All This in 60 Minutes

by Lee, Nicholas

  20

  There’s no Business Like ...

  Show business is all show. Unfortunately we can’t show it. Even today, the third and final story in a 60 Minutes program is nearly always a celebrity interview with a film or rock star, writer or artist (though these days everyone’s an artist). And they only agree to appear on 60 Minutes to promote their latest book, film or CD. It’s written into their contract they must do X number of interviews to push the product and to justify their grossly obscene pay. Often they’re dragged kicking and screaming to the interview under threat of being sued by their promoters. Then it’s tough for everyone. They complain about the lighting. They complain about the background. They then dismiss the questions with monosyllabic answers.

  The whole idea is meant to be, we scratch your back, you scratch ours. You get great publicity from our high-rating program, we get a story. But often it was you scratch our back, we stab yours.

  By the time I got to the story, most of the haggling, fighting and arguing had already been done. Our poor 60 minutes producers had to grovel and get treated like shit just to get the interview. Which was in fact fifteen minutes of free publicity for the whingeing artist, and promoters.

  For their ten million bucks per film, some stars do up to 40 interviews a day. Considering some of the unbelievably stupid questions they’re asked by showbiz reporters, they probably figure ten million bucks is nowhere near enough. In the majority of those cattle-call interviews, the lighting, the camera set-up, the cameraman and the star are permanent fixtures. Reporters from all around the world having queued for hours are permitted one at a time to enter the orbit of the relevant star for their interview. Which consists of a half-dozen moronic questions, always just a glowing endorsement of whatever is being pushed. After five minutes the next thing to be pushed is the hapless reporter straight out the revolving door.

  In 1968 Andy Warhol announced, ‘In the future, everyone will be world famous for fifteen minutes.’ Ten years later he claimed, ‘My prediction from the sixties finally came true. In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.’ But when challenged on it he would often change it to, ‘In the future fifteen people will be famous.’ Or ‘In fifteen minutes everybody will be famous.’

  Who knows what Andy meant? Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, Professor of Modern Art at Harvard University, suggests what Andy really meant was, ‘The systematic invalidation of the Hierarchies of representational functions and techniques of art fits well with the belief that the hierarchy of subjects worthy to be represented will someday be abolished: therefore “everybody” can be famous once the hierarchy dissipates “in the future”. Thus: “in the future everybody will be famous”, not only those worthy of fame.’ I couldn’t have agreed more.

  I myself had my own fleeting fling with fame—so fleeting it was more like fifteen seconds. My fling came courtesy of Bob Hawke. During our trip to London with the ex-PM, Rob Penfold, the Channel 9 Europe correspondent and my good friend of 30 years, asked if he could interview me about what it was like to work with the great Bob Hawke. No probs, Rob. So at the end of a big day Rob and crew set up for the interview with probably the most compliant talent Rob had had in years. I was cool, calm and collected. No nerves. I’d shot hundreds of interviews where people have said, ‘Oh, I’m so nervous, I don’t know what to say,’ or ‘Oh, I shouldn’t have said that, can I try again?’ From behind the camera I’d think, ‘You idiot, it’s not that hard, just answer the fucking questions and we’re out of here.’

  This idiot found it hard. Rob asked the first question, I didn’t hear it. With a camera lens aiming straight at me, my mind went blank. I apologised to Rob and said, ‘Let’s start again.’ He did. I didn’t. When I finally got going, all I could say was, ‘Uh uh um yeah, um, no, maybe, nice bloke, um, uh, smart, yes I think so. You’re welcome.’

  But something went to air.

  A month later I was hiring a lawnmower from a bloke and he said, ‘I know you, you’re on TV.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I do work in television but you never see me. I’m behind the scenes.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I saw you on telly talking about what it was like to work with Bob Hawke.’ Wow, I’m famous.

  I have no idea how that bloke recognised me from one short news story, but it felt pretty cool. At the very least I was expecting to get the mower for free. I was rapidly brought down to earth when he said, ‘That’ll be twenty bucks.’

  •

  Fame is so attractive to some people they figure if they can’t have their own they’ll hang around with those who have it and some might just rub off. If I thought many of the stars were up themselves, I was always flabbergasted at the arrogance and rudeness of the sycophantic hanger-ons. Hairdressers, makeup artists, managers, PAs and PRs, all treating us like shit, probably the way they were treated.

  Too often we found that the star’s minders were pushy, rude and superior before the heavy arrived. But once they were in the presence of the famous one, they all turned to mush, desperately trying to prove their loyalty and totally shit-scared of upsetting them and jeopardising their job.

  The worst I encountered was the woman who represented Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was pushing his latest movie, Collateral Damage. We always tried to do a little pushing ourselves, such as by asking if it was possible to get a walking shot or anything a little more than just a sit-down talking head. Every producer tries very hard for that little bit extra, so our producer, John McAvoy, asked for a very quick walking shot.

  ‘No can do,’ replied the sycophant.

  ‘A shot of our reporter, Peter Overton, meeting Mr Schwarzenegger before the interview?’

  ‘No can do.’

  ‘A shot of Mr Schwarzenegger in his car?’

  ‘No can do.’

  ‘Mr Schwarzenegger signing a body-building book?’

  ‘No can do.’

  She also told us there could be no requests for autographs, no requests for still photographs, and no speaking to him apart from the interview. Then, when the famous one entered the room, she bowed like a Japanese geisha.

  Arnie was fantastic. He shook hands with us all, asked a few questions about Australia and was chatting happily when his representative stepped in to interrupt, telling us Mr Schwarzenegger was a very busy man and we must not waste his time.

  So Peter sat him down and started asking his questions. Then in the middle of the interview, my right eye to the lens, I opened my left eye to see her crawling across the carpet on her hands and knees, balancing a cup of coffee. A hand with a coffee cup then appeared in my shot. She whispered to Arnie, ‘I thought you might like a cup of coffee.’ Still on her hands and knees she then backed up across the floor. Arnie stared at her as if she was some kind of bug.

  Apart from the sycophant ruining five seconds, the interview was terrific. Arnie was charming, intelligent and very funny. He told us he couldn’t run for president of the United States because he was born in Austria, so he was thinking of running for Governor of California instead.

  Peter asked, ‘If you can’t be president of the United States, would you settle for Austria?’

  ‘It would be better to become Governor of California, then buy Austria,’ Arnie replied.

  He obviously enjoyed the interview, so Peter pushed his luck and asked if he’d sign a body-building book. As Arnie said, ‘Sure, no problem,’ the hanger-on, standing behind her star, was running her finger across her neck and mouthing, ‘No way!’ We ignored her.

  With autograph done, John asked Arnie if we could film him and Peter ‘going for a little walk’.

  ‘Sure,’ said Arnie, while his sycophant’s face went white.

  Back from the walk Peter, noticing that she was still hovering, turned to Arnie and said, ‘Hey Arnold, how about a photo of you with all of us?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Arnie.

  Peter handed his camera to the hanger-on, smiled and said, ‘Take the picture, please.’

  It’s amazing t
hat she could even see us in the viewfinder with all the smoke coming out her ears. She pushed that shutter button as if it was the trigger of a gun. Arnie then thanked us for a wonderful time and walked off. The minder went off. Never, ever, would we get another interview from her company again, blah, blah, blah. We all looked at the unfortunate woman and laughed. That didn’t help her, either.

  •

  But at least Arnie had only one minder. For our Geena Davis interview, there were seven hanger-ons. PA, personal PR, film studio PR, manager, promoter, makeup, hair designer, all dashing around as if God, Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha were about to make an entrance.

  In came Miss Davis. I had always been a fan and was looking forward to meeting her, but when she entered the room I started to panic. Her thick sensuous lips were bright red but her hair was whiter than white. Her skin was whiter than white. She was in a white dress and sat down on a white lounge in front of a white wall. Cameras hate white. All the camera could ‘see’ was a pair of giant red lips. Luckily I was shooting film. If it’d been video, we could have all gone home. I quickly rearranged the lights to create as much contrast on her face as I could get away with.

  ‘How does she look?’ the PA asked.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you’ll see her lips and not much else.’

  That created quite a stir in the room, but no one was game to tell Ms Davis, who sat there being constantly groomed. The lips were the only way of knowing she hadn’t snuck out of the white room. The hairdresser then told me, not asked me, that he would take a look through the viewfinder. But inside that camera is sacrosanct, a cinematographer’s personal space. Nobody looks through my viewfinder.

  Luckily there was a wonderful little button on my Arri camera that allowed me to close it completely. So I did. Hair artiste placed his eye on the viewfinder for a moment, then stepped back and pronounced to all, ‘Yeah that’s great.’

  Then the makeup artiste said, ‘I need to look too.’

  Be my guest.

  Once again we all heard, ‘Yeah that’s great.’

  Both of them had seen nothing but black.

  Ms Davis turned out to be unbelievably boring. She was allegedly a member of Mensa (maybe that’s why). She didn’t want to be there and had absolutely nothing to say. The lips gave the required ten minutes then left the room. We managed to scrape together a seven-minute story, including film clips. Like I said, sometimes we have to just go through the motions.

  •

  Dustin Hoffman was another megastar awash with minders who’d obviously read the rule book. We were told we had ten minutes and ten minutes only, we were not to go over time, and we were not to engage him in conversation. ‘Mr Hoffman is a very busy man.’ Yeah, yeah, we’d heard it all before.

  Our reporter Jennifer Byrne was a great interviewer who knew when and how to turn on the charm, so she did. And Hoffman was hooked. At the end of our ten minutes, just as I was being told by a pushy minder, ‘That’s it, no more,’ Hoffman said to Jennifer, ‘That was great. Shame you don’t have any more questions.’

  ‘I’ve got a lot more questions,’ Jennifer replied cheekily.

  ‘Then go right ahead,’ he said.

  I quickly whacked on a new magazine of film. The hanger-ons tried desperately to stop me, telling me the interview was over and I must stop filming now! But none of them was game enough to say a thing to Hoffman, so the interview continued and I kept rolling. At the end of that ten minutes he said to Jennifer, ‘Any more questions?’

  ‘Yep,’ she said. And on went the third magazine. His minders were furious. And like all minders they threatened me with all sorts of consequences rather than talk to our reporter, producer or Hoffman himself.

  When our new best friend Dustin stood to leave, he said to his minders, ‘Great interview that.’ And they all wholeheartedly agreed ... until he’d left the room.

  Again we heard the usual tirade from the small-minded minders. But again, did we care? We had another great story in the can.

  •

  Luckily for us, our ratings were very good, so instead of being caught up in the conga line of showbiz interviews, we’d demand our own room with our own cameraman to do the lighting. But even then there were the stars’ demands such as ‘special lighting’—for example, no strong back lighting (shows up thin hair), no lights higher than the face (gives the impression of a double chin), no nose shadows (for those sporting a proboscis like the proboscis monkey).

  And no low-angle shots, ordered Garth Brooks. It could make him look fat. We couldn’t have that. Brooks, a US country singer, had managed to cross into mainstream pop, becoming one of the all-time best-selling recording artists. We scored two days with him. It was torture. He’d always tell me the angle I was to shoot from, and at no time would he take his hat off. It could mean the end of the world if anyone was to find out he was going bald.

  What is it about country singers and hair? I’ve never met a star, male or female, as obsessed with their hair as Keith Urban. A really good bloke, but with a hairstyle that’s impossible to keep in place even with the slightest wind. So when we took him out on a boat, he was beside himself. The shots downstairs were so boring I asked him if he’d come up on deck so I could get a few shots of him looking at the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. He’d have preferred to smash his favourite guitar. Reluctantly he ventured up the stairs. The things you have to do to push your latest CD.

  It could have been from vast sailing experience (I doubt it), but this boy knew his wind. He aimed his face straight into it as soon as he reached the deck. That wind kept the strangely plastered-down hair right where he wanted it. There was no way he was going to look at the landmarks. That would mean a tailwind and errant hair. I suppose I could have moved the Opera House and the Bridge, but like all artists he was in a hurry. A minute later Keith was back downstairs, delicately patting his hair as if it was a priceless work of art. It’s a wonder he didn’t put on gloves.

  Hair is obviously very important in the world of showbiz. Twelve months after our no-show with David Copperfield, we were invited back. Surprise, surprise, he needed the publicity for his new tour of Australia. Most stars want soft delicate lighting. Copperfield wanted a bloody great 2000-watt light aiming straight at his face and a couple of huge industrial-type fans also aimed straight at him. He looked like he was about to be blown through the back wall by a cyclone. With the fans making noises like jet engines, Micky struggled with the sound, but Copperfield couldn’t care less. At least he looked good.

  •

  Of course, doing thousands of stories on celebrities means that we came across some downright rudies. A la Christina Aguilera. Her interview was lined up for one in the afternoon and confirmed twice by our producer. But after one o’clock a minder rang on the hour, every hour, to say, ‘She’ll be there in twenty minutes.’ Christina finally turned up a little before midnight. There were many times we wanted to tell these bad-mannered stars to ‘Go to hell’, but we never did.

  Actually, there was one time ... Liz Hayes was doing an interview with Robert Downey Jnr, who’d just been released from jail on drug convictions. His PR asked Liz what her questions might be. She told him they’d be the standard ‘A to Z of life’, much like the star had recently done on Oprah and other shows she’d seen. The PR was nervous about that but Liz had been told before leaving Australia that Downey Jnr would be happy to be involved in a ‘well rounded conversation’, otherwise she wouldn’t have bothered showing up.

  When Downey Jnr arrived it was clear to all that he was in some kind of altered state, or at the very least, let’s say, jet-lagged. He immediately asked for porridge, then promptly spilt it down his shirt front. By the time he’d done makeup and downed a few more solids, Liz was hoping all would be fine. But from the start of the interview, Downey Jnr ignored Liz and kept staring at the freelance soundman. After a few patsy questions Liz moved on to his life and times and mentioned the word ‘drugs’. Dead silence. The PR, in her thic
k American accent, yelled ‘Lllliizzzz’. Undeterred, Liz pressed on.

  Finally, Downey Jnr looked her in the eyes and said, ‘This is fucked.’ He stood up and stormed off. Trouble is, instead of walking out the door, he walked into the makeup room. His PR followed him in. After a few minutes of whisperings from behind their closed door, she came back into the interview room and said, ‘Robert would like to come and sit down and say goodbye.’

  ‘Tell Robert not to bother,’ said Liz. ‘This is fucked.’

  She stood up and left (through the correct door).

  •

  Stars of the calibre of Christina Aguilera and Robert Downey Jnr can be pains in the neck, but there are stars who shine a lot brighter than them. There’s only one Bob Dylan.

  Dylan kept us waiting for five hours, but as fans we were willing to forgive. The day hadn’t started well. The American second cameraman, the one who’d be shooting George Negus asking the questions, turned up with his assistant and immediately started telling us how many Grammies, Emmies and Oscars he’d won. When I threw him a couple of rolls of film to load into his rented camera, the award-winner told me he didn’t know how to load it. ‘That’s okay, get your assistant to do it.’

  ‘I don’t know either,’ said the assistant. I then loaded all his mags for him, knowing only too well we were paying him per day what I earned in a week.

  After having carted four tonnes of lights to the star’s home in Los Angeles, we were told we could not enter Mr Dylan’s house and that the interview would be outside. Fine with us, saves setting up lights. There was plenty of room in the large, leafy backyard so I set up two garden chairs for the interview and we waited, and waited, and waited. With the camera set up and ready to go, I noticed a strange-looking coloured filter on the front of the American’s camera. I asked what it was and he mumbled, ‘Aaaahh ... yeah ... umm ... eighty-three FD?’ There is no such filter. Except probably in a car engine. The filter he had would’ve made Dylan purple. I gave him my 85, and fitted to my camera the only other appropriate filter I had, an 85ND9 with heavy-duty neutral density, which had the effect of cutting down the light by three stops. It made it difficult to see through, but no problem, I knew there’d be plenty of light for the 1 p.m. interview.