Word: fame
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Televise a hearing today, and it ceases to be one. It becomes a chance to pillory your opponents, play-act morality and audition for your 15 minutes of cable fame. People not only choose sides, they also choose roles. Representative Bob Inglis, raw from his November loss to Senator Fritz Hollings, returned as the voice of the Lord, the Old Testament one. Representative Lindsey Graham's early turn as Hamlet turned out to be a search for an unoccupied spot on the opinion spectrum that might land him on Meet the Press. He found a "legal technicality" that allowed...
...EVENING WITH THE RAT PACK (TV Land) This amazing artifact tape captures Sinatra, Martin and Davis in 1965, at the height of their joint fame. With Johnny Carson as emcee, the avatars of cool sing for typical burgher fans. Frank is a bit stiff, but Dean performs with oozing plushness, while Sammy winces at some racial cracks...
Another commodity has increased in social value even faster than money, and that is fame. Those blessed with a lot of one or the other want a more balanced portfolio. So celebrities cash in some of their fame for money by doing commercials, and rich folks cash in some of their money for fame the same...
Well, it's not quite that simple. Traditionally, when celebrities endorsed products, their fame became slightly tarnished and therefore less valuable. Now, however, they just become more famous, and they get money to boot. (The only category of famous people of whom this is not yet true is journalists. David Brinkley took a big hit for becoming a spokesman for Archer Daniels Midland Co. But then pioneers often suffer when carving paths that soon become common and comfortable.) Similarly, rich folks who do ads buy themselves fame without spending their wealth. But most actual billionaires are probably as famous...
REWARD FOR A "RIGHTEOUS GENTILE" Christoph Meili, a watchman at the Union Bank of Switzerland in Zurich, tasted fame in January 1997 when he revealed that the bank was shredding Nazi-era documents just as death-camp survivors were trying to reclaim their accounts. Fired from his job and subjected to anonymous death threats, Margot Hornblower reported in our May 25, 1998, issue, he emigrated to New York City, where he started work as a doorman. Now Meili, 30, has accepted an $18,000-a-year scholarship at Chapman University in Orange, Calif. The "1939" Club, a group...