A Party Columnist Caught in the Eye of the Storm

For the last 26 years, George Christy has chronicled “The Great Life” for the Hollywood Reporter, filling his thrice-weekly column with reports from the party front, tidbits of gossip and tales from the movie world’s equivalent of high society.

No one reads “The Great Life” expecting to find a scoop--or a snide comment. Unlike some columnists in his milieu, Christy is neither bitchy nor mean-spirited in print. His column is benign, filled with names and postage-stamp-sized photos of the rich and famous--and the wannabes--as they glide from one party or premiere or restaurant or film festival to the next.

“Partaking of the paella and grooving on the salsa rhythms were scores of cool dudes and gorgeous chicks,” a typical column says, and it goes on to list the names of 47 groovers, partakers and assorted movers and shakers.

Christy is both an institution and an anachronism--a reminder of an era when Hollywood columnists hobnobbed with Hollywood stars and studio publicists openly courted (and largely controlled) most of the people who wrote about Hollywood. Lavish gifts, free meals and all-expenses-paid junkets helped create a you-scratch-my-back, I’ll-scratch-yours approach to what was then only loosely considered journalism.

Now Christy is embroiled in controversy.

Some studio executives and fellow employees accuse him of boorish, bullying behavior and unethical journalistic practices. A pension and health insurance fund for actors is looking into whether he was part of a “sham employment scheme” to improperly qualify himself for benefits as a performer. The Hollywood Reporter, a subsidiary of New York-based BPI Communications, is conducting its own inquiry into his activities.

Christy has vigorously denied doing anything improper. But his behavior has been whispered about--and grumbled about--for years in Hollywood, and this is the third time in a decade that his health and pension eligibility has been questioned by the Screen Actors Guild-Producers Pension & Health Plans. A 1993 lawsuit was quietly settled, and a 1998 probe resulted in disallowing a $5,000 credit to his pension and health fund account, according to a story written by one of Christy’s colleagues, Reporter reporter David Robb.

Christy has had small roles in more than a dozen movies, and Robb wrote that the current investigation focuses on whether he actually performed in several movies in which he received film credits and pay that made him eligible for health and pension benefits from the union.

The story reported other alleged questionable activity by Christy, and when publisher Robert Dowling refused to print the article late last month and criticized Robb’s professional conduct, Robb, executive film editor Beth Laski and the trade publication’s respected top editor, Anita Busch, resigned on journalistic principle. Robb subsequently expanded the story, and it was posted on Inside.com.

Dowling, who wrote a Page 1 column defending the integrity of the paper--and pointing out that the paper did run a story on the SAG inquiry by two other reporters--now declines comment on what he calls an internal matter.

When the controversy broke, Christy denied any inappropriate or illegal behavior; he said he’s “a clean person” who is being “victimized.” He acted in all movies in which he received credit, he said, though some of his scenes were left on the cutting-room floor.

Citing orders from Dowling, Christy declined to answer questions for this story.

Officials at the SAG health and pension plans say they don’t comment on their investigations. But Bruce Dow, administrative director of the plans, says: “We have a broad fraud program, with more than 150 cases a year . . . many of them involving producers who write their friends or spouses into scripts for movies in which they don’t actually appear.”

The Times has a copy of one of the plans’ “audit inspection” letters that names Christy and asks producers for documentation that he actually acted in the films in question.

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So who is George Christy? A Times request to the Hollywood Reporter for biographical information elicited little more than the bare facts: He was born in Greece, raised in New York, went to “various schools” on the East Coast, spent two years in the Army and 10 years as a roving editor for Town & Country magazine before writing for the Hollywood Reporter in 1975. Even Christy’s age is “confidential,” the publication says. (He’s widely believed to be in his late 60s or early 70s.) He earns about $63,000 a year in base salary plus other compensation from the Reporter, according to someone with knowledge of his situation.

Lynda Miller, the paper’s publicist, says that since 1977, Christy has been “a full-time employee, eligible for the same company benefits, including medical insurance, as any other employee.” But she would not say if he ever enrolled in the program. (The Reporter has no pension plan, Miller says.)

Most people in Hollywood are equally reluctant to talk about Christy--especially on the record. He is the Great Mentioner, they say, and he has good friends in high places.

“We don’t do it here, but you can keep executives happy if they’re in his column,” says Terry Press, head of marketing for DreamWorks SKG. “It’s one place where you see your name and picture and know there’s not going to be anything bad.”

Publicists say some studio executives are so insecure and egocentric that they feel invisible if they go to a party and aren’t mentioned in Christy’s column. No one wants to make Christy angry.

Even studio executives who say they consider Christy a friend and who speak favorably of him will do so only on the condition that they not be identified. “I’ve never seen anything but a nice George Christy,” says one studio head. “He’s very well-liked. He’s very respected. But you can’t quote me on any of that.”

The controversies now swirling around Christy seem to have made his critics even more reluctant to speak. After all, they figure, Dowling lost Busch, Laski and Robb in order to protect Christy.

“They must regard his column as pretty valuable to be willing to lose this clutch of people,” says Kim Masters, who’s written about Hollywood for several publications.

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But the studio executives, publicists and people who have worked at the Hollywood Reporter who are willing to talk--as long as their names aren’t used--recount tales of behavior they say they find appalling.

They say that until he was ordered to desist, Christy routinely demanded that studios hire a limousine--sometimes insisting they use the company and driver of his choice--to take him to and from premieres. They say he has solicited and/or accepted many costly gifts--sometimes delivered to his house, at his insistence, to avoid being seen violating company policy. They say that when studios hand out “goody bags” of souvenirs at premieres, he often insists on taking several, not just the one allocated for each guest. They say he eats free in restaurants, stays free at hotels--and that he writes glowingly of the restaurants, hotels and hosts who treat him well. They also say he berates studio publicists who don’t accord him the special treatment he feels entitled to at movie premieres.

Another of Christy’s practices, according to the Robb article, was his use of rent-free office space provided by one of the film production companies whose movies are involved in the inquiry about Christy’s health and pension eligibility. Christy, Robb noted, had frequently mentioned one of the partners in that company in his column.

Before he was told not to speak to the press, Christy had said he didn’t think the rent-free space represented a conflict because the owners “are friends of mine.” He also said he had never accepted any “major” gifts and insisted, “Most importantly, nothing I have received has ever swayed my coverage.”

The rent-free office space aside, Christy’s defenders say he’s just doing what many other Hollywood journalists routinely do--and have always done--especially at the trade papers. The trades, they say, are not writing about world peace or cures for cancer, and journalists there--a party/society columnist in particular--shouldn’t be held to the same standards as reporters for mainstream publications.

“I think there’s a major difference between covering hard, breaking news and a column that deals with charities and movie premieres,” says producer Brad Krevoy, then a partner in Motion Picture Corp. of America, a company involved in both the SAG investigation of Christy and in the rent-free office space controversy. “It’s a different animal, it’s more symbiotic. People work with each other much more closely on that kind of column.”

“George is an institution,” Krevoy says, “and the support he provides to foundations and charities by the exposure he gives them in his column is unprecedented.”

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But studio executives and publicists say Christy’s trade-paper competitors don’t behave as he does. They cite Bill Higgins, Christy’s counterpart as a party columnist at Daily Variety, as an example of someone who conducts himself in a professional manner.

Army Archerd, at 79, is even more of an institution in Hollywood than Christy, having written his Variety column since 1953, and he, too, is looked on differently than Christy.

Like Christy, Archerd is a columnist. He is also, however, a reporter--he broke the story that Rock Hudson had AIDS--and while no one is nominating him for journalistic sainthood, Press echoes many of her counterparts at other studios when she says, “Army Archerd has never asked me for anything other than to save him a seat on the aisle [at a premiere].”

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Most respected news organizations now prohibit freeloading and the acceptance of any but the most token gifts. But Hollywood is still big on gift-giving, especially at Christmas time. Watches, Palm Pilots, cashmere sweaters, bottles of champagne and Cartier pens are not uncommon. When it comes time to pick up the tab in a fancy restaurant or pay for a trip to an exotic film location, many smaller publications and television stations say they can’t afford to pay their own way.

Christy’s critics say that while many other Hollywood journalists do take free gifts and free meals and free trips when offered, Christy often demands freebies and special treatment--and gets nasty and abusive when he doesn’t get what he wants.

“I’ve seen him scream at the top of his lungs because he wasn’t given the right seats,” says one person who’s worked alongside Christy for many years. “I’ve seen him threaten and carry through on threats to call the top executive in a company because he was angry with a junior publicist at an event.”

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One of the biggest complaints some studios have about Christy involves the photographs--often as many as a dozen or two--that appear in his column.

When most publications want a picture of someone, they send a photographer to take it--and the paper pays the photographer. But for most of Christy’s tenure at the Reporter, a studio publicist--or anyone else--who wanted a picture in “The Great Life” had to hire and pay a photographer of Christy’s choice. The fee climbed gradually to $500.

Mary Weikert, who took many of those photographs for Christy from 1983 to 1997, says Christy wanted the paper to pay her fee, but he was always told there was no budget for that. Busch and Alex Ben Block, her predecessor as editor of the Hollywood Reporter, both say they know of no such requests by Christy.

Block says that in 1996, as part of his efforts to professionalize the paper, he wanted to hire a photographer for Christy’s column. “Then, because of a big drop in advertising, I was never able to get the budget to fill the position,” Block says.

Busch says Christy’s photo arrangement was in place when she became editor in early 1999, and she complained to publisher Dowling. With his support, she says, the Reporter in January 2000 began paying photographers who took pictures for Christy’s column.

“I thought it was unethical to ask the studios to pay for pictures we used,” Busch says, “especially since George then kept the pictures and wouldn’t even let us use them elsewhere in the paper.”

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Busch said she had several other concerns about Christy’s behavior, including his use of studio-paid limousines and his mistreatment of publicists and others. She says she sent Dowling at least two memos in 1999 detailing her concerns and asking him to take action to prevent what she calls “further damage to the paper’s standing in the Hollywood community.”

Some of Christy’s defenders say Busch has been conducting a vendetta against him. But she denies that, and indeed, their conflict may be largely generational. He is old-school Hollywood. Busch is 39, a product of a raised consciousness in journalism; she was as aggressive in imposing professional ethics on her staff as she was in trying to beat Daily Variety to the day’s top story.

“I think columnists should be held to the same professional standards as everyone else at the paper,” Busch says. “With [Dowling’s] backing, I told George he could no longer use studio-paid limos, but then Bob said it was OK if George didn’t ask for the limos. So George would call the studios and say, ‘Listen, I can’t ask for a limousine, but if you offer me one, I can take it.’ ”

Clearly, Dowling has found himself in a difficult position with his star columnist.

“Bob’s not the villain here,” Robb says. “He’s the saddest victim of George’s . . . conduct. Bob wants to do the right thing, but George has special status.”

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Although neither Christy nor Dowling is willing to address any of these issues, many in Hollywood theorize that over the years, Christy has developed an exaggerated sense of entitlement, that he has taken on the coloration of many of the people he writes about--wealthy, powerful studio executives with big limos, big egos and a tendency to bully those who don’t cater to them.

Stacy Ivers, senior vice president for corporate communications at ICM, International Creative Management puts it this way: “George associates with people who are rich and famous, and one way he can be good at doing his job is for them to be comfortable around him. That is very difficult for someone making a trade journalist’s salary. If you spend your time with people who raise the bar of expectations--limos and highly coveted vacation haunts and fancy restaurants--to astronomical heights, it’s difficult to avoid taking on those expectations yourself. You think you need to speak the lingo, and that means--at least in your mind--that you have to develop some of those preferences and attitudes.”