David Brown

On Monday, the world tunes into Hollywood for the premiere rite of celebrity worship--the annual Academy Awards. A small legion of the ultrafaithful have already staked out positions in the gallery overlooking the entrance to the awards, happy to spend a night in the bleachers for a chance to catch a glimpse of their favorite stars in the flesh. The rest of us try to figure out how to win the office Oscar pool, while hairdressers stress over too many tresses, and every limo in town is booked and polished.

The Academy Awards are only the classiest and showiest symbol of a global passion for celebrities that seems to increase like an overheated stock exchange as we move deeper into our media-driven culture. But the adoration of our own kind is nothing new. It’s wired into our common DNA, closely associated with our human nature to be curious and inquisitive, and part of our uncommon ability to fantasize about ourselves.

From tribal chieftain to supermodel, we have showered an elite with attention and bathed them in riches. We call them stars, and just like in the heavens, there are many kinds--sports heroes, business tycoons, political leaders, writers and artists, TV talk-show hosts and fitness gurus. Within this celestial universe we reserve a special place for movie stars. They are the corn on Hollywood’s cob, and the care and feeding of these special celebrities occupies much of the time of those in the business of making motion pictures.

David Brown has spent his life among the stars. As a producer, with partner Richard D. Zanuck, of such films as “Jaws,” “The Sting,” “The Verdict” and “The Player,” he’s observed at close hand many of the screen’s biggest celebrities. His films have won bundles of Oscars and, in 1990, he received the academy’s highest honor, the Irving Thalberg award.

Brown had plenty of experience with celebrity as a journalist before coming to Hollywood to work for Darryl F. Zanuck, head of 20th Century Fox, in the early 1950s. And together with his third wife, former Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown, he counts among his friends some of the greatest names in literature, art, music and politics. Now 80, Brown says he’s as busy as he’s been in 30 years, and is currently developing a new film, “Deep Impact,” to be executive-produced by Steven Spielberg (he and Zanuck produced Spielberg’s first feature, “Sugarland Express”). In an interview at the Bel Air Hotel, he recalled with joy trying to make Eddie Cantor laugh; standing in line at the draft board behind Frank Sinatra and introducing Carl Sandburg to Marilyn Monroe.

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Question: Can you tell me about some of the first celebrities you ever met, and how you felt about meeting them?

Answer: I suppose the first was Herbert Hoover. I have in my home a photograph of [Boy Scout] Troop 21 with President Hoover. That was in 1931, and I was 15. I also saw Charles Lindbergh take off on his transatlantic flight to Europe, though I didn’t meet him. But once I became a journalist, I met many, many celebrities. There was the notorious gangster Frank Costello, whom I once had lunch with. I wrote comedy for a time for Eddie Cantor--he was a real star. Benny Goodman, Fats Waller, Al Jolson--I was lucky enough to meet all these and more.

I took the liberty today of looking up celebrity in the dictionary. It says, “Celebrity. The state of being celebrated, a celebrated person.” Well, that doesn’t quite do it for someone like Frank Costello, but I take the broader view.

When I came to Hollywood, the first celebrity I met was the man who hired me, Darryl F. Zanuck. Marilyn Monroe sat in my lap in the Administration Building at 20th Century Fox. I remember my wife and I taking Joan Crawford to dinner at the 21 Club, and it was like a scene from “Hello, Dolly”--they knew exactly what she drank, where she would like to sit. It was wonderful. And we also took Mae West to dinner at a restaurant called Le Seine. She came with her trainer--perhaps we should put that in quotes. I remember when we got up to leave, the entire restaurant stood up and gave an ovation, having never bothered us at all during dinner.

There is a difference between stardom and being a star. Stardom is temporal--one’s stardom can rise and fall. Being a star is forever. Joan Crawford was a star, as was Marilyn Monroe. The essence of the star is to twinkle and, in fact, my wife calls those with stardom “twinkies.” My wife, Helen Gurley Brown, is a star, but she doesn’t know it. Or maybe she does. She keeps two sets of books.

Then there was Walter Winchell, a star in his own right and a man I will always remember for running an item in his column announcing my divorce before I’d heard about it from my wife’s lawyer. Although, since I was on my way to meet a certain young lady at the time, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. This was, mind you, long before I met Helen Gurley Brown (they married in 1959). But being a journalist, and a producer of theater, films and television, I’ve spent my life around celebrities, and have had the good fortune to know many of them before they became famous.

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Q: Is there some sort of germ or atom that celebrities share, something that makes them burn brighter than the rest of us?

A: Yes, of course, and in show business we simply call it star quality. Think of Frank Sinatra--he can walk into any room and everyone will feel his star quality. Strangely, Richard Nixon had it. Think of someone like David O. Selznick, rumpled and obsessive about detail, and yet he exuded a confidence that made him immediately recognizable as someone important, a star.

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Q: What is the relationship between celebrity and success?

A: Success and celebrity do not always go hand in hand, because some of the greatest celebrities of all times have gone down in flames. I can remember [director] John Ford calling me, three sheets to the wind, unable to find work. A great celebrity like Orson Welles couldn’t even get a job in his later years.

So while success can beget celebrity, celebrity often does not retain success. Remember, Scott Fitzgerald said nothing fails like success, and his life was an excellent illustration of that thesis.

And then there is money and celebrity. Having money does not make one a celebrity. Money doesn’t even buy a good table at a good restaurant. Celebrity does.

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Q: When you look back at the great personalities of earlier eras, and compare them with the stars of today, what has changed about being famous?

A: Not as much as one might think. Tom Hanks has great star quality, and he is a serious and earnest actor. And while he might light up a room by walking into it, I don’t think he would walk into the room if he thought lighting it up was his only purpose.

That’s to say, I don’t think today’s celebrities are as outgoing as those of previous eras. This may be a glittering generality, but in the old days, movie stars dressed like movies stars, wherever they went. Today, you get on an airplane and you see a star who looks barely kept.

And stars today seem to have slightly less of a glow--they are more into keeping to themselves and less into publicity. Anyone who works for a magazine these days knows how difficult it is to get an interview with almost any major star, whereas, in the old days, they’d throw themselves in front of a train to get a story on page one.

I think the real answer here is that stars are eternal, as they are in the sky. They’re all pretty much the same, and they simply vary with the culture of their period.

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Q: What accounts for our seemingly never slaked desire to know more and more about every famous person?

A: The appetite for stardom comes from the desire to get out of one’s own ordinary existence. It’s about escaping a boring, everyday life for something that is a fantasy. The irony is that many who have achieved that fantasy are often not very happy. Celebrity robs people of the ability to live an ordinary life. For actors, this can be painful, because one of the things all good actors love is to be able to observe people in real life. To study human behavior on a bus, or in the subway, is something that every actor has done. That’s gone, once you become a celebrity.

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Q: I believe I heard Richard Dreyfuss say in an interview that he would give up everything he’s achieved for anonymity.

A: Don’t believe it for one second. I say this as one who knows him. Only a star could make that statement--because they know it will never happen. Despite the drawbacks, they love it. And the people love it. And the media love it, because there’s nothing like a star on the cover for selling a magazine.

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Q: But what about the dark side of celebrity, which has often torn people apart, especially when it comes fast and early in life?

A: Oh, yes, I’ve seen many people go absolutely nuts. I saw it with John Belushi, with whom I made a movie. It’s very disorienting to become famous very quickly. It’s like winning the lottery. And, many times, sudden fame leaves the suddenly famous very confused about just what it is that makes people so interested in them. Some people get depressed, some people kill themselves with drugs, and some early bloomers are simply never able to equal their early success. David O. Selznick spent his career trying to do something which would top “Gone With The Wind,” which was impossible. Instead of saying, “I’ve done that, now I can relax,” he became obsessed with creating a grander triumph.

Irving Berlin, who was a great friend, had long dry spells and bouts of depression, and it would dig at him deeply. He liked to say that the trouble with success is that you have to keep being successful. William Styron, the great writer, Mike Wallace, the journalist, and Art Buchwald, the funny man--they’ve all written about battles with depression. And I remember an account of [composer] Richard Rodgers scrubbing the walls and floors of his room, trying to wash away his depression. So celebrity offers no shield from suffering and, in fact, often seems to contribute to it.

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Q: How has the proliferation of media changed the nature of celebrity--it seems that today’s celebrity worshipers have an almost nonstop opportunity to practice their religion?

A: Oh, yes, and wouldn’t P.T. Barnum be pleased! Studios can literally saturate the airwaves these days to market stars and their movies. And there are great publicity machines behind the stars, sometimes there to make sure everyone gets a crack at the star, sometimes to make sure no one does. Take [former CAA head] Mike Ovitz. He was able to spin a great mystique about himself. He didn’t talk much, and when he did, people listened. He was, I’m realizing, a little like [Fed Chairman] Alan Greenspan.

But this great proliferation of media has created a level of celebrity that was unknown in early times. Which may mean that the celebrities of today pale a bit in comparison with someone like Harry Houdini, who was able to become world-famous without the benefit of satellite television.

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Q: What about the power that stars wield in the movie business? How do you deal with hyperactive celebrity egos?

A: You have to, because the only way a picture gets made is if you have a star. Sometimes you must compromise and accommodate. Those stars who are truly overbearing and irresponsible, who keep people waiting and behave badly, soon run out of allies. Most actors are not this way, they are professionals. It’s very easy to become spoiled--you never have to lift a bag, a drink is always at your reach and someone always at your beck and call. But there’s a reason for that: Acting is a very tough job. Most of the actor’s demands have to do with trying to be comfortable in some other skin--which is the skin of the character they’re playing. It’s tough to be in that skin for five or six months in a faraway location. And, of course, the star is the one who sells the tickets at the box office, so it’s appropriate they be treated like royalty.