The Stars in Our Eyes: The Famous, the Infamous, and Why We Care Way Too Much About Them - Hardcover

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Julie Klam is the New York Times–bestselling author of You Had Me at Woof, Love at First Bark, Friendkeeping, and Please Excuse My Daughter. Her writing has appeared in a variety of publications, including O: The Oprah Magazine, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times Magazine. She lives in New York City.

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ONE

WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT CELEBRITIES

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The 20th-century comedian Fred Allen says in his book Treadmill to Oblivion that “a celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates, a wonderful writer whose book Between the World and Me exploded when it was published in 2015 and turned him into a literary celebrity, was devastated to see that when he bought a brownstone in Brooklyn, Its address, the price he paid for it, and his move-in date were printed in the New York newspapers. “It is true what they say about celebrity—-people suddenly don’t quite see you,” he wrote in the Atlantic. “You walk into a room and you are not a person, so much as symbol of whatever someone needs you to be.” The attention was so great, he announced, that he and his family wouldn’t move into the building after all.

There are all kinds of fame. You can be famous in one realm while in another no one knows who you are. I have an astrophy-sicist friend who every so often blows a gasket because he met Dr. Hecklemeyer Doofenberger. The Dr. Hecklemeyer Doofenberger. It’s the same thing with writers. Famous writers (with the possible exceptions of Stephen King and James Patterson) are not necessarily household names. But that’s one of the cool aspects of celebrity: you don’t have to be Madonna; you don’t have to be famous to everyone to be famous.

Since the dawn of the dinosaurs, celebrity has been a thing. OK, maybe not the dinosaurs (unless you count Stony Curtis from The Flintstones, which I do). In civilizations across the centuries, we would probably classify Queen Nefertiti, Cleopatra, those Russell Crowe–type gladiators, Julius Caesar, and Jesus as early celebrities. The rumors about Genghis Khan and Henry VIII and Marie Antoinette and Rasputin were as titillating to their kingdoms as the latest Kardashian nude selfie is to our world. When movies became popular early in the 20th century, we made international celebrities of performers like Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and Rudolph Valentino (swoon!). Our politicians have been famous for as long as there have been governments, and in our time some of them have gained celebrity status, such as when John Kennedy hung out with Marilyn Monroe. At the dawn of radio, professional athletes—including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Joe Louis—who’d been known for their exploits on the playing fields or boxing rings only through newspapers assumed newfound notoriety. So did singers and musicians, from Bing Crosby to Elvis to Aretha Franklin to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. When television started appearing in average Americans’ houses in the middle of the 1950s, performers like Lucille Ball, Milton Berle, and Jackie Gleason became household faces. And as the number of entertainment outlets grew—from TV to cable TV to premium channels to Netflix and Hulu to on-demand movies to billions of websites from all around the world, now anyone with an iPhone and a less-than-normal amount of shame can be famous.

Which brings me to the moment when I start to explain this book to people.

“So, what exactly is this book about?” Griffin Dunne asks.

He is across the table from me at a café near his apartment in SoHo, one of New York City’s chicest—and most celebrity-filled—neighborhoods. He’s in his late 50s but could pass for twenty years younger, and is completely adorable in an Allman Brothers Eat a Peach T-shirt and baseball cap.

Looking at this bona fide famous person, an actor/producer/director who actually knows Madonna—MADONNA—-demands all my attention. His dad, Dominick Dunne, was in show business, too, and Griffin has lived around fame since he was in footy pajamas and a bathrobe. He understands it.

“It’s about the nature of celebrity,” I say.

He frowns and furrows his brow. I know that look. Timothy Hutton had it a few months before, as did pretty much everyone else I talked to about this book. Because they’re thinking: “What are you talking about, girl who wrote some books about dogs and friends and your mother, and how did I get roped into this conversation?”

“Who else have you talked to?” Griffin asks, trying to see if perhaps my earlier research will make this clearer. This sort of suspicion or wariness from celebrities is something I’m getting accustomed to. They need to be careful about what they say on the record: They’re not like those of us who freely talk politics with strangers on the subway, whose words are not headlines. Celebrity is both a reward for a job well done and a weapon to destroy someone’s privacy, reputation, and chance at a normal life.

“Timothy Hutton, Denis Leary, Michael Black, Adam Schweitzer, Julie Warner, Doris Roberts . . . ,” I begin, rattling off an impressive list.

“And what did you tell them to get them to talk to you?”

Oh my God. I want to run away with my giant New York City PS 87 tote bag filled with a pumpkin bread I baked for him, as well as signed copies of some of my books. Why did I bring these things with me? Because I’m not a journalist. David Frost didn’t bring Richard Nixon a Bundt cake when he interviewed him in 1977. No. Pumpkin loaves are for amateurs.

“Well, uh, they talked to me because, um, I knew people who knew them.” I say. “Not Timothy Hutton, though. I know him.”

“Oh, how do you know Tim?” Griffin asks, desperate to grasp at something to explain why he’s sitting here with me.

“I, um, met him on Twitter,” I say.

Griffin, I learn, is not on Twitter. He doesn’t understand how I got to “know” a great, Academy Award–winning actor through social media.

“Blech, Twitter. I can’t wait for it to just go away,” he says.

I try to explain the benefits of Twitter, and as I speak I can hear myself becoming one of the people I used to pass every morning standing outside the ABC building that housed the Live with Regis and Kathie Lee show. Five or six oddballs with autograph books came every morning to wait and get signatures from whatever guest was desperately darting from the building into their waiting limousine post-interview. Now that was me, the real-life Sandra Bernhard in The King of Comedy (though in my defense I wasn’t asking for autographs).

“But now we’re real-life friends, Tim and I.” I say “Tim” because his real-life friends don’t call him Timothy.

Griffin doesn’t look as if he believes me.

I think back to when I wrote my first book and people would ask me what it was about. I would start stuttering and then try to remember the flap copy: “Julie Klam was raised as the only daughter of one of the three Jewish families in the exclusive WASP stronghold of Bedford, New York. Her mother was something, her father was something else, and she ended up somehow turning it into a book?” All I can think now is how bad I am at explaining whatever it is I’m trying to do, but I know why. It’s just kind of embarrassing to explain to Griffin. (We are friends now, so I call him Griffin, instead of Mr. Dunne. Any day now, though, I might switch to Griff.)

In my desperation I look across the table at Griffin, and I think—I hope—that he is starting to understand what I want to know from him and what I’m trying to write about. Or maybe he just hopes to get back home to his...