“You have to take this,” I said. “After all the times you’ve struggled, I want you to have it for whatever you want to do.”
Teary-eyed, my dad walked out of the room, returning after he’d taken a few moments to compose himself.
My mother looked at me and said, “RoseMarie, you don’t pay your parents back.”
“I’m not paying you back. I’m giving you a gift because I can afford it,” I said. “Take it now, because it might not be here next year.”
Working for John was the ride of a lifetime, never mind the fringe benefits—the invitations, the presents, the money. By his side, I sometimes got front-row seats to moments I only dreamed of witnessing. For me, the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in the spring of 1999, the annual event at which politicians, journalists, and celebrities gathered for the rare chance to hear the president poke fun at himself and be teased by others, was just such a moment.
By that time, I had grown in my role as an assistant from one who answered phones and opened mail into something of a chief of staff, responding for John and strategizing his PR. Perhaps that’s why I was emboldened enough to ask for a ticket to the dinner. I didn’t like to ask John for favors, and this was a big one—both of which made me incredibly nervous about approaching him. George had purchased only a few tables, and the priority was to have political figures and celebrities sit at them, which meant very few seats were left for even the editors. It was a coveted invitation. Would it be unfair to the editors who couldn’t go if I, an assistant, got to attend?
I didn’t want to overstep, but I had discussed it with Carolyn and she felt that I had earned it. “You have to go,” she said. Because of her anxiety over the scrutiny she would face at the dinner and the fact that she would feel more comfortable if I was there, I worked up the courage to make the outrageous request.
“John, is there any way I can go to the correspondents’ dinner this year? I’ll pay for my own hotel and my own ticket there.”
“You can go, Rosie. And you don’t have to pay for your ticket. If we can’t find you a room, you can sleep on a mat outside our door.”
I immediately called Michele with the amazing news.
“What’s that?” she said. “Are you having dinner at the White House?”
“You know, I’m not entirely sure.”
Wherever the dinner was held (not at the White House, I quickly learned) didn’t really matter: from the dirty looks I got around the office from some staffers who were not going, I knew the evening would be every bit as incredible as I imagined.
After securing a ticket, the next thing I had to do was find an outfit worthy of wearing to see the president of the United States in person. Luckily, I had the best stylist in town—Carolyn, who encouraged me to pull a Sharon Stone and pair a billowing black organza skirt we found at BCBG with a simple black tank top from the Gap. When I tried on the whole ensemble at their place in Tribeca, Carolyn cooed, “Oh, honey, it’s gorgeous . . . but wait.” She scampered to her bedroom and came out bearing a necklace of three weighty rows of Indian rose-cut diamonds. The sparkling piece, a Christmas gift from the jeweler Maurice Tempelsman, was stunningly intricate, with red and gold enamel flowers covering the back of each diamond. She held it up to me.
“Oh no, Carolyn. I can’t.”
“You have to,” she said, clasping the diamonds around my neck.
“No way. This necklace is terrifying. What if I lose it?”
“You’re not going to lose it. How could you lose it? It’s so big.”
She twisted my arm, and I borrowed the diamonds—Carolyn was a very persuasive fairy godmother.
Getting together an outfit that included serious jewels was definitely like a fairy tale. But I returned to reality while wrestling with the logistics of George’s tables for the event. Working out seating arrangements is never fun. But when you’re dealing with movie stars, incendiary publishers, and political insiders, it’s a fucking nightmare.
Originally, George was set to host the actor Sean Penn, the conservative political commentator Ann Coulter, Hustler publisher and Clinton supporter Larry Flynt, the millionaire Republican newspaper publisher and Clinton hater Richard Mellon Scaife, the historian Douglas Brinkley, the king of the gonzo journalists Hunter S. Thompson, the actress Claire Danes, and longtime Clinton adviser Harold Ickes.
Unfortunately, Scaife, who had spent a lot of money trying to bring Clinton down after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, canceled a week before the dinner because he didn’t want to sit at a table with Flynt, who had spent a lot of money trying to get women who had affairs with Republican leaders to come forward and expose their hypocrisy. Scaife’s wife called and told me, “Dear, he’s deaf as a post. He won’t be able to hear anything in that place.”
He wasn’t the only last-minute dropout. Only two days before the dinner, Thompson also bowed out. Jann Wenner—the publisher of Rolling Stone, which had employed him for many years and originally printed his famous piece Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas—got wind of the plan and, John surmised, gave the writer an ultimatum: either you’re at Rolling Stone’s table or you’re not at anyone’s table. As rebellious as Thompson could be, he wasn’t an idiot. Through his assistant, he begged off because of a supposed fight with his girlfriend.
To add insult to injury, Thompson had insisted the magazine book him a two-bedroom suite at the Four Seasons, where people had booked rooms four months out and where everyone attending the dinner was staying. The exorbitant room was completely nonrefundable, and I had the thankless task of relating the news to John. But there was a silver lining: my hotel upgrade to Thompson’s suite.
When I arrived in Washington, D.C., I took over the suite, which looked more like a gorgeous Upper East Side Manhattan apartment than a hotel room. There was no use in letting all that luxury go to waste. I wasn’t the only one who got an upgrade. The Four Seasons had put John and Carolyn in the Presidential Suite, which with its living room, formal dining room, and three bedrooms made my accommodations look like the projects. I thought John was going to take my head off for allowing the upgrade.
“This is ridiculous,” John said, while Carolyn sat curled up on the couch giggling.
“I didn’t do it! They just saw your name,” I protested. “What do you want me to do?”
John claimed he was worried that the suite was going to cost the magazine a fortune, which the correspondents’ dinner already had, even though he knew it wouldn’t. He was just embarrassed by the lavish display of attention.
After I talked him down, I returned to my room to get ready. Nothing could ruin my night—no last-minute cancellations or lodging dilemmas. I was determined to enjoy myself. The Washington Hilton’s banquet hall, where the dinner took place, was filled with celebrities hobnobbing with journalists and political bigwigs. And the biggest celebrity of all was the president. Bill Clinton was in his element, warmly shaking hands with guests and leaning in for the occasional friendly comment. At first, I didn’t know whether to get on the receiving line. Who the hell was I? But I had a ticket like everyone else and didn’t know when I’d have another chance to meet the president.
When I finally stood face-to-face with him, I almost died. No matter your political affiliation, it’s an honor and a privilege to meet the sitting president of the United States. You are in the presence of someone who commands respect for taking the hardest job in the world. Electricity ran through me when President Clinton shook my hand.
Arriving at the table where I was sitting with a handful of George staffers, I couldn’t stop buzzing from my encounter with the president and almost missed John. Almost. He was walking in late behind the color guard, which was playing “Hail to the Chief,” when we spotted each other from across the room. I didn’t dare wave, not wanting to draw attention to him. John didn’t have the same concern: he smiled and gave me the finger.
When he came over from his table, where he was hosting the celebrity guests, I gushed about meetin
g the president.
“I can’t believe I’m in the same room as the president!” I said. “And I just shook his hand!”
A top editor, who had accompanied John from the other table, rolled his eyes. “Oh God, Rose. Do you know how many times I’ve been in the same room with the president? It’s not that big a deal,” he said, giving John a quick glance for approval.
His comment temporarily burst my bubble, a quick and piercing reminder that I didn’t belong in that ballroom. But then, just as quickly, John turned it around.
“If you’re so jaded, I don’t really want you at my table. It is a big deal to be here,” John said to the editor. “Rosie, you can take his place at my table.”
He didn’t have to say it twice. I grabbed my purse and left my empty spot at the table to the editor, as I headed off to enjoy an evening of pure magic.
Carolyn chatted with Claire Danes, who had brought her dad as her date. I sat next to Harold Ickes, and we fell in love for the night. Fascinated that I came from the Bronx, Clinton’s former deputy chief of staff wanted to hear the whole story of how I met John and wound up sitting at the White House correspondents’ dinner. And I adored him for his political genius and for listening.
Despite all the fun I was having, the night was still work. I had to do a fair amount of the usual troubleshooting. Even though no photos were allowed and an astounding 2,700 people were in attendance, partygoers kept coming over to our table to snap pictures of John and Carolyn. I hadn’t expected it from this crowd. After permitting a few fans to take pictures, when they kept snapping away like paparazzi, I stood up and said, “That’s enough, now. We’re all trying to enjoy the evening. Can you please respect their privacy?”
It pissed them off, and a few refused to stop, but I won in the end. Sean Penn, who sat at John’s table, seemed to appreciate my tough antiphoto stance. He took a stand of his own that night. Inside the dinner, where smoking was prohibited, Sean flouted the rules by chain-smoking. At one point, a waiter came over and said, “Sir, there’s no smoking in here.” Looking lazily at the waiter, Sean said, “Well, what are you going to do? Arrest me?” And that was the end of it. He kept smoking, which meant we all got to smoke. So I thanked him by slipping another waiter a twenty to keep bringing Sean vodka tonics, despite the fact that they were serving only wine during dinner.
Toward the end of the evening, I slipped away from the table and found a pay phone in the lobby, hoping to make the historic moment real with a crucial call.
“Dad, I met the president tonight,” I said into the phone.
If I could have chosen one person to sit next to me at that dinner, it would have been my dad. A lifelong political junkie, he thought riveting TV was a congressional debate on C-SPAN. “The son of a bitch is trying to bankrupt the country,” he’d scream at the TV.
“Oh yeah, what was he doing?” My dad laughed on the other end. “What he does best—signing autographs?”
A staunch Republican, my dad particularly disliked the Democratic president, criticizing him for his arrogance and for exploiting his celebrity status. But my father did have respect for his position as leader of our country and what it meant for me to meet him.
“Marion,” he yelled to my mom. “Can you beat this? Your daughter met the president tonight.”
I could hear the pride in his voice and wanted to give him even more of a reason to be proud: “And John asked me to sit at his table during dinner.”
“Well,” my dad said, “John has good taste.”
CHAPTER
7
John called me into his office one day in the early summer of 1996, and I could tell from the look on his face that he was up to something.
“Rosie, who’s the most fascinating woman in politics?” He was working on ideas for the cover of George’s annual 20 Most Fascinating Women in Politics issue.
“Hillary Clinton?” I said.
“Yeah, okay. But she already said no to the cover. I’ve got another idea,” he said, looking like the cat that swallowed the canary. “I think we should dress Madonna up as my mother. Wouldn’t that be a riot? We’ll have her in the pillbox hat, sitting on a stack of books.”
“That’s hilarious,” I said, turning to get back to my desk, assuming it was just another inside joke.
“Great. Will you get your pad? I’m going to write her a note.”
“Wait, you’re serious?”
“Yeah. You thought I was joking?”
I had to give it to the guy. It took balls, and a pretty wicked sense of humor, to entertain such an irreverent idea. He picked Madonna because she was the most controversial figure in pop culture—and they had a friendship. She would acknowledge the concept and be as satiric about it as he was. John stood on a remarkably fine line between understanding the power of his family and not taking it seriously. Far from oblivious, he knew exactly what he was doing in terms of the magazine. John was able to separate his mom from the political icon Jackie Onassis. I thought the idea was cool, but I also worried about the reaction of the public, which didn’t have the same ability to make that separation. Dressing Madonna as Jackie O could be the ultimate shit storm.
“Wow. Are you ready to take the heat for this?”
“If it doesn’t bother me, why should it bother anyone else?”
“Okay, but you get what this will do, right?”
“Yes, Rosie. I totally get it. It will be fodder for every media outlet and probably most of my family.”
“If you’re in, I’m in. I think it’s great because it’s coming from you.”
As it turned out, John wasn’t the only one with a sense of humor. The day after we faxed a note to Madonna with the concept, she faxed back a message I’ll never forget.
After Madonna said no, John dropped the idea (you had to do it all the way or not at all), but it became a little secret shared only with Matt Berman. We didn’t tell anyone else about the outrageous idea—not even Carolyn, who would have killed him if he had gone through with it. She had enough scrutiny on her hands as it was.
The September cover wound up being almost as provocative: Drew Barrymore re-creating the notorious image of Marilyn Monroe singing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” (with those words as a headline in case anyone didn’t get it). Matt had Mario Sorrenti shoot the actress and used a new color process that at the time was very arty and innovative. The strange hues were what kept Drew from looking cheesy or campy.
As expected, the media blasted John for the cover. He was skewered for being tasteless and exploiting a historical scandal to sell magazines. I could only imagine what the press would have said if Barbra Streisand, who was initially approached to pose as Monroe but turned it down, had agreed to the cover. If John couldn’t play with political symbols, then he didn’t belong in his job. He took it all in stride. Sure, he wanted to sell magazines; however, the outrage was way out of proportion.
“If I don’t find it tasteless, I don’t know why anyone would,” he told the press. He would have said the same to a friend or a stranger on the street, and he managed to do exactly what I couldn’t: stand up for himself without being defensive and unemotionally evaluate the true nature of the situation.
Drew was the cap to a crazy first year at George that was filled with constant change and conflicting demands. Everybody was riding high from the first issue, which flew off newsstands. The media faithfully talked about our magazine and kept the ride going. George’s notoriety grew to the point where it became difficult to concentrate on actually putting out a magazine. All the attention was a lot to manage for the editors, for me, and especially for John. He was an editor in chief who was so much more than that. His outside obligations were an added obstacle to meeting deadlines and the everyday business of publishing.
On top of all that, John was about to make another huge life change. He and Carolyn decided to get married that same September on Cumberland Island in Georgia.
By far the hardest part of the wedding process wa
s keeping everything under wraps—that’s what kept me up at night. For example, we couldn’t send their wedding program to a printer because the risk of someone leaking the information was too high. So one night, Carolyn came to the office after hours to print her wedding programs on a copier that was far from professional grade. After a couple of mishaps involving the heavy card stock getting stuck in various maddening spots, we had to feed the printer one excruciating page at a time.
We finally finished with the programs at 11:30 p.m. Although I hadn’t eaten since three in the afternoon, I was so tired I just wanted my bed. But once I got under the covers, panic set in because I couldn’t remember if I had double-checked the printer for overlooked programs. I could just picture a George editor or someone from another magazine moseying down the hallway and seeing a piece of paper in the printer, reading it, and getting the biggest scoop of the year. And it would be my fault.
The most important aspect of this wedding for John and Carolyn was that it be private.
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