What’s in a Name and an 8x10 Glossy? : Celebrity Photos on the Wall Aren’t Seals of Approval

Just the other day, while arguing with my cleaner about a poorly pressed jacket, I couldn’t help but notice something as hard to ignore as a TV with the sound turned off. There on the wall was an autographed 8x10 glossy of Sylvester Stallone glaring at me. Bare-chested, machine gun ready, with his bullet belt strapped across his chest, his scrawled comments left me to contemplate the real message: My cleaner had the Rambo Seal of Approval. So, although he may not be great at shirts, skirts and tuxedo jackets, he must clean a mean leather ammo strap.

This was supposed to lull me into submission and make me quit complaining--even if my jacket was poorly pressed.

I didn’t really buy it--but it succeeded in making me lose my timing and falter at a crucial point in the argument.

If only someone could prove the unconfirmed link between 8x10 glossies and the hole in the ozone layer, I’d have a much better chance. Without that health factor, it’s hard to get people to stop, look around and notice that we are being insidiously deluged.

It’s bad enough that on TV and radio it is impossible to escape the barrage of “celebrity” endorsements. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has listened to radio commercials that end with the line “Celebrity impersonator brought to you by . . . “ and been totally unable to figure out who was being impersonated. Yet, these endorsements are supposedly powerful enough to make us all run out and buy, eat or in some other way consume the desired commodity.

Admit it: just because Jane Russell wears those Cross Your Heart bras or Susan Sullivan pops Tylenol, are you convinced?

It’s enough to give you a headache.

I’ve always sought respite from the celebrity onslaught by simply avoiding TV and listening to National Public Radio. But with this current epidemic on our hands, avoidance becomes much more difficult.

After all, it’s not easy to find a good cleaner. And when you’ve discovered that out-of-the-way little ethnic dive that serves homemade cinnamon buns or cabbage pirogen and borscht, it really takes away the exhilaration of discovery when you find that some plastic-looking Ken or Barbie has already been there, or claimed to, and professed a fondness for those pirogen too, cooked just the way you like them.

I know I could ignore this problem, but it would be wrong.

These store owners are shameless in asking for our patronage, our very trust, just because somebody with perfect teeth has given them the thumbs-up.

I believe my cynicism is well deserved. Why is it that I’m never at the cleaner when Sylvester Stallone drops off his ammo belt and never at that little coffee shop on Santa Monica when Fritz Coleman is ordering his bran muffin?

There are just too many of those photos around for them to have been personally distributed. My suspicions were fueled the other morning when I was paying for my matzo brei at a local delicatessen. There on the wall was an impressive array of what can only be described as blatant WASPs extolling the chicken soup. Most of those guys wouldn’t know a good bowl of chicken soup unless it was delivered by Molly Picon.

I can understand the elan these pictorial endorsements once had when they graced the walls of the Brown Derby and Sardi’s. But back then, it was a Rogue’s Gallery of witty drawings of witty people. It could be exciting to dine in the same room where one might find Fred Astaire or playwright George Kaufman. Those guys had style. You almost felt that they didn’t dress up just for special occasions--Astaire must have danced out his door in formal wear each morning just to get his paper. We’re talking about a different class of celebrity today, using those terms-- class and celebrity-- loosely.

The whole situation has gotten so bad that on a recent assignment at the FBI office, I saw a photo of a local female newscaster, gratefully autographed under a come-hither smile, hanging on the wall right between J. Edgar Hoover and Daryl Gates. Talk about PR.

Maybe it’s time we all started carrying around our own stack of photos. Frankly, haven’t you always wondered what to do with those vacation pictures you got back from Thrifty’s after your sojourn in Mexico? Don’t you think your cleaners would have a much happier clientele if pictures of ordinary folks like you and me were on display?

And if you happen to hear of someone who can really press a jacket, I’ve got this iridescent orange tuxedo I’d like him to meet.

P.S. Loved that chicken soup!