Iraqi Coulda Been Contender in Six Degrees

The Iraqi immigrant’s dream of meeting his Hollywood hero is a small-world story with a cruel-world ending.

Salah ben Ghaly, a former Baghdad theater director who now sells Middle Eastern fast food on a bustling corner here in the German capital, was the guinea pig for an experiment conducted by the cerebral weekly newspaper Die Zeit over the last six months. The project sought to prove sociologist Stanley Milgram’s hypothesis about six degrees of separation--the idea that any person on Earth can be linked to any other by six or fewer acquaintances.

Ben Ghaly was asked to whom he would most like to be connected by a global chain of friends, co-workers or family. He chose actor Marlon Brando, describing the star of “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “The Godfather” as a fellow thespian who surely could become a soul mate.

“We all groaned when he said that because we know Brando is not the kind of person to do things for fun. But we told him he could pick anybody, so we had to give it a try,” said Heike Faller, the journalist for Die Zeit who has written eight of the 13 progress reports that kept the prestigious Hamburg weekly’s 450,000 readers on the trail to Ben Ghaly’s idol.

In the course of the storytelling, the newspaper also recalled Brando’s screen roles, described the lives of the intervening characters and even provided Ben Ghaly’s secret recipe for falafel.

The 45-year-old Ben Ghaly, who fled war-ravaged Iraq in 1985 to seek his fortune in Germany--first in the theater but later more successfully selling falafel--said he chose Brando because the international star is strong, gritty and unabashed about showing his body and soul before the cameras.

The fast-food wizard helped with the first step by putting Die Zeit in touch with his former theater colleague, Asaad Hashimi, a 57-year-old computer expert who moved to Irvine with his German wife five years ago.

According to the newspaper, Hashimi combed through his contacts and eventually hit upon Ken Carlson of Los Feliz, a 27-year-old acquaintance from a fitness club in the office building where both work. Carlson’s girlfriend, Michelle Bevan--a German-speaking travel agent--was able to bring them a step closer by putting them in touch with her old sorority sister, Christina Kutzer, the paper reported.

Kutzer is the daughter of movie producer Patrick Palmer, whose 1995 film “Don Juan de Marco” starred Brando.

Faller said Palmer told her this summer that he was doubtful he could persuade the contentious Hollywood icon to meet with Ben Ghaly--the envisioned culmination of the search that had begun in May. Often on the road because of his work, Palmer has not returned phone calls from Die Zeit or The Times’ Berlin Bureau. His answering machine message, however, wistfully wishes callers to “have a great day and a pretty good night.”

Die Zeit writer Juergen von Rutenberg pursued Brando’s agent, Scott Landis of Creative Artists Agency, only to have the message of disinterest unmistakably reinforced.

“He launched into a vicious tirade, telling me this was the most boring, uncreative idea he had ever heard and that he couldn’t imagine why anyone would be interested,” said Von Rutenberg, surmising that the agent and reclusive 75-year-old star are well-suited. “He said he would pass the request on to Brando, but that was the end of October, so we aren’t really holding our breath anymore.”

A Landis associate reached Wednesday in Los Angeles refused to say when the agent would be available or confirm that the newspaper’s request had been conveyed to Brando.

Von Rutenberg has spent six years writing from New York, so he is familiar with the voicemail hell and ignored e-mail culture of the U.S. entertainment world. But others who invested recent months trying to link Ben Ghaly and Brando are drawing small comfort from the technical success of having documented the six degrees of their separation.

“Here we thought we were building this wonderful global bridge only to see it demolished in Hollywood,” Von Rutenberg said of the project’s idealistic inception.

Now wiser about the world of stardom, Faller said the team is looking to start over with another celebrity and an ordinary Berliner.

And how does the rejected falafel seller feel about the failed quest to acquaint him with his hero?

“I’m not disappointed with Marlon Brando, only with his agent and those around him who are making it difficult,” he said. “I’m not going to give up.”

Unfortunately for the fan, Die Zeit has.