Popular magazines assure us that celebrities are just like you and me. But it's not really true. Celebrities, like Roman emperors of old, are given unlimited opportunities to assert their demands with no negative consequences. It's the kind of behavior you expect to see in a two-year-old, but not in an adult.
Unless that adult is a celebrity. Then it's par for the course.
I was reminded of this truism when reading the recent book Johnny Carson, by the famed talk show host's longtime lawyer Henry Bushkin, who was immortalized, in a small way, as Bombastic Bushkin in Carson's monologues. The book offers a balanced portrait of Carson, a man whose emotional life was crippled by an unfeeling mother, and whose charm and sociability onscreen were frequently absent in his offscreen encounters. Carson could be astonishingly generous – one time he casually cut a check for $100,000 to a restaurateur who'd gotten into tax trouble, reducing the man to tears – but he was also quite often a jerk, routinely cheating on all of his four wives, ignoring his children, holding petty grudges, and treating even his closest friends and business associates as disposable items.
What does this have to do with the usual subject matter of this blog? Not a whole lot, except that it does show how the ego, unchecked, can reduce even the most sophisticated person to the status of a mewling baby.
Here's a case in point, from Bushkin's memoir. Carson had just flown into Las Vegas to begin a hugely profitable engagement at Caesars Palace. (Yes, the universe has a sense of humor. Carson's Caligula-like meltdown naturally took place in a hotel named after Roman emperors.) He stood to make a cool $250,000 a weekend for an ongoing series of appearances – and this was at a time when $250,000 was probably the equal of a million dollars in today's money. Now watch how the infantile ego nearly throws it all away out of spite:
Finally [Bushkin writes] I went out to the bell desk to see what was going on. To my surprise, I ran into Johnny, who had just exited a cab. He was standing at the check-in counter demanding the keys to his suite. "The driver [sent by the hotel] completely f—ed up," he fumed. "He went to the wrong goddamn gate and by the time he found me, I told him to get lost and I hopped in a cab."
At that moment, the check-in clerk advised Johnny that he would have to wait about thirty minutes before his suite was ready.
When this happens to you or me, we are expected to act like grown-ups and adjust. But when this happens to the biggest star in Vegas, who was arriving for his debut performance at what is supposedly the town's premier hotel, well, this, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call a catastrophe.
Carson went nuts. He started yelling at the clerk …
"Damn it, Henry," Carson said. "Charter me a plane and get me back to Los Angeles. I will not work here."
"You know there are 350 invited guests on their way here," I reminded him …
"I don't give a s–t," he snapped. "I won't spend one minute more with these monumental incompetents."
The hotel general manager arrived and tried to make things right. A new suite was ready …; the management could not be more anxious to please this unhappy star.
"Too late!" snarled Johnny … Then I got a call from Cliff Perlman [owner of Caesars Palace].
"Henry, please bring Johnny up to my sweet. I promise you I won't let him walk because of the f—-ups of my staff. Please, please bring him up. Security will be there in a moment to escort you up."
"Okay, Cliff, but let me just say this: right now Johnny needs to feel as if he were the only star you have." …
Once Carson entered the suite, the Perlman charm took over. He took Carson by the arm and showed him the apartment. Sitting atop the hotel, it was 10,000 square feet of opulence, with a rooftop swimming pool, Jacuzzi, wine cellar, health spa, six bedrooms, and a living room that was easily able to accommodate 300 people.
"Every time you come to Caesars," said Perlman, "this is where you'll stay."
"Nice," said Johnny, now notably calmer. "But I don't see a tennis court up here."
"No, it's downstairs. But you know that our head pro is Poncho Gonzales," said Cliff, invoking the name of one of the greatest players of the pre-Open era. "Anytime you want to hit with him, it's on me."
"Thank you, Cliff."
"You know," said Perlman, closing the deal, "I've never let anyone stay up here, not even Sinatra. But I'll do this for you to show my appreciation for your working here."
The grand gesture appeased Johnny, the weekend was saved, and from then on, whenever Carson came to Caesars, Perlman moved to a Motel 6 across town. Well… at least to quarters less grand.
Notice that Carson was ready to throw away millions of dollars in a fit of pique. Notice also that he thought nothing of throwing Perlman out of his own home every time he came to Vegas (which was often). Finally, notice that even after being offered this penthouse Xanadu, Carson had the temerity to point out that there was no tennis court attached!
This is how the ego behaves, when it can get away with it. And you can see that it has a certain practical value. In this case, it allowed Carson to obtain far more extravagant living quarters then he would otherwise have enjoyed. It allowed him the pleasure of throwing his weight around and intimidating one of the most powerful men in Las Vegas. It gave him the chance to puff himself up and see other people cower and kowtow before him.
But those are only short-term, superficial benefits. In the longer term, Carson's behavior was profoundly self-destructive. It meant that he ended up increasingly alienated from friends and acquaintances. By the end of his life, according to Bushkin, Carson was essentially alone, with only the crew of his yacht to take care of him. It appears that almost no one came to visit as he lay dying in the hospital. And given his propensity to drink to excess on a nightly basis, to smoke four packs of cigarettes a day, to fall into deep spells of depression, and to declare – when he was willing to open up a little – that he was incapable of happiness, it's fair to say that his ego-based behavior ultimately cost him more than he gained.