THE O.J. SIMPSON MURDER TRIAL : Some Sobering Glimpses of the Grit That Lies Beneath Stardom’s Glitter

The truth is, we don’t really know our heroes until their days of stardom are over.

That’s certainly the case with O.J. Simpson. His public persona was the sunny super jock, a warmhearted, friendly man who kept his fierceness to the football field. The television Simpson didn’t even look mean when he had to run for a plane.

But from the beginning of Simpson’s murder trial, the prosecution has said there was another O.J., a vicious man who beat his wife, Nicole.

This was the explosive theme of the early phase of the prosecution case. It was put aside for a time when prosecutors concentrated on DNA and other forensic evidence. But now, in the trial’s final stages, Deputy Dist. Atty. Marcia Clark and her colleagues are returning to complete their picture of two O.J.s, lovable in public, cruel in private.

*

Recently, we’ve heard plenty about the differences between the private lives of famous sports stars and the public version we read about and see in the media.

The latest example is Mickey Mantle, the baseball great who played for the New York Yankees. His public persona--the talented, fun-loving, overgrown kid--was at odds with the real Mantle, an irresponsible drunk who wasted his skills.

Generations of Americans were fed the story of baseball player Ty Cobb, who, although a fierce competitor, was supposed to embody his sport’s competitive spirit. But after his death, Cobb’s biographer, Al Stump, told the truth in a magazine article and the movie “Cobb.” The old ballplayer, as it turned out, was a vicious, alcoholic racist--to name just a couple of his sins.

Often, the only time the public finds out about the faults of their heroes is when they get arrested or become ill.

Dwight Gooden was the happy and winning Doc of the New York Mets pitching staff until he was arrested after a brawl with cops and eventually went into drug rehabilitation. Domestic violence, plus drug use, shredded the favorable image of another baseball player, Darryl Strawberry. Basketball player Magic Johnson’s private life turned out to be different from his public image when he confessed to having contracted HIV in what he admitted was a promiscuous lifestyle.

In other words, by now, even the most blindly loyal fan knows there’s a secret life underneath many an athlete’s facade.

We’ve been conditioned to expect the worst, and last Thursday, prosecutor Clark indicated that she was getting ready to return to what she considers the worst of O.J.

Clark was questioning a defense witness, Howard Bingham, a famous photographer who recorded the career of Muhammad Ali, former heavyweight champion of the world. In fact, he’s coming out with a book of his many years of Ali photos.

Bingham had been a passenger on the plane Simpson took to Chicago the night of the murders. He testified that he chatted briefly with Simpson and found him to be the same good-natured O.J. he’s known for years.

But did he really know Simpson? Not like he knew Ali, Bingham said. “Have you ever socialized with him [Simpson]?” Clark asked. No, replied Bingham. Nor had they been in each other’s homes, or gone out to dinner or lunch.

“Was there any occasion when you saw him in private . . . alone in a room where there was no one else around . . . alone in a room where there was no one else?” asked Clark. Bingham replied, “No, never.”

In his own work, Bingham said, he tries for a more complete picture. “Your book attempts to depict the different aspects of Muhammad Ali, as he behaves privately and as he behaves publicly?” Clark asked Bingham. “Yes,” he replied in a strong and certain voice.

*

Prosecution sources say you’ll hear a lot of that in the rebuttal to the defense’s case and in Clark’s final argument to the jury.

Many people think they know O.J. They read or watched admiring sports stories that portrayed him as a man you’d want as a friend. At the beginning of the trial, voir dire questioning of potential jurors showed they had much the same impression. That is why so many experts are predicting that Simpson will not be convicted in this trial.

The prosecution has to persuade jurors that the image is another example of sports hype, just as it was with Mantle, Cobb and the rest of the paper heroes.