Going to the Mattress With Celebrity Obsession
While struggling with a critical decision between a Sealy Posturepedic and a Simmons Beautyrest at Sleep E-Z Mattress Co. on Sunset in Echo Park, I happened to notice a wall of studio head shots. Eleven of them.
The King Coil Wall of Fame caught my eye because I’ve been dumbstruck at the obsession with Robert Blake, whose star fell at roughly the same time the Love Boat went down. People have actually gathered outside the actor’s home since the murder of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, reminding us all of the unspeakable horror that was O.J.
In Philadelphia, where I hacked for a few years, celebrity obsession was understandable for one simple reason: They didn’t have any. If you’d been a weekend anchor for 10 minutes at any point in the past half century, your photo was on the wall of every two-stool luncheonette, cheese steak shack and toupee parlor.
It just did not occur to me that here in the Big Leagues, celebrities would be tooling around town with their head shots in the trunk. Or that retailers would be more than happy to display them.
When I took a closer look at the Sleep E-Z wall, though, another layer of the local celebrity culture was peeled back. Except for Connie Chung, I couldn’t tell you who any of them were.
Two possibilities here:
1) I’ve fallen hopelessly out of touch with pop culture.
2) Everyone in Southern California has studio head shots.
“Maybe they’re trying to become celebrities,” mattress saleswoman Eva Hertular said of the airbrushed crowd on the wall. Even she wasn’t quite sure of their credits.
Everyone has to start somewhere. Maybe tomorrow’s box-office stars are calling home to say, “I got a callback last week, and my picture’s on the wall at Sleep E-Z Mattress!”
They’d be better off hanging around outside Blake’s Studio City home along with the other gawkers, because I don’t think it’s all that difficult to get face time out there. Blake’s former bodyguard is going to show up on “Hollywood Squares” before you know it, and if you so much as knew Blake’s gardener in the 1970s, a guest spot on “Larry King Live” is not out of the question. It’s as if Blake were Sir Laurence Olivier.
“I’m star-struck,” Nancy Romero of Las Vegas told me Thursday at Blake’s rustic hideaway. She, her husband and daughter had just been to Disneyland. Who’s going to Knott’s Berry Farm after that if you can tour the home of TV’s “Baretta” before slogging back to Sin City?
Blake’s fence was festooned with balloons bearing scribbled messages. “Keep the Faith.” “We Love You, Stay Strong.” “Your Fans Believe In You.”
No balloons from O.J., although he did take a break from his hunt for Nicole’s killer to offer this piece of advice via the syndicated television show “Extra”:
“Don’t watch TV, Robert.”
Don’t watch TV? That might be the only way Blake can see his attorney, Harland Braun, who’s been on the air more than Geraldo since this thing broke.
It was Braun who announced that a private service for Bakley had to be canceled because media hordes had swarmed the funeral home by ground and air. Bakley, who had been drawn to stars much of her life, was going out with her own measure of celebrity. Gone in a sad and tragic way, but never to be forgotten.
“A priest was coming and Robert was going to be there with his three children. But now we’re afraid if he showed up, there would be a riot,” said Braun. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Yeah, what a surprise, considering that Braun began defending his client on the air, doing a grave dance on Bakley’s so-called shady past before her body was cold.
But the point isn’t whether Blake did it. The point is he’s taken a dive off the stage, and we can almost touch him now. We’re a little closer to celebrity.
Speaking of which, I take you back to the Sleep E-Z Mattress Co., where I settled on the Sealy, taking home the Aniston model. I’m assuming it’s named for Jennifer.
The saleswoman told me, by the way, that she isn’t sure, firsthand, that Connie Chung actually bought a mattress there.
“But we like to think of everyone who comes into our store as a celebrity,” she said. “Including you.”
Gotta get some head shots.
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Steve Lopez’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at his e-mail address: steve.lopez@latimes.com.
