Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (59 page)

The tower was such a magnificent structure that it won over many of its earlier critics. Among them was French prime minister Tirard. He had opposed the project at its inception, but awarded Eiffel the medal of the Legion of Honor after it was finished. The tower, a symbol of France’s unrivaled technical expertise, became the symbol of France itself.

Not everyone who hated the tower experienced a change of heart. Guy de Maupassant, the novelist best known for
The Necklace,
was said to eat regularly at a restaurant on the tower’s second floor. His reason: It was the only place in Paris where he was sure he wouldn’t see the tower. (Even some of the characters in his novels hated the tower.)

TOWER FACTS

• Every seven years, the Eiffel Tower receives a fresh coat of more than 300 tons of reddish-green paint. Why reddish-green? Because, tower officials say, it is the color that clashes least with the blue sky over Paris, and the green landscape of the Champ de Mars below.

• The positions of the Eiffel Tower’s four “feet” correspond to the “cardinal” points of a compass: they point exactly north, south, west, and east.

• In 1925 the City of Paris wanted to decorate the tower with electric lights as part of an arts exposition being held nearby, but the cost, estimated at $500,000, was too high. When automaker Andre Citroën learned of the project, he offered to pay for it himself…in exchange for the right to put his company name and corporate symbol in lights as well. The City agreed. “The Eiffel Tower,” Blake Ehrlich writes in
Paris on the Seine,
“became the world’s largest electric sign, its outlines traced in lights.” The lights were so popular that the tower remained lit with various designs until 1937.

• Sad fact: The Eiffel Tower is the most popular landmark for suicides in France. In an average year, four people commit suicide by jumping off the tower or, occasionally, by hanging themselves from its wrought iron beams. The first person killed in a jump from the tower, in 1911, was not an intentional suicide—the man was a tailor named Teichelt who had sewn himself a “spring-loaded bat-wing cape” that he thought would enable him to fly. It didn’t.

Whether you approve of the magazine or not, Playboy represents a significant part of American culture. One of its trademarks is the centerfold. Here’s the tale of the first one.

T
HE BARE FACTS

In the late 1940s, Marilyn Monroe was still an unknown actress, struggling to pay rent. One day in 1948 she borrowed a car to get to an audition, but had an accident on the way. As by-standers gathered, she announced she was late for an appointment and had no money for a cab. Tom Kelley, a photographer—gave her $5 and his business card.

A year later when Marilyn needed money, she went to Kelley’s studio to ask if he had any work for her. He did—he was doing a photo shoot for a poster advertising Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer and his model had failed to show up. Marilyn happily stepped in and took the job.

A few weeks later Kelley called Monroe with more work. A Chicago calendar manufacturer named John Baumgarth had seen the Pabst poster and wanted a few “tasteful” nude pinup shots.

According to Anthony Spoto in
Marilyn
:

          
[She] accepted at once. Two nights later she returned to Kelley’s studio and signed a release form as “Mona Monroe.”

          
A red velvet drape was spread on the studio floor, and for two hours Marilyn posed nude, moving easily from one position to another as the photographer, perched ten feet above her on a ladder, clicked away.

Baumgarth paid Kelley $500 for all rights to the photos from the session, and Kelley gave Marilyn $50. They never met again.

PIN-UP GIRL

Baumgarth did nothing with the photos until 1950, when Marilyn began to get attention for her role in
The Asphalt Jungle.
He decided to use her picture on a pinup calendar. It was only meant to be a
giveaway for service stations, tool dealers, contractors, etc. But in April 1952,
Life
magazine included a tiny reproduction of the calendar in a cover story they did on Marilyn. As a result, the picture became world-famous. And Marilyn became infamous.

“Marilyn blunted the potential effect on her career,” says Spoto, “by giving interviews in which she explained that she had desperately needed money. The public bought it. But the saga of the pinup calendar wasn’t over.”

PUBLIC EXPOSURE

Just as the furor surrounding Marilyn’s pinup shot was dying down, Baumgarth got a visit from a fellow Chicagoan who wanted to use it. According to Russell Miller in
Bunny, the Real Story of Playboy:

      
Because of the risk of prosecution for obscenity, Baumgarth believed there was probably no other use to which the pictures could be put. He was surprised, therefore, when [a young man] showed up at his office, without an appointment, on the morning of June 13, 1953, and asked if he could buy the rights to publish the Monroe nude pictures in a magazine he was planning to launch.

The man was Hugh Hefner; the magazine was
Stag Party
(soon to be renamed
Playboy
). Baumgarth not only sold Hefner the magazine rights, but threw in the color separations as well—which saved the struggling Hefner—who’d barely scraped up enough money for the 48-page first issue—a bundle.

Hefner knew his magazine was finally on its way. Monroe—featured that year in
How to Marry a Millionaire
—was now a star. And Hefner could announce that she would be his first “centerfold.” In December 1953, the premiere issue of
Playboy
hit the stands, with Marilyn beckoning from the front cover. Due in part to the famous pinup,
Playboy
was an instant success. Ironically, this exposure made the photos even more famous…and more valuable. Spoto concludes:

      
More than any other portraits of a nude woman in the history of photography, those of Marilyn Monroe taken in 1949 became virtual icons, everywhere recognizable, ever in demand. Landmarks in the union of art with commerce, the photographs have appeared in calendars, playing cards, keychains, pens, clothing, accessories, linens and household items; for decades, entrepreneurs have become wealthy by claiming or purchasing rights to their dissemination.

Like the Coyote and Road Runner, the CIA was obsessively trying to kill Fidel Castro in the 1960s. But like Coyote, they just couldn’t seem do it. Was it because Castro was so wily.
.. or
because the CIA was so incompetent? Here are some examples of how the anti-Castro super-spies spent their time (and our money).

C
ONCOCTING WEIRD PLOTS

Seven plots against Castro that the CIA actually considered.

1.
Use agents in Cuba to spread rumors that the second coming of Christ is imminent and that Castro is the anti-Christ.

2.
Surprise him at the beach with an exploding conch shell.

3.
Put thalium salts in his shoes or cigars during an appearance on “The David Susskind Show,” to make his beard and hair fall out.

4.
Put itching powder in his scuba suit and LSD on his mouthpiece so he would be driven crazy and drown.

5.
Offer him exploding cigars designed to blow his head off.

6.
Shoot him with a TV camera that has a machine gun inside.

7.
Spray his broadcasting studio with hallucinogens.

EMBARGOING BASEBALLS

In its war against Fidel Castro during the 1960s, the CIA literally tried to play hardball politics. “The CIA tried to cut off the supply of baseballs to Cuba. Agents persuaded suppliers in other countries not to ship them. (U.S. baseballs were already banned by the trade embargo the U.S. had declared.)” The bizarre embargo was effective. Some balls got through, “but the supply was so limited that the government had to ask fans to throw foul balls and home runs back onto the field for continued play.”

—Jonathan Kwitny,
Endless Enemies

CONSULTING JAMES BOND

How out-of-control was the CIA in its anti-Castro frenzy? They even took Ian Fleming’s jokes seriously. This anecdote from
Deadly Secrets,
by Warren Hinkle and William Turner, says it all.

“It was, even by Georgetown standards, one helluva dinner party. It was the spring of 1960. The hosts were Senator and Mrs. John F. Kennedy. The guest of honor was John Kennedy’s favorite author, Ian Fleming.

“Kennedy asked Fleming what his man James Bond might do if M. assigned him to get rid of Castro. Fleming had been in British intelligence….He was quick to answer. According to his biographer, John Pearson, Fleming thought he would have himself some fun….

“[He] said there were three things which really mattered to the Cubans—money, religion, and sex. Therefore, he suggested a triple whammy. First the United States should send planes to scatter [counterfeit] Cuban money over Havana. Second, using the Guantanamo base, the United States should conjure up some religious manifestation, say, a cross of sorts in the sky which would induce the Cubans to look constantly skyward. And third, the United States should send planes over Cuba dropping pamphlets to the effect that owing to American atom bomb tests the atmosphere over the island had become radioactive; that radioactivity is held longest in beards, and that radioactivity makes men impotent. As a consequence the Cubans would shave off their beards, and without bearded Cubans there would be no revolution.

“Fleming was staying at the house of British newsman Henry Brandon. The next day CIA director Allen Dulles called Brandon to speak to Fleming. Brandon said his guest had already left Washington. Dulles expressed great regret. He had heard about Fleming’s terrific ideas for doing in Castro and was sorry he wouldn’t be able to discuss them with him in person.

“It is testimony to the resounding good sense exercised by the CIA during the Secret War that all three of Fleming’s spoof ideas were in one form or another attempted—or at least seriously considered.”

Here’s another installment of our feature based on Andy Warhol’s comment that “in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes”

T
HE STAR:
Shawn Christopher Ryan, 7-year-old resident of Castro Valley, California

THE HEADLINE:
Second-Grader Smells Smoke, Saves Sixteen

WHAT HAPPENED:
At 4 a.m. on February 9, 1984, Shawn awoke and smelled smoke. He ran into his mother’s room, saw that her mattress had caught fire (she’d fallen asleep smoking), and woke her up. He helped her escape, then ran back into the apartment building and knocked on every door, waking up and saving all 16 neighbors. For a few weeks, he was a national hero. He was honored at the state capitol by the governor of California, received a commendation from President Reagan, and was lauded on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.

AFTERMATH:
Ryan wasn’t in the news again until 1995, eleven years later. Ironically, it was because he had pled guilty to the murder of two acquaintances (alleged drug dealers) while they were all high on methamphetamine. “I can’t explain it,” he said. “I’m not the kind of person to take a life, not for any reason.” He was sentenced to 32 years in prison.

THE STAR:
Diane King, a 33-year-old night-shift manager at a Portland, Oregon, Taco Bell

THE HEADLINE:
Good Samaritan Gets Heave-ho from Taco Bell

WHAT HAPPENED:
On August, 16, 1995, a fight broke out in a Taco Bell parking lot, leaving one teenager dead and one lying motionless in the street. King, a former nurse’s aide, rushed to help. She left another employee in charge of the restaurant, even though she knew it was against company policy. Later, she explained, “I was worried he might die out there.” When the police arrived, she went back to work. A few weeks later, she was fired. Newspapers reported the story as an example of both corporate insensitivity and a screwed-up society that discourages good samaritans.

AFTERMATH:
Hundreds of people offered King jobs and money.
People
magazine ran a story on the incident. Oprah Winfrey flew King to Chicago for a show titled “Would You Help a Stranger in Distress?” Finally, Taco Bell—which had tried to reinstate King without admitting it had done anything wrong (she refused)—ran a full-page apology in the Portland
Oregonian.
“Sometimes big corporations make mistakes,” it said. “In this case, we did, and we’ve learned from it.” King ignored them and took a job at a convenience store. She also filed a $149,500 suit against Taco Bell for “shock, outrage, and emotional distress.” No word on the outcome.