Much Ado About Mostly Nothing

The Iowa caucuses were to the Presidential race what the Golden Globes are to the Oscar Awards—contrived frippery. For all the fuss and ballyhoo both create, they are pie-in-the-sky burlesques with no significance other than the misplaced importance charitably or naively attributed to them. Not even Shakespeare, with all his uncanny insight, could have foreseen the much-ado-about-mostly-nothing histrionics of American political theater, but he certainly anticipated Hollywood when he likened life to “a poor player… full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” (Forget, for the moment, that he called him an idiot.)

Why does all this matter now? For those who take politics as seriously as they take show business, it matters bigtime.* It’s politics and show biz, song and dance, drama and more drama. It’s “Descendants” starring Mitt Romney (and, formerly, John Huntsman), sharing the bill with “Moneyball” and its supporting cast of Huntsman, Sr.; Super PACs (produced by the Supreme Court); and the debut of a new “actor” on the national stage, Sheldon Adelson, who became a headliner overnight. It’s a lower case homonym, a different kind of pack, with Mitt breaking away from the “Bridesmaids” to become his party’s strange bedfellow. It’s “War Horse” featuring every candidate. It’s “Crazy, Stupid Love”… “Carnage”… and “Shame.” If it adds up at all, it’s the cynically calculated math of press agents and political consultants, of flaks and spinmeisters.

Springing from the star-besotted minds of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, The Golden Globes could only have been created in Hollywood. Where else could a mere 80-plus men and women from around the world, many of whom are purportedly neither foreign nor press, influence America’s number one awards show—likely, one with a vastly larger international viewing audience than our presidential elections—the Academy Awards? Where else could 80-plus would-be foreign journalists take the lead in swaying about 5800 Oscar-voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, qualified professionals all, to think as they thought and vote as they voted?

Where else? In Iowa, where 7 would-be candidates spent incalculable amounts of time, effort and money to influence all of 5.4% of Republican voters to write one of their names on a slip of paper—with grand dreams of ultimately impressing on 50.1% of the 130 million or so Americans who may go to the polls (weather permitting) that he or she is the heaven-sent one to lead the country from the chasm they see themselves in to a better chasm. Where an Iowa voter has to belong to a party only for as long as it takes to vote, and can switch parties or switch back to “undeclared” immediately after. Or a Globes voter doesn’t have to speak English to love a performance. Imagine! Almost rubbing elbows with George Clooney on the Red Carpet and writing home to Malasia that you voted for anyone else. Standing in line for the Ladies’ Room behind Meryl Streep and letting the folks in Thailand know “she has to go, too!”

Emerging from the smoke and mirrors unreality in both lands of Oz is the spectacle of a man nobody seems to want, en route to being anointed to lead his party up or down the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City, more smoke and mirrors—and another man 16 of 62 voting members of his “party” (and one hell of a party they give) didn’t want returning to host this year’s Globes after the brouhaha his blatantly barbed remarks created last year, Ricky (the wicked wizard?) Gervais. In both lands of Oz, Caucusville and Stardust Fields, it’s as if a stickball game observed by three neighborhood kids determines who goes to the World Series.

- - -
*It’s noteworthy that “big time,” originally a term to describe the ultimate “White House” for vaudeville acts, was introduced as a synonym for “important” or “major” on radio, July 7, 1950, by the preeminent newscaster Lowell Thomas, in reference to the Korean War.

Mr. Nice Guy

Tom Hanks honored last Monday evening by The Film Society of Lincoln Center—or anytime by anyone for anything—brings back memories of time spent with a Hollywood rarity, a genuinely nice star.

I didn’t meet Tom Hanks on a Hollywood studio lot or on location. Nor was it an awards ceremony, or anywhere glamorous, that brought us together. We met in an El Al airport terminal at JFK.

I was traveling with an entourage. Tom was traveling alone. We were all bound for Israel. The star of our group was Shlomo “Chich” Lahat, dashing Israel Defense Forces General (ret.) turned dynamic Mayor of Tel Aviv (charismatic). He made the actor look like a shlepper.

Tom had just witnessed a scene more appropriate to a movie than to real life. Then New York Mayor Ed Koch had given Chich and company a police escort to the airport. That we didn’t need one was irrelevant. We arrived sirens screaming and lights flashing. The airport guards responded in kind by drawing their guns and surrounding us in a semi-circle of heightened security. As I crawled out of the second of our two cars, I nudged a slumping associate and said, “Look important—this is embarrassing.”

I had chosen this trip to take my youngest of two daughters, Haley, age 11, with me to see Israel for her first time. As we entered the terminal and took our places in line, Tom walked over to me and asked who we were. He didn’t need an introduction, but volunteered that he was on his way to Israel to do a film.

I gestured toward the mayor, introduced my daughter, and tried to explain, as in “dispel,” the unnecessary fuss. With another gesture I said, “Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

Tom Hanks is known in Hollywood as Mr. Nice Guy. For good reason. He’s easy to know, easy to chat with. I introduced him to Chich, all the while trying to discern from Chich’s reaction if he knew who Tom was—or even had a clue he was an actor. Israeli politicians support and appreciate the arts, but I have found that most of them think show business is nonsense.

First Class travel is for American film stars, not Israeli politicians. We were in Business Class, so—different lounges for different folks—we went our separate ways.

I emerged from using the Business Class men’s room to be told by Haley that “Tom was just here looking for you. He wants us to join him in the First Class lounge.”

The only occupant of the lounge other then Mr. Nice Guy was a Hasidic Jew, who ignored us as we lounged and chatted. At one point, Tom cited his credits and Haley, who was a child actress, cited hers. At boarding time, we went our separate ways again, Tom to the upstairs of the plane, Haley and I to join our group in the forward Business Class section.

The lights were out and I was dozing when I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Tom, who’d come down to visit. We strolled the aisles of the plane as we spoke. At one point, I paid him the only compliment I had for him. I told him how much I admired how free his acting was on a TV series I’d caught him on several times. Mr. Nice Guy modestly fielded the compliment with, “You get into a lot of bad habits in TV.”

We were whispering in a Coach Class aisle when someone stirred—a young girl. She looked up and nudged the girl next to her and heads started bobbing up in the rows of teenage girls apparently traveling together. Tom said he’d better go and retreated upstairs.

He joined Haley and me for breakfast the next morning in our mutual Tel Aviv hotel. Once again, we went our separate ways, I to my work in the city and he to his on location.

The next time I saw Tom was at the Oscars as the 62nd Annual Academy Awards ceremony concluded. Five years had passed and Haley had changed the most. She was radiant that night. Before he even got to us, I heard him excitedly telling his wife, “Rita, these are the people I told you about from the Israel trip!” I had just failed to win the Oscar I was nominated for—for Best Short Subjects Documentary—but as one of only three nominees that evening, I felt I’d already won beyond anything I’d ever dreamed. Tom put his arm around my shoulder and said, “I know what it feels like to come here and go away empty-handed.” It was such a sweet, thoughtful gesture from a remarkably sweet, thoughtful man, I had to act more disappointed than I was.