Brushes With Greatness and Not-So-Greatness

For 25 years I’ve had a subscription to People magazine. Yesterday I received my final renewal form and threw it in the garbage. I’m finally letting go of my celebrity obsession. Yes, I confess, People have been my guilty pleasure for years. I like it better than chocolate. Shallow? Yes. Mindless? Yes. Fun? Yes.

I have proudly shared my obsession with others. When I was a practicing attorney, colleagues would quote from articles they’d read in The Economist while I dropped the latest gossip of Hollywood stars cheating on other Hollywood stars.

I thought I had reached my life pinnacle when I was profiled in People for giving up my day job as a lawyer to follow my dream of being an actress. (Really my first dream had been to be in People.) When the article appeared, I waited for my 15 minutes of fame to pay off.

Sure enough, I got a phone call from the Oprah show. Oprah was looking for people who were pursuing their dreams, and one of her researchers had come across the article. When the phone call came from the associate producer, I thought it was a joke. A few days later, the producer called back to say that Oprah had decided to go with the lawyer who had become a professional cake baker. 

Rejected by Oprah, I realized my People celebrity had indeed yielded no tangible reward other than my yellowing copies of People. But there had been the thrill of being a celebrity for a moment.

I’ve had other moments. When I appeared in Shear Madness at the Kennedy Center for over a year, students would wait for us at the stage door to get our autographs. This blew my mind…what were they going to do with it? 

My obsession with celebrity started early. I had traveled with my parents to England, where we went to high tea one day at the Churchill Hotel. It was all very hushed and proper and…British. Then, from across the room, my father spotted him. “Pamela, there is Abba Ebban. Get his autograph.” I was 11. I did not know who Abba Ebban was, let alone did I want his autograph. But my father said, “He’s a great man, go get him to sign your menu. You’ll never forget this moment.” So, in my Laura Ashley dress and my mouth filled with braces, I shyly giggled at the man who helped create the State of Israel. He sweetly said the menu looked like an old-fashioned dance card (I giggled some more) and then he wrote his name. That was my first autograph; I keep it in my copy of Abba Ebban’s book, My Country.

My mother, on the other hand, could never recognize a celebrity. When I would point them out in hushed tones, she would repeat their name loudly, making me cringe. “Carl Bernstein who?” she yelled out once at Tiffany’s. Three seats away from Al Pacino at a Broadway show she yelled out, “Where is Al Pacino sitting?”

Some celebrities were my personal idols, like Madeline Kahn and Julie Harris. Incredible actresses, both of whom inspired my desire to be an actor. When I met Madeline Kahn I was tongue-tied. “Ms. Kahn I’ve been a huge fan since I was a kid, when I saw you in On the Twentieth Century, you inspired me to…to…go to law school…I mean become an actor.” She looked scared.

My idols were celebrities to me because they had done something special. Today we pay attention to celebrities who are famous for no other reason than appearances on a reality show. My husband and I recently went to the South Beach Food and Wine Festival, which was replete with celebrities, including Rocco DiSpirito, Bobby Flay, Spike from Top Chef, Jared the Subway guy and Bethany from Real Housewives of New York. At least the celebrity chefs are celebrities because they have a skill. I know because I’ve eaten their food and it’s very good. But Jared? Why is he a celebrity other than he lost some weight? Or Bethany from Real Housewives, the woman we spotted with a very large entourage. She’s not even a wife, let alone a housewife. Succeed at being a real wife and then you’ve got some cred in my book.

Others have celebrity thrust upon them, like Joe the Plumber. Others set out to be celebrities with extraordinary talent, like my cousin, Lenny Kravitz, who announced when he was 16 that he was going to be a rock star. I’ll never forget that moment. It was at my grandmother’s 95th birthday party and we all laughed at him. Ha ha. 

A close friend of mine married sportscaster Dan Patrick back when he was an obscure anchor for a new broadcast channel called CNN. Now, 25 years later, he’s a huge sports celebrity. When we go out to dinner, strangers seem excited just to be in the same room with him (or they want to argue with him about sports). I love Dan, but not sports. I’m more excited to be with his wife, who has been my friend since 7th grade. 

And then there is Jai Pausch. She’s the widow of Randy Pausch, author of The Last Lecture. Randy Pausch was a relatively unknown professor of virtual reality who, as a dying man, delivered a lecture about how to live your life. His story became a cultural juggernaut. A few months ago, I was privileged to interview his widow for a show I produced and moderated for the Global Leadership Conference of the Young Presidents Organization.

Pausch’s wife and young family certainly didn’t sign up for either his cancer diagnosis or for his celebrity. But his celebrity has made a difference in the world. The book has been translated into 38 languages. His YouTube video yielded more than 10 million hits in just a week.

Since Randy’s passing, Jai has turned down requests from Oprah, Diane Sawyer and, yes, People magazine to be interviewed. She is trying to maintain a sense of privacy for herself and her children. But she also has a story to tell, and her story can make a difference for survivors and caregivers. So, perhaps because it was a private affair (only 500 people) and because I’m not Oprah, Jai agreed to let me interview her (I did feel some divine retribution, given my previous Oprah rejection).

I felt very protective of her. People would recognize her and say, “I know you from somewhere.” We know her from her tragedy, which was chronicled to the whole world. What most of us don’t know is who she really is, or what it’s like to raise three kids on your own, or how to watch your husband die. This is a kind of celebrity none of us would want, and yet, because the Pausch family was willing to make their life public, we can be nothing more than grateful for their wisdom.