I don't plan on writing much more about the O.J. Simpson book and TV interviews but I thought I ought to link to this. It's the article Judith Regan, the publisher-producer of this spectacle, wrote about why she did it. I'm afraid I don't buy the suggestion that her own past victimhood justifies anything or is even relevant to what she does now.
I'm also skeptical about the part where she says that she didn't pay Simpson; that she contracted through a third party and was told the money would go to his children. The dollar figure involved would have to be substantial. (If it wasn't, she would have said that in order to deflect criticism.) The amount has been rumored as 3.5 million but let's say it's only a third of that. You don't pay a million dollars for anything without making sure the money is going to buy you what you want, which in this case would mean that Simpson — the guy whose services you're buying — agrees that it's compensation.
Here's what I wonder. I wonder if there's any substantial number of people in this country who really believe Simpson didn't commit the murders. A poll in 2004 found that 77% of us thought he was guilty, but I've always suspected that some people said he was innocent simply because their distrust of police (the Los Angeles ones, in particular) was greater or more relevant to their lives than any suspicion of O.J. Simpson. I'll bet it's more like 85% that thinks he did it...and the 15% includes folks who didn't follow the trial and/or are the kind of person who's naturally drawn to the unpopular opinion in any controversy. I have one friend who, if you told him 98% of America believes something, would immediately throw in with the 2%...before he even heard what the topic was. How many of those who think he didn't do it are in that category?
The above photo is the entire voice cast of Cool McCool (a series that, many of my correspondents assure me, is just as good as I remember it was). Left to right, that's Bob McFadden, Chuck McCann and Carol Corbett. James H. Burns sent me the following message about Ms. Corbett and I thought it oughta be posted here...
You gave short shrift — no make that no shrift! — to the lady voice artist, on Cool McCool, Carol Corbett. For those of who grew up in New York in the sixties, Carol was one of the great practitioners of local kids' television.
Corbett hosted a lunchtime program in the mid-sixties on the former WPIX/Channel 11, presenting Hercules and then other cartoons. Wearing an artist's smock, she would draw at an easel, present other crafts, and also do skits with puppets.
Corbett was part of that last great infusion of New York childrens' show hosts, most of whom disappeared from the airwaves, with no explanation, by 1968. Working in the studios at the Daily News building, Corbett joined the incredible WPIX afternoon roster of Chuck McCann, Officer Joe Bolton, Beachcomber Bill Biery, and Captain Jack McCarthy in the era when Sandy Becker, Soupy Sales and Paul Winchell (the last, in national syndication), were being seen on Metromedia Channel 5. There were episodes of Corbett's series when Office Joe (who hosted The Three Stooges) and I believe McCann, would pop over, to Carol's show...
What made Corbett memorable was her genuine winsomeness, a charm that has made her audience recall the twinkle in hey eyes, and her smile, forty years later. For many kids, outside of their immediate family, she was the first good looking woman, they came into contact with, on a daily basis. What makes Corbett's background even more interesting is that she was featured on a couple of the comedy albums of the era, including, I believe, one of the Vaughn Meader efforts. Nor did she just disappear into that void where so many local performers seemed to vanish. In 1968, she had a role in the Steve McQueen/Faye Dunaway thriller, The Thomas Crown Affair.
Corbett also made the unusual crossover from cartoon show-host to "educational TV" when the local CBS flagship hired her, in 1971, for The Patchwork Family. Another generation of New Yorkers remembers Carol hanging out with a puppet named Rags (operated by Carey Antebi, who had been with Jim Henson's Muppet crew), and in some segments — remarkably! — film historian, John Canemaker. (In another strange bit of trivia, one of the kids on the show was a young actress named Joanna Pang, who, five years later, would be a student sidekick for Filmation's The Mighty Isis.)
When WPIX produced a fortieth anniversary special some years back — worth catching alone, if possible, for some terrific material by Chuck McCann — Corbett still looked like a million bucks. And, happily, hadn't lost the smile that had once joined so many of us.
Carol Corbett and Bob McFadden were on a number of the Bob Booker-George Foster comedy albums produced in the sixties and seventies, including one of my favorites — Jack E. Leonard's Scream On Someone You Love Today! (It's out on CD. Here's an Amazon link if you want to buy a copy.) But other than that, I didn't know much about Carol Corbett...so thanks, James, for cluing me in. It's amazing the affection some of us still retain for the kids' show hosts of our youth, and sad that the generation after us has no one comparable to remember.
Here's a short article in Salon (which means you may have to watch an ad in order to read it and it may not be worth your time) that theorizes on O.J. Simpson's psychological reasons for the forthcoming "if I did it" shows and book. As I mentioned here with regard to analyzing Presidents of these United States, I have a very limited belief in the building of psychiatric profiles on total strangers based on a few of their public utterances or deeds. It's interesting to read of the possible motives someone might have to be doing what Simpson is doing but they're still just hunches by some doctor-types who never met the guy and are guessing, largely so some reporter can build a story. O.J. himself may not even know why he's doing it.
Since I'm as unqualified to judge this as anyone else, I will. I think you have a guy here who based his entire post-football life on celebrity. His line of work was being O.J. and you don't even have to make the distinction as to whether he needed the fame to feed his ego or because it paid well. He needed compensation in both areas. The trial cost him his riches and the subsequent shunning cost him his fans and, therefore, the only way he knows to replenish his personal fortune. As one project after another fell apart or bombed, it proved that there's just no market out there for O.J. Simpson. So he figures he's got nothing to lose...might as well try this.
In his line of work, after all, you kind of need to be making money to make money. No one went for his book and movie proposals because it didn't seem that there were any significant sums of currency to be made by being in business with O.J. Simpson...certainly not enough to compensate a financier for the condemnation they'd endure for it. Whether or not Simpson personally makes a lot of cash from this new semi-confession, someone might do quite well and that might prompt others to be more willing to help him get the O.J. business going again. At the very least, he oughta make something off it.
I am reminded of something I was once told by Vince McMahon, the wrestling entrepreneur. I was producing a show on which he had an Exec Producer title and we got to talking about his empire and the performers who worked for him. At the time, Mr. T was still something of a TV superstar but was occasionally popping up in the ring, teaming up with Hulk Hogan to thrash bad guys who were still bad guys. If only to make conversation, I asked McMahon how he was able to persuade Mr. T, who then seemed to have a real acting career of sorts, to get into the wrestling biz. Vince looked at me like I'd just asked him the stupidest question in the history of Mankind (an accomplishment of which I am more than capable) and said the following very calmly, the way you'd talk to a child with a severe learning disability. He said, "In the history of Professional Wrestling, no one has ever done anything for any reason except money."
In other words, forget about deep emotional justifications and personal guilts and desires to please dead relatives and all that. People sometimes do something just because they think there's a buck in it. Maybe that's all that's happening with Simpson.
I've always loved Phil Silvers. Loved him in everything he ever did, even that one episode of Gilligan's Island he was in. (Did you know Mr. Silvers was one of the owners of that show? He was. A few years after Bilko went off, he returned to CBS in a new sitcom — The New Phil Silvers Show — and it was a flop. But because he was a big star when he signed on for it, he got ownership of the show and his production company, Gladasya Productions, got a commitment from the network for financial participation in a series that didn't star him. That series turned out to be Gilligan's Island and I think Silvers told me he'd made more money off that than he did off playing Sgt. Bilko.)
Anyway, I was fortunate to have a very long interview/brunch with Mr. Silvers around three years before he left us for that big Off Track Betting parlor in the sky. Our chat took place at Nate 'n' Al's Delicatessen in Beverly Hills and it was quite thrilling and even included a cameo appearance by Milton Berle. Mr. Berle came in, saw that Phil was being questioned by some clown with a tape recorder and rushed over to horn in on the interview. Oddly enough, he appeared just as we were discussing how Silvers had turned down the lead in the original production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and was replaced by...Milton Berle. (Berle later dropped out and was replaced by Zero Mostel.)
Some time ago, I posted two excerpts from that chat on this site. This one is about It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and this one is about the big dance number from the movie, Cover Girl. You'll want to read the latter in conjunction with today's clip...preferably before. Silvers was enormously proud of his participation in that number, dancing alongside Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth and matching them step for step. This was quite a feat for a guy who was not, unlike Mr. Kelly and Ms. Hayworth, a trained dancer.
One thing I hadn't realized until now is that in the interview, Silvers described it as a six-minute dance number. It isn't. They dance for a little over three minutes. But I'll bet if you had to do it, it felt like six...or a lot more. Anyway, go read the interview then come back here and watch the performance. And now I'm going to bed because just watching the performance again made me tired. Also, it's four o'clock in the friggin' morning. Good night.
Several folks have sent me a link to an online petition, apparently instigated by the Goldman family, protesting the forthcoming O.J. Simpson broadcasts. It's called Don't Pay O.J., but the text is a little muddy as to whether they're more bothered by Simpson getting the public forum or Simpson getting the chance to make money. Perhaps the distinction doesn't matter in this case.
I must admit I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of bringing pressure against booksellers not to carry his book. Bookstores, of course, have the right to not carry anything they find tasteless but they shouldn't be put in the position of evaluating and judging content. As contemptible as Simpson is, he still has his First Amendment rights...and I like the idea of a book dealer who carries everything and lets the buying public decide what they will and will not buy.
November 19, 2006
