Fame Is the Name of the Game of the Well-Known

Who or what is a celebrity?

We had reason to ponder that question during Zsa Zsa Gabor’s recent trial for slapping a policeman and other misdemeanors. The attention showered on Zsa Zsa was justified, presumably, because she is a celebrity. But what is she a celebrity for?

As much as anyone else I can think of, Zsa Zsa fits the definition invented by Daniel J. Boorstin: “The celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness.”

Evidently Zsa Zsa enjoyed her exposure as a defendant. It validated her status as a celebrity. But one scans her career in vain for reasons why she should be so well known. In his voluminous “Film Encyclopedia,” Ephraim Katz lists Zsa Zsa’s several films, but notes that she appeared mostly as “a decoration.”

Zsa Zsa was Miss Hungary in 1936. “In the U.S.,” Katz observes, “she is famous more for many jewels and husbands than for acting achievements.” Katz notes that she has been a frequent “sharp-tongued guest” on TV talk shows, and concedes that she is “one of the most glamorous women in America.”

Celebrity is not entirely desirable. It cost John Lennon his life. He once said: “The postman wants an autograph. The cab driver wants a picture. The waitress wants a handshake. Everyone wants a piece of you.”

Recognizing a celebrity is of special importance to a reporter. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that a public figure cannot win damages for libel unless there is proof of “actual malice” as well as untruth. (It is not clear to me whether a mere celebrity is a public figure.)

Stanley Glenn Easter, a law student at Western State University, Fullerton, sends me a copy of “Public Figure/Private Figure,” a comment he had published in the Western State University Law Review (spring, 1989), on the complexity of that question.

He notes one federal judge’s lament that “defining public figures is much like trying to nail a jellyfish to the wall.” Court rulings on who is or is not a public figure have been inconsistent. Easter notes that a trainer of harness racing horses in New York was held to be a public figure, while a trainer of Apaloosa race horses in Oregon was held to be a private figure.

Courts have held that a “pervasive” or “all-purpose” public figure is one who has “deliberately thrust himself or his views into public controversy to influence others.” They have also labeled others as “limited purpose” public figures or “part-time” public figures.

“What of those individuals who truly do not seek publicity or controversy,” Easter asks, “or prefer to remain Garbo-like and well outside the spotlight of notoriety?”

Curiously, a court held that an air traffic controller who was accused of being partly responsible for an airline crash was an involuntary public figure for the limited purpose of discussing the crash itself.

Easter’s reference to Greta Garbo causes me to wonder whether she has ceased to be a public figure by sequestering herself from public view and avoiding the spotlight. Can a woman who was once the most celebrated actress in the world simply discard her celebrity by willing it?

Easter notes that courts have warned libel defendants against “bootstrapping”--that is, trying to make a plaintiff into a public figure by bathing him in publicity.

In this short space I cannot of course do justice to Easter’s paper, but I hope I am right in assuming that Zsa Zsa Gabor is a public figure, and that she is not likely to sue me for libel.

Since I often thrust myself into controversy, I suppose I’m a public figure myself, though not a celebrity. So you can say whatever you like about me, so long as it isn’t both untrue and malicious.

Come to think of it, if Zsa Zsa were to sue me, the notoriety would make me a celebrity as well as a public figure.

But I want her to know that I bear her no malice. I interviewed Zsa Zsa once at the airport, when she was returning from Europe with one of her husbands in tow. She is an entertaining woman, if enervating. As ex-husband George Sanders said of their relationship: “She squeezed me like a lemon.”