hope. “While I think this has really hurt him, I see in him a determination to fight through this issue and continue his campaign. He may even be able to give his campaign a second life. And I believe it’s possible.”

Another political player in Hollywood, Bob Burkett, vice president for Interscope, also felt personally touched by the scandal. Even though Burkett has already helped raise half a million dollars for Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), he said, “my thoughts go out to Gary and his family.

“I feel awful.”

Mickey Kantor, the L.A. attorney who chaired Walter Mondale’s campaign in California in 1984 and ran Jerry Brown’s presidential bid in 1976, was “loitering” around the state Legislature in Sacramento after news of the Hart scandal broke. “I saw a lot of people, and it’s the first, last and only thing people raised. There is no other issue in Democratic politics right now.”

Kantor found that “those who are supporting Gary are reserving judgment.” Kantor himself thinks “those who are pronouncing his campaign dead on arrival are probably reacting too quickly.

“I think you’ve got to let these situations settle.”

Gary Hart was even, literally, in the air over Southern California.

Kathleen Brown, an attorney and sister and daughter of two former California governors, found everyone talking about Gary Hart in the first-class compartment of United Airlines on a Los Angeles to New York flight. “It was much more the subject of conversation than the congressional hearings,” she recounted. “It seemed to be the dominant news item, period.”

Brown thinks “it’s a death blow to the Hart candidacy. It wasn’t as if he was with the chairman of the Democratic Women’s Political Committee or an executive in the office of a corporation or a female labor leader. It was bad judgment.”

Meanwhile, Brown, ever the loyal sister, noted that Hart’s problems might present an opening for her politically ambitious brother. “Maybe,” she said, “the Democrats will be ready for Jerry Brown and his Jesuit ideas.”

A Westside attorney walked in on a fight between two cafeteria workers inside a Century City office building Tuesday morning.

“I don’t see why everybody is so hot and bothered about this Gary Hart business,” the male worker said. “What difference does it make what he does or doesn’t do?”

The female worker was in a rage. “You couldn’t be more wrong,” she responded. “It’s awful. It’s wrong. You can’t be running for President and running around with 20-year-old blondes, too.”

At TGIF’s in Marina del Rey, the singles and softball crowd interrupted their mating and mingling to ponder Hart’s personal life instead of their own.

Kurt Miller, a 26-year-old software salesman from Playa del Rey, even called a friend in Washington political circles just to find out more. Nevertheless, he said, “the issue is sensationalized by the media. And anyway many Presidents had affairs and the press didn’t come out and say that.”

His date, Cassandra Rupp, 24, agreed. “Frankly, I think they did something, but that’s besides the point. The press shouldn’t be a judge or a juror.”

Artist Will Weston walked across the street from his La Brea studio to the City Restaurant to laugh about Gary Hart with his friends over drinks.

“We got pretty adolescent,” he confessed. “We decided we could hardly wait for the next copy of Penthouse to come out because we’re sure they’ve offered half a million dollars to Donna Rice to bare the facts.”

The general consensus among Weston and art director Cheryl Pellegrino, illustrator Andy Zito and artist David Russo was that the only thing Hart did wrong was “to get caught,” Weston said. “No one believed it was as innocent as he said.

“Do we really want someone that dumb as our President?”

At the Playboy mansion in Holmby Hills, Hugh Hefner talked with the Chicago office about trying to sign up Donna Rice for a photo spread as soon as possible.

“At any time when there’s a beautiful woman in the news, we’re interested,” spokeswoman Elizabeth Norris said. “And Donna Rice definitely qualifies as a beautiful woman.”

In Burbank, Johnny Carson was glad “we took sex out of the pulpit and put it in politics where it belongs.”

The comedian urged his audience to “leave by the front entrance--because I don’t want anyone to say we’ve spent the night together.”

Elsewhere in the heart of the TV industry, “it just came up really informally when we were gathering this morning,” said a top executive for a TV production company.

This is probably the busiest time of the year in the TV industry. “It’s definitely the TV equivalent of senior thesis and final exams,” the executive explained. “And still we found the time to talk about Hart.”

Before the Donna Rice incident, the executive had been a Hart supporter: “I guess I have to find some other liberal to support. A smarter liberal, this time.”

There was a general “No comment” from the usually outspoken members of the Hollywood Women’s Political Committee.

However, when asked if the Hart incident was being discussed, one member responded icily: “Of course, people are talking about it.”

Warren Beatty, Hart’s strongest celebrity supporter and an avowed bachelor, also declined comment. Said one veteran L.A. political operative: “I bet Warren Beatty can’t even figure out what the controversy’s about.”

Publicist Michael Levine said that Gary Hart was the subject of choice at a lunch at Mirabelle’s. “Donna Rice is the Fawn Hall joke of the week,” Levine said.

Movie industry wags also were buzzing about how much the notoriety would help Rice’s fledgling acting career. “Naturally, there was talk that this will help,” a high-level studio executive said. “Hollywood is as opportunistic as any business.”

Before getting off the telephone, however, the executive wanted some information in return. “By the way,” he said casually. “Do you know how to get in touch with Rice?”