Hey Barbara! Here’s a news flash for ya… Interracial couples (specifically Blacks with Whites) have been having relationships, getting married and (Horrors!) producing offspring for hundreds of years now. Ever heard of Halle Berry? She’s over forty and the product of an interracial relationship. What about Tyne Daley and Georg Sanford Brown, or Sammy Davis Jr and May Britt ? Ever heard of them?
How about former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, or Sidney Poitier, or Diahann Carroll and David Frost? Herbie Hancock? They all had interracial relationships that did not necessarily result in their careers being ruined. I could go on and on… James Earl Jones, Mick Jagger, Quincey Jones and Peggy Lipton, Strom Thurmond and whoever that was. His career wasn’t ruined. Well at least not because of that, anyway.
His being “African American” was not the reason you had to hide your relationship, Babs. It wasn’t the racially intolerant climate of the time that would have ruined you. Infidelity is as frowned upon now as it was then, particularly when it involves someone holding public office. Adversity sometimes strengthens character, but more often than not, it reveals it. Can I get an Amen?
The initial fuss about Barbara’s book, (which I have not read but have only heard about owing to her shamelessly promiscuous media appearances to promote it, not to mention Whoopi Goldberg, the former Karen Johnson’s shamelessly obsequious cheerleading about it on The View), provided some relief for the primary symptom of “Tell-All” fatigue: indifference. Alas, it didn’t come to last. It came to pass.
Once upon a time in America, people kept their skeletons securely in closets– oops, I mean private. When indiscretions’ occasionally broke out, it was really a scandal. The stars were not always publically repentant either. In fact, I can’t recall anybody tearfully apologizing on camera for anything before Richard Nixon. When caught, they either got married, split up or went to prison. End of story. Seemed like musicians had problems with drugs and alcohol and actors had problems with sex, drugs and alcohol. When they decided their careers were important to them again, they quit those bad habits like a bad penny and went back to work. Both the industry and the public welcomed them all back with open arms.
No one went on the talk show circuit constantly talking, talking, talking about how strong, and brave, and what a fighter they were for deciding to stop being an addicted person and willfully breaking the law while they were at it. If you had a career busting secret you were keeping out of fear, people didn’t out you. They didn’t write a book or accidently on purpose blab about it during an interview.
As a kid growing up in the Bronx, even I knew Victor Mature, Raymond Burr, and Charles Nelson Reilly were gay. I admit I was surprised about Rock Hudson, but did Richard Chamberlain really believe he was fooling anybody? The press didn’t reveal FDR was a cripple or that JFK was insatiable. Back in those days it was more likely if anything salacious came out about you, you only had yourself to blame.
All that changed when Shelley Winters wrote her tell-all book and went on Merv and Mike and Johnny and talked, talked, talked about her affair with Tony Franciosa. That was when it seems the finger over the hole in the dyke of personal restraint slipped down. And now everyone and their mother has had a “secret” drug or alcohol problem, or was sexually abused, or had a drug or alcohol problem, or had a mean mom, or had an affair with a married man, (African American not withstanding) or has a drug or alcohol problem and is going into rehab.
Every time I hear about some celebrity writing a book now I just groan. It’s interesting when these writers are chatting with Larry or Matt, or Regis and Kelly they always say “People need to know that…” or “People need to understand…” What people? Me? Why? TMI!! Even without ever reading the book, I’m going to learn more than I care or “need” to.
So Donny and Marie, please don’t publish a book about how you were sexually abused by your parents. Gwyneth, please don’t publish a book about that time you left your kids alone in a London flat and pimped yourself out for a hit. Oprah, please, please, please don’t tell about that three-way between you, Stedman and Gail. I got a bad case of tell-all fatigue.
