Customer Reviews

The Importance of Being Famous: Behind the Scenes of the Celebrity-Industrial Complex

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

A fun read. Maureen Orth opens the door to the surreal world of celebrity and invites us in. The world she describes places most celebrities and others enjoying their "15 minutes" in their own personal Wonderlands, places most often resembling cuckoo's nests. Thanks to Orth, those curious about famous lives can push aside the curtains of wealth and power and then withdraw--thankful that most of those profiled are not part of our lives. Orth's contention that so many of the famous became newsworthy due to the media's insatiable need to provide coverage 24/7 gives us permission to avoid the news occassionally in the interest of tuning down the fame volume.

I was greatly disappointed by this book. I expected it to be a serious study of fame and what people do to get it. Instead, it was a series of old Vanity Fair articles strung together in a book. Some people were interesting but most many were boring people that no one really wants to read about.

I hate that I paid $17.50 for it and hope my bad review does not drive down the resale value as I try to get rid of it.

More than a century ago at the trial of Lizzy Borden the relatively new telegraph was used to describe the latest trial details which made for a special late edition of the "yellow press". A few decades later at the Scopes monkey trial the newfangled telephone was utilized to broadcast trial reports "live from the courtroom" to radio throughout the country. The Symbionese Liberation Army May 1974 Los Angeles shootout was broadcast live on 160 TV stations due to advances in microwave relay and satellite technology.

The OJ Simpson trial was the first "trial of the century" that heavily involved cable TV, which had become widespread by then, DNA whose use was coming into wide use and the Internet where details of the OJ case could be detailed without a news filter, for better or worse. In college I had worked at the school library and enjoyed reading the different take on the same story in different publications. The Internet offered this with a few keystrokes.

All of the above examples were natural phenomenons where everything converged. Maureen Orth, in her new book tells various ways that the various media try to find the next "grand convergence" or get one going. Would the Laci Peterson case been covered so heavily if those involved had been less photogenic and more camera shy?

As with the "yellow press" using a teaser headline on the Lizzy Borden trial to sell "extra editions" of their rag, our modern day tabloids see their sales increase substantially when they have cover headline with some Laci Peterson angle even if this printed story has very little substance. Cable talk shows use the same "grabbers" which is usually a pop psychology tripe.

Usually, the media "circus" comes to town and when it leaves the media story ends. Ms Orth is in for the long haul. She has covered Micheal Jackson for more than a decade and has been remarkably prophetic and accurate. I first developed an interest in Ms Orth with the Andrew Cunanen case which began here in my hometown of Minneapolis. When I read Orth's first book on the Cunanan case Vulgar Favors I spotted a lot of locations and people, mostly in law enforcement, in the book. Ms Orth strives for accuracy over "political correctness". Obviously Andrew Cunanen wasn't a poster child for gays but the vast majority of gays portrayed in that book were perfectly decent people caught up and sometimes hurt by the maelstrom around the Cunanen case. (Ironically, the Minneapolis gay press was trying to use the Cunanen case to highlight recreational drug dangers in the gay community when the mainstream press dared not mention that Cunanen was gay when they named two lovers with obviously male names.)

Ms. Orth's new books is a very good read and it helps to understand the new media environment. She gives hope by showing the patterns and techniques used so readers and writers can find these and react productively. At a recent talk to journalism students Ms Orth challenged: "When they show that picture of Micheal Jackson on the hood of a car after a court appearance use that as a lead in for telling the signs of pedophilia.

This phase of media insanity caused by new technology will hopefully pass as they have in the past. It will take time and a lot of mistakes. Reading The Importance of Being Famous will help you understand it sooner and it' a very entertaining read since Orth is an excellent and very readable writer. I highly recommend this book.

I am a thrity year veteran of Washington, D.C. during which time I have seen or met many of the characters so aptly described by Maureen Orth as they flitted across the power stage of this city, itself built on a reclaimed swamp. What is most compelling about Ms. Orth's re-telling of her original articles on these chameleon type figures is found in the "Update" sections at the end of the articles. The articles themselves are so wonderfully written so as to evoke, horror, disgust, and yes, some smirking smiles at the antics these individuals will indulge in to keep their fame alive and moving. Sometimes the facts although true strain credulity. I was totally amused particularly by the chapters on Susie Gutfreund and Arianna Stassinopoulos (forget the Huffington, bygones). The audacity of these women is only surpassed by their overweaning thirst for celebrity and attention. Truly incredible.

Ms. Orth's commentary, so well researched and sometimes achieved at amazing risk pulls the reader ever deeper into contemplation over what we have become as a nation since the time these articles were originally written. She so aptly makes a case that we have become a nation of fame voyeurs - immediate in our desire to perceive the "details" of our celebrities and just as willing to cast them away as soon as we have tired of our perusal of their lives to move on to the next tidbit/person/celebrity.

The one article which she saved until the end of the book was perhaps the most touching and full of pertinent contrast was that on Dame Margot Fonteyn. Here was the antedote to this pushy world of celebrity. In Dame Margot she defines true deserving, humble celebrity. I had the opportunity to meet Dame Margot in person more than once and the bearing, humility and greatness of this woman was practically enveloping. By presenting this true portrait of celebrity greatness Ms. Orth only serves to further her assertion of just how far our national culture has been subsumed and possessed by the Celebrity Industrial Complex. A book most of America should read and heed before we dissolve into the swamp of vapidity.

Anyone who has read Maureen Orth's writing in Vanity Fair is well acquainted with most,if not all of the subjects in this book. The chapters have brief introductions dissecting the various aspects of fame as we know it today. Orth looks at what constitutes "famous" and how media and curiosity seems to spew out an endless stream of "Famous".Orth's interviews first appeared on the pages of Vanity Fair. People we read about and see on TV, Madonna, Karl Lagerfield, Laci Peterson, Michael Jackson, Tina Turner,Margaret Thatcher all share bits and pieces
of themselves. Orth has a keen eye for subtleties and is very detail oriented. Often, quotes from her pieces are reprinted in mainstream press, hailed as news,such as Margaret Thatcher's admission she felt her life was "fractured" upon leaving 10 Downing Street. The same may have very well been first said by Fleet Street, but it is given legitimacy when it is reported by Orth. A very few subjects are admirablesuch as Tina Turner and her return from abuse and debt. Most are "famous" because the media have made a practice of writing about them. They seem more impressed with themselves than warrented, and live lives that express contempt for the morals and laws we commen mortals live by. They do not look better under closer scrutiny...they seem decayed and grotesque.Almost all of the subjects of this book have done their time in a less than favorable spotlight.....leading me to think it would have been better titled ..."the Dangers of Being Famous".

I wanted to like this book but was very disappointed that all it included was a mish mash of Vanity Fair articles from 1990-2002 with follow up paragraphs that appear to be right out of People magazine.

this book is simply a re-hash of old Vanity Fair articles. She gets paid for those articles then slaps them together in a book for a second payday. What a lazy way to "write" a book?

...and it made me reminisce about the days when the title "journalist" meant something. Orth is no journalist. She's a gossip monger, repeating hearsay from unidentified sources for a dollar. If only we could return to the days when real news was on the front page, rather than old biddy lies and gossip about Elvis, Michael Jackson, or the victim du jour. Thanks for nothing, Maureen Orth.

It takes the great writer Maureen Orth to put it in our face!
From Putin to Madonna she got it! We are in danger of becoming a senile nation. We need to have more of this gifted writer who can't be fooled and has the insite to understand the depth our leaders and celebrities will go to ingratiate themselves. She strives to set it straight and she does! The behind the scenes investigations and her gift to express it should be required reading for our young adults who care more about being famous than to contribute. Maureen Orth always get's it right!

With all the publicist/lawyers protecting their clients, it is hard to know if we are getting the truth or is there a lot of compromising going on.
When I read the review "dispicable", I was like come on , I don't think this person really read or understood "The Importance of Being Famous". This book is one of the most investigative and thorough books I've read about famous people in a long time.
Ms. Orth gets right to the point no sugar coating going on here, she give it to you straight with no chaser.
If you want to be famous and you think it is important then you will one day meet a jouranlist that is not compromising with the handlers. They want to be famous but don't what us to know the truth. The truth was finally told, no deals where made in this book.
I couldn't put it down, brought it for my mom for Mother's Day and all my friends are reading it.