Dish (27 page)

By 1978, when its circulation peaked at an astonishing 5.7 million, the
National Enquirer
was no longer the amusing if somewhat annoying fringe publication it had been when it first moved to Tabloid Valley seven years earlier. It had become a major force in the media industry. And, since nothing sold as well as celebrity scandals, it had also come to epitomize media invasiveness into the private lives of the rich and famous. “We cover Hollywood the same way the
New York Times
or the
Washington Post
would cover the Pentagon,” said the
Enquirer
editor-in-chief Iain Calder. “We don’t wait for a story to break. If you have a new hit show, chances are we have a cameraman there who works for the
Enquirer.
Or the top star, we’ll probably have her hairdresser who works for us, her P.R. guy, or someone in her lawyer’s office, maybe her boyfriend, maybe her husband. Basically, you’ve got to look at it like a military exercise.”

It’s not surprising that celebrities increasingly felt the need to fight back. Johnny Carson’s sidekick, Ed McMahon, filed a $2.5 million suit over a story that he had had a face-lift. Dolly Parton sued over a story that called her the “Ghengis Khan of Country Music.” Former sex siren Hedy Lamarr sued for $10 million for a story that said she was a virtual recluse. Liz Taylor’s ex-lover, former used-car salesman Henry Wynberg, sued over a story suggesting he was a gigolo living off her money. Comedian Paul Lynde sued for $10 million after an article claimed he was forced off “Hollywood Squares” because he drank too much. “It’s worth a lawsuit to find out the source of the story,” said Lynde, who insisted he left the show “to pursue other options.” Even Elvis Presley’s former dentist filed a lawsuit against the tabloid.

By the time the Carol Burnett case went to court, everyone who was anyone in Hollywood had a
National Enquirer
horror story. “They went to my grade school in Forest Hills, and tried to get into my school records to prove I used to be a stinky, rotten, little racist kid,” complained Carroll O’Connor, who played
All in the Family’s
bigot Archie Bunker. Photographers from the tabloid flew over O’Connor’s Malibu estate in a helicopter. The star went to the balcony of the house to moon them, but O’Connor’s wife pulled him away from the cameras. “Can
you imagine a shot of your behind in the
National Enquirer
?” she pleaded with him. “That’s just what they want.”

Various stars proposed different plans for a concerted counterattack against the
Enquirer. Dallas
star Larry Hagman, furious over a story reporting that as a child he shot birds and tore up his brother’s photo album, suggested forming a “war chest” to force the tabloid into bankruptcy. “Isn’t it about time we banded together to get rid of that piece of garbage?” Hagman asked. But many in Hollywood were reluctant; they remembered how the
Confidential
trial embarrassed so many stars. Some were afraid that they would be revealed as sources for the tabloid. Others were reluctant to be cross-examined about the truth of the details of their private lives that the tabloid had reported, fearing quite rightly that such a process would reveal even greater details. Celebrities needed someone who was unafraid of doing battle with the
Enquirer.
That was when Carol Burnett stepped forward.

Dozens of lawsuits had been filed against the tabloid over the years, but they had all been settled, dropped, or thrown out. When the Carol Burnett case went to trial in the spring of 1981, it was the first time that any star had ever actually gotten the tabloid into court, and all of Hollywood was watching. Other stars showered her with support and letters of encouragement. Dinah Shore sent an expensive box of candy. Henry “The Fonze” Winkler sent flowers and a note that said, “All our love.” Leonard Nimoy attended the trial. Governor Edmund “Jerry” Brown, whose father had brought the libel case against
Confidential,
telephoned Carol to express his support. Henry Kissinger, who didn’t appear in court but who did give a sworn deposition, told the media that Carol “acted in a perfect ladylike fashion.” “This is an important day for all of us,” declared producer Marty Ingels as the trial began. “If Carol wins her suit, it will open the floodgates for the entire field of libel.” Ingels and his wife, singer and actress Shirley Jones, who played David Cassidy’s mother in
The Partridge Family,
had filed a $10 million suit against the
Enquirer
for an article that called Jones “a crying drunk.”
*

The trial provided a rare peek inside the workings of the nation’s most notorious tabloid. The Burnett story, which appeared under the byline of Steve Tinney, had actually come from
Enquirer
contributor R. Couri Hay. Hay told executive editor Mike Walker that he had it from two different sources that Burnett had been drinking at the Washington restaurant Rive Gauche. “He went on to say that she had bumped a table somehow and that wine was spilled,” Walker testified, “and she started giggling and the guy at the table did not take it very well and that he somehow nudged over a glass of water and some was spilled on her dress.” An hour before deadline, Walker, who actually wrote the item, asked another reporter, Gregory Lyon, to double-check Hay’s information. Lyon called a spokeswoman for Rive Gauche who, in two phone conversations, told him that Burnett was indeed at the restaurant and that she and her party “were having fun in a loud way.” She denied, however, that anyone spilled wine or water or that anyone was “obnoxious” or “tipsy.” The spokeswoman told Lyon that Burnett “was just very happy and was going around giving everyone samples of her dessert.” The spokeswoman also told Lyon that Burnett’s party of five stopped by Kissinger’s table as they left the restaurant and had a “spirited conversation.”
National Enquirer
reporters followed up that call with two conversations with the headwaiter, who insisted that the story wasn’t true but, according to
Enquirer
reporters, contradicted himself. The
Enquirer
people thought they’d play it safe by not actually saying Carol was drunk—they didn’t even say she was drinking. Rather, they called her “boisterous” and “giggling”—”much like the television character for which Carol Burnett is known and loved,” the tabloid’s lawyer tried to argue.

The
Enquirer’s
editors believed they could persuade the jury that, although the story contained some inaccuracies, they had sources for the information and had acted responsibly when they were informed of the item’s problems. What they didn’t count on was Burnett’s passion about the subject of alcohol and how the public would respond to that passion: Burnett had become an active crusader against alcoholism because both her parents had drunk themselves to death at age forty-six. She told a spellbound jury about her parents, how her mother was a violent,
“hostile, drunk” and how her father was the opposite, a gentle, loving man. “I remember asking him if he loved me would he stop [drinking],” Burnett testified. “When he did start again, I thought he didn’t love me.” Burnett’s testimony, which included the admission that despite her concerns with alcoholism she had in fact drunk “two or three” glasses of wine during the lunch, moved several jurors to tears.

In the midst of the trial, Johnny Carson rallied the entire country against the
National Enquirer.
The talk show host’s rocky marital life, his high salary, and fights among members of his staff had long been fodder for the tabloids. They had reported that he had had a face-lift. They called him “The Laziest Man in TV” and printed details of his cushy work schedule. They had snooped around the drinking problem Carson once had had. In fact, during the Carol Burnett trial, the
National Enquirer
ran a cover story with the headline “Johnny Carson Marriage in Serious Trouble.”

Carson was furious and used the occasion of the trial to blast the tabloid on his talk show. “I think [people are] becoming very aware in this country, especially during the past few weeks because of the national publicity via certain lawsuits that have been filed against this publication, how the
National Enquirer
works,” Carson said on the
Tonight
show one evening while the trial was in progress. “It’s based on innuendo, it’s based on gossip, it’s based on half-truths, it’s based on speculation.” The audience cheered and clapped enthusiastically. Carson called the story about his marital difficulties “a pack of lies”
*
and blasted the “creep” who wrote it. “I’m going to call the
National Enquirer
and the people who wrote this liars,’ ” he proclaimed. “Now that’s slander, so they can sue me for slander.” Then he looked directly into the camera and declared: “You know where I am,
gentlemen.”
The crowd went wild. They gave Carson an extended ovation.

Carson’s
Enquirer
diatribe was the talk of Los Angeles. It almost derailed the trial because at least two jurors saw or heard
about the talk show host’s commentary, and the tabloid’s lawyer asked for a mistrial. Carol Burnett, however, was thrilled. “I thought he was wonderful,” she beamed. “Johnny was defending himself. He wasn’t talking about me.”

The
Enquirer,
by comparison, was friendless. Other publications, usually quick to defend any newspaper or magazine being sued, distanced themselves from the tabloid and its dubious First Amendment right to snoop on celebrities. The
San Francisco Examiner
called the
Enquirer
“a disgrace to journalism” and media reporter Jonathan Friendly wrote in the
New York Times
that journalists “cannot be comfortable riding in the same First Amendment boat with the
Enquirer.”

On March 26, after two weeks of testimony and four days of deliberation the jury reached its verdict: $1.6 million—$300,000 in actual damages and $1.3 million in punitive. The courtroom erupted in cheers. Burnett gasped, clasped her hands to her face, and sobbed with joy. “There is a God,” she declared and ran over to the jurors and shook their hands. She hugged them and gave several her autograph. Flashbulbs erupted as Burnett left the courtroom and announced that she was giving the money to charity—to journalism schools. Vowing to appeal the case, the
Enquirer’s
lawyer, William Masterson, declared, “This is the equivalent of capital punishment for a publication.”

After the Burnett verdict, an array of other stars decided to take similar action against the
Enquirer.
Cary Grant filed a $10 million suit over a story that suggested that his fifth wife pressured him into marriage. Raquel Welch sued over a story that declared: “Fading sex bomb Raquel Welch was fired from her latest movie
[Cannery Row]
because she threw temper tantrums, made outrageous demands for changes in her script and acted like an indispensable superstar rather than a hopeful has been.” Elizabeth Taylor and her latest husband, Virginia Senator John Warner, announced that they were going to sue if they didn’t get a full retraction on an article that announced: “Seventh Marriage Crumbling: Liz Taylor and Hubby in Raging Public Fights.” By the end of 1981, the
Enquirer
was facing more than ten cases totaling over $62 million in libel charges. There was talk that the
National
Enquirer
was headed for the same fate as
Confidential
—crushed under the weight of lawsuits from a Hollywood united in anger against it.

But the
Enquirer
didn’t retract its Liz Taylor story, and by the end of the year, she and John Warner did indeed split up. A court also determined that the tabloid’s comments about Warner and Taylor were essentially true. Johnny Carson and his wife separated the next year. All the other $100 million in suits pending against the
Enquirer
at end of the trial were either dropped, dismissed, or settled. Even Carol Burnett’s award was cut in half by the judge and was eventually settled out of court, reportedly for a mere $200,000.

The ultimate lesson that celebrities learned from the Carol Burnett case was that lawsuits were an expensive, arduous, and not entirely effective way of protecting themselves. Their real power, they discovered in the 1980s, was to be found not in the courts but in their star power; in the
access
they could grant to or withhold from the increasing number of journalists who wanted to write about them. A pioneer in the rediscovery of this reawakened power of celebrity was Elizabeth Taylor—or more accurately, her publicist, Chen Sam.

When she first started representing Elizabeth Taylor, Chen Sam was known as Hurricane Chen or the Dragon Lady. Petite at five feet, four inches, she always wore heels and had waist-length dark hair. She chain-smoked Marlboros and was sometimes curt or rude to the journalists who were accustomed to being courted by her predecessor, veteran P.R. man John Springer. “Chen and I had some rocky times, particularly at the beginning of her tenure,” says Liz Smith. “I had known Elizabeth for years and enjoyed a good relationship with John Springer. Chen was different, dicier, and to my mind, sometimes overly protective.”

Chenina Samin was born in Cairo to an Egyptian father and an Italian mother. She was raised in a strict Muslim tradition, with a veil covering her face. She fled from an arranged marriage at age fifteen and went on to study physiotherapy. She married a man forty years her senior, whom she later divorced. Chen was practicing pharmacology in South Africa in 1975 when she was
called to treat Richard Burton, who had been stricken with malaria while on his second honeymoon with Elizabeth Taylor. “She had to have a Zulu native sit on Richard’s chest while she treated him,” says a friend of Sam. “He was delirious with fever. She saved his life. Richard adored Chen from the beginning, but Elizabeth took longer to warm to her.”

While Chen was staying with the Burtons, she learned that her eleven-year-old son had died. She was grief stricken and stayed with the Burtons while she was mourning. When the Burtons split up a year later, Richard decided that Taylor should get “custody” of Chen. “He was still quite fond of Elizabeth and felt she needed Chen,” says the friend. “He was tired of the sycophants and the hangers-on—he called them ‘all those fags’—who surrounded Elizabeth. He saw in Chen someone who was smart and pragmatic. Richard gave Chen a six-month crash course on the care and feeding of Elizabeth Taylor, including how to light her for the cameras.”