High-Tech Methods : He Stars as Protector of Celebrities

In December, 1942, 27-year-old Frank Sinatra stood on stage at New York’s Paramount Theater, embraced his microphone, fixed his blue eyes on the bobby-soxers in the front row and crooned, sending his audience of teen-age girls into a shrieking, hair-tearing swoon.

That was the birth of a superstar.

And as Gavin de Becker sees it, it was the advent of the age of celebrities as targets. Targets of lovesick men and women. Targets of fans with benign, mildly amusing delusions. Targets of crazed people intent on stalking and killing stars.

At 34, de Becker is himself a star in the field of celebrity protection, relied on by many of Hollywood’s biggest names and other high-visibility figures.

Redford Among Clients

His clients past and present include Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Cher, Robert Redford, Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda, Joan Rivers, Victoria Principal, Brooke Shields, Olivia Newton-John, Tina Turner and John Travolta.

But de Becker is not a bodyguard, nor does he simply provide that service. He does not wish to be even remotely identified with that trade, which he dismisses as work for rent-a-hulks and overweight, one-time rock ‘n’ roll roadies.

Instead, de Becker and his staff of 31 offer a unique refinement in the celebrity security business, using state-of-the-art computers and psychological profiling to help protect clients, some of whom pay as much as $475,000 a year for the peace of mind.

Glimpse Into Minds

His special approach also has allowed de Becker to obtain a rare glimpse into the troubled minds of the sometimes harmless but often twisted individuals who focus attention on themselves by sending “inappropriate” messages to his celebrity clients.

Along with the Secret Service and the Capitol Police, who guard members of Congress, Gavin de Becker Inc. of Los Angeles has the “best-kept centralized files of threatening communications in the country,” said Dr. Park Dietz of Newport Beach, prosecution psychiatrist at the trial of John Hinckley, President Reagan’s would-be assassin.

De Becker’s business “is a counterpart of what we do in the FBI,” to protect government figures, said agent Robert Ressler of the Behavioral Sciences Unit of the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va. “Unfortunately, we do not live in safe times. His type of business really fills a void. The government cannot protect everyone.”

And former Los Angeles County Sheriff Peter Pitchess said: “Gavin is one of the best. . . . He has been very, very helpful to us (and) I have recommended him to many people.”

De Becker will discuss cases but won’t name names; a partial list of his 100-plus clients, most of whom live in California but some of whom are in New York, Washington and Nashville, the country music capital, was gleaned from other sources.

“Sinatra and Sylvester Stallone are not clients,” he said, adding that almost every other top Hollywood star is.

To many, celebrities are magnets, and the crazed, some of whom have come to California from as far away as Saudi Arabia believing that they have been directed by a deity, have been undeterred by barbed wire or attack dogs. Some have taken telephone company jobs to gain access to unlisted numbers. They see special signs and signals for themselves in such everyday objects as license plates.

They have mailed de Becker’s clients a dead coyote, dead fish, blood, hair, teeth, human and animal fecal matter and bullets.

Typically, though, they begin acting out fixations--some directed at Hollywood stars, others aimed at well-known corporate CEOs--by writing astonishing letters, in which they display obsessive love, hate or other threatening desires.

Targeted an Executive

There was a consumer, for example, who targeted a corporate executive, convinced that the company’s toothpaste had caused his voice to change. There was a woman who turned to a toll-free 800 number to seek revenge at the corporate board level, blaming a cake mix as culprit: She had put her cake in the oven and her child’s hair fell out.

De Becker’s printouts show that his firm has profiled 5,400 people, all but about 1,000 of them in still-active cases; the firm in its research has compiled 200,000 pieces of communication, a library of sorts that experts such as Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist and professor-on-leave of law and psychiatry at University of Virginia, have begun to study.

The threats are sorted by de Becker into three categories: R-1s are fans whose craziness poses no danger to a celebrity, for example, the man who insisted that a star inform a network television audience of his kidnaping by Martians; R-2s are individuals considered a serious threat and who require monitoring; R-3s, roughly 40% of de Becker’s current cases, are individuals who have threatened and are seeking an encounter with a celebrity.

Last year, 25% of the R-3s actually showed up, though the number of celebrity attacks that succeed are “quite low,” de Becker said. “But the incidence of near-attacks and severe safety hazards is much higher” than ever, he added, noting that at any given time, a major media figure “might have 50 or 60 (threats) that are very bad. It’s just astounding.”

And though the media widely publicize incidents involving threats and attacks against celebrities, corporate VIPs and other high-visibility people, psychiatrist Dietz noted that “the press never learns about the vast majority” of threats against the prominent.

For example, a recently reported blitz of threatening letters to actor Michael J. Fox (a de Becker client) by a female fan upset by the actor’s recent marriage was “perfectly normal” abnormal behavior, Dietz said. “There are thousands of people right now in Los Angeles writing those letters.”

Why are modern fans so maniacal? De Becker theorized that the frenzy accompanying Sinatra’s rise became socially acceptable behavior and “our relationship to well-known people changed forever. If, in 1850, someone had stood up in an audience and screamed at the top of their lungs and pulled out their hair, they’d have gone off to an asylum.”

The magic of modern sound systems has created more problems, he noted, by making it possible for performers to communicate with audiences in so “intimate” a way that even fans in the third balcony believe that the message is just for them.

“Idolatry in America is normal,” but “what’s a mild drug for most people is a poison for some people,” de Becker said.

Obsessive Interest

He argued that the ‘80s are a time in which there has been an “explosion in degrees of famousness,” with celebrities subject to obsessive interest by fans and the media. “There’s bound to be someone out there who thinks you’re representing the devil” or who is convinced “that little wink you gave before you left the stage was for him,” he said.

Further, the globally ubiquitous presence of television gives fans “a presumed intimacy” with their idols, and the medium gives schizophrenics “an excuse to be all alone,” to fantasize about what they will do with or to a chosen celebrity, he said. TV airs a drama about a person who gets blown up while turning on the lights; a client soon receives a similar threat.

Psychiatrist Dietz put it this way: “It’s one thing to sit in a theater with a couple of hundred people and watch Bogie. It’s quite another to have him in one’s bedroom.”

Dietz is directing a three-year U.S. Justice Department study on violence against public figures; de Becker is consulting. Dietz has studied 500 crank letters, half from de Becker’s files, and found that the writers sent to targets, in order of frequency: a photo of themselves, poetry and photos of other people or objects, among them a dog and a deodorant ad.

Those who target public figures most often fancy themselves celebrity spouses-to-be; others believe that they are a celebrity’s child. Though 2% in his study had money motives, the thing most craved was contact with the celebrity--a personal reply, at the very least, marriage, at the very most (15%). Dietz said he has found “more cases of erotomania (an obsession with a non-existent love relationship) in Gavin’s files than have been reported in the entire world psychiatric literature.”

Dr. Mark J. Mills, a forensic psychiatrist who is president of Forensic Sciences Medical Group in Santa Monica and a professor of psychiatry at UCLA, said that to his knowledge the data compiled by Dietz with de Becker “has not been replicated.” Corroborative research is needed to be “absolutely certain” about the conclusions, he said, but he considers de Becker’s observations “intuitive.”

Mills said he believes that one reason for the escalating number of celebrity harassment cases is simply that, “like child sexual abuse issues,” more are being reported. But he agreed with de Becker that television is a major factor: “People have the fantasy they really know a celebrity if they see him or her regularly on TV.”

He said he sees harassment of celebrities as “a peculiarly American issue. We are a nation that gives rise to and authenticates virtually unlimited expectations. . . . We are taught to feel if we work hard enough we can do anything and be anything. And very few people want to be ordinary.”

As a result, he said, some people will “do anything to be recognized. It’s part of the American myth that anybody can be unique and remarkable and important.”

People who threaten celebrities represent “a wide range of both personality disorders and mental disorders,” he said. “You’re going to see some people who are crazy, like Lynette (Squeaky) Fromm (the woman who tried to assassinate President Ford), and some people who are merely grandiose or narcissistic or troubled.”

In his experience, de Becker said, the kinds of productions celebrities star in can play a role in the type of threats they receive, with science fiction shows “very attractive to crazy people at the age of greatest dangerousness, 28 to 32.”

A male sci-fi film viewer contacted a female celebrity with urgent news: “He and my client were the only people in the world who had a particular blood type that would allow them to mate and save the world,” de Becker said. The man was “very dedicated” to getting to the star and was convinced that they were being kept apart by Vulcans.

Violence Attracts Violent People

Violent people are also attracted to actors who portray violent people, said Dietz, who noted that Hinckley did not see “Taxi Driver” 16 times because he was a pacifist; he was thinking about assassinations before he ever saw it. “But it did him no good to keep watching it,” he said.

Some material de Becker sees is the stuff of probably harmless flights of fancy--”I’m sorry I cannot accept an offer to appear in a film with you.” Then, he said, there is “the person who is setting the table every night with a place for my client. Those aren’t so funny.” He also encounters many cases of erotomania.

Overall, it is mental disorder, not criminal intent, that motivates the vast majority of those who pen the sick mail. And though they may be mentally ill, they are not fools, de Becker said: “The people we have under assessment are smarter than the general population. At least these people write letters.”

After receiving the crank correspondence from clients, de Becker and his staff tap into their computer bank to identify and locate the source and learn if, or when, those troubled individuals might visit Los Angeles. If they do, agents frequently are able to monitor their every move.

Offenders usually help on that score. “Most people write (using) their real names,” said de Becker, who considers the author profile an essential step in evaluating his threat.

Is there a criminal history? A history of mental illness? If the writer is under psychiatric care, a psychiatrist is notified. If the writer is in a mental hospital, the institution might be advised to detain him.

Because of quirks in the law, many of those who send crank correspondence may not have violated any statutes and do not fall under law enforcement jurisdiction. One of de Becker’s tasks is to differentiate between intimidation and threats.

Intimidation, he said, is a scare tactic, “the man who says he is Jesus and will cause Mt. St. Helens to erupt again,” if a chosen star does not act as demanded. “My favorite kind of threat--we know he can’t deliver,” he said.

‘I’m Going to Kill You’

A real threat, he explained, is unconditional: “Get your affairs in order. I’m going to kill you on Thursday. Those we get. Those are real.”

Though Dietz disagrees based on his work, de Becker’s figures show women are less apt to be violent--perhaps only 10% of his offenders have been female. “They don’t show up at the residence,” de Becker said, “or climb the gate at 2 in the morning.”

Twisted fans bent on having star encounters do employ all manner of sneaky means. Consider the man who, convinced that a celebrity had injected chemicals into his brain to control him, sought a job with that star under an assumed name; de Becker thwarted that plan.

Violent fans get themselves hired as security guards for their stars’ concerts. If detected, they will be monitored or reassigned to low-risk areas of arenas. If a suspect simply has bought a concert ticket, “We often occupy the seats next to him,” de Becker said.

He and his agents are not above their own deceptions. “We have been the limo service that meets (suspects) at the airport” in Los Angeles, he said.

If intervention is indicated, timing is all-important, de Becker said, adding that he believes in acting only when “the fuse is lit.” That might mean letting a person come to Los Angeles, then “following him to the gun store.”

Left alone, de Becker has found, “most of them won’t act. You screw around with them and then they act.”

Guns Not Always Necessary

Sometimes, de Becker said, his agents are armed, sometimes not. “Firearms are not as relevant to protective work as people think they are” in an American-style attack, he noted.

Last year, his firm made about 60 citizen’s arrests, most for violation of probation or of a restraining order, or for trespassing. All of those arrested, he said, were “mentally ill people.” It is rare for him to file a police report on routine threats, he said, because “we know there’s nothing they can do about it.”

“Even on a death threat,” he said, “the restrictions under law are amazing.” Prosecuting the Michael J. Fox case, the district attorney’s office relied on a section of the penal code dealing with terrorist threats, de Becker said, adding: “That’s what it ultimately is, it’s terrorism.”

His interest in protecting public figures dates to President John F. Kennedy’s 1963 assassination, which he said “was the first world event that had any impact on me personally.” As a teen-ager, de Becker was a “gopher” for comedian Stan Freberg, who worked to get the Kennedy investigation reopened. “I devoured all that,” he said.

Not long after graduating from Beverly Hills High, de Becker was recommended by Dean Martin’s then-wife, Jeannie, whose daughter was a friend, for a job helping to protect Taylor and Burton as they trotted around the globe. At 19, that was a job “I was in no way qualified” for, de Becker conceded, but he added, “I had moxie, and some ability.”

Since then, business has burgeoned. He has consulted on the Tylenol poisonings investigation and with Domino’s Pizza, allegedly targeted recently by Kenneth Noid, 22. Police said Noid, irked by Domino’s “Avoid the Noid” commercials, held two Domino’s employees hostage at a Georgia outlet for five hours, then ordered and ate a pizza before surrendering.

To de Becker, the rise in disturbed fans has meant increasing revenues. Top-of-the-line clients pay $475,000 a year for his services, which in addition to threat analysis pays for around-the-clock protection with trimmings, including an armored car and escorts for tours. “A very common figure is $225,000,” he said. “That gets you 24-hour coverage.”

Every 60 days, clients on retainer also receive advisories with dates and sites they should be concerned about. And though de Becker--an articulate, soft-spoken, coat-and-tie man--conceded that he “wouldn’t last 10 minutes with fame,” one of his client services is to “raise their tolerance” to living with threats. His message: “You don’t have to change your life when you get a dead chicken” in the mail.

Even with the dangers, de Becker understands why celebrities--some of whom receive as many as 4,000 letters a month, a share of those harassing or threatening--do not trade fame for tranquility. He said simply: “They’ve got a cultural ethic built into them,” a gnawing need to be “the biggest star.”