Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (63 page)

The Truth:
The story was planted by Joseph Howard, the city editor of the
Brooklyn Eagle
, who hoped to get rich by buying gold cheap before the story broke and selling it at inflated prices afterward. Howard wrote the fake AP report with an accomplice, then paid copy boys to deliver it to every newspaper in New York. Only two papers, the
World
and the
Journal of Commerce
, printed it without bothering to check if it was true. Howard and his accomplice were arrested two days after the story broke; they spent three months interned at an Army fort without trial before Lincoln personally ordered their release.

The Hidden Truth:
As Carl Sifakis writes in
Hoaxes and Scams,

      
At the very time the phony proclamation was released, Lincoln had a real one on his desk, calling for the drafting of 300,000 men. When the president saw the impact of the false proclamation on the public and the financial markets, he delayed the real call up for 60 days until the situation cooled.

What does it take to have a hit on Broadway? Well, judging from this story, it doesn’t hurt to be at least a
little
crazy.

O
bsession:
Movie producer Ray Stark married the daughter of a former 1930s vaudeville star. As he learned more about his mother-in-law’s life, he decided it had all the elements of a great film: determination (she’d become a star despite her homely appearance), romance (she fell in love with a handsome guy), tragedy (he was a gambler), and so on.

He made several unsuccessful attempts to get a film deal while the woman was still alive. No dice. When she died in 1951, he was so committed to the project that he bought the rights to her autobiography and convinced the publisher to burn all copies of the book except his…so no one else could make the film. Stark spent nine years working on the script, but still couldn’t sell it. Finally in 1960, he gave up on Hollywood and took it to Broadway. If he couldn’t make a movie, he’d make a musical.

What Happened:
People were more receptive to the story in New York. Stark got some top talent working on it—producer David Merrick, director Jerome Robbins, lyricist Jule Styne, and others. Their first task was finding a leading lady. Front-runners were veterans like Mary Martin, Carol Burnett, and Eydie Gorme. But when Robbins and Styne went to a New York nightclub and saw a 21-year-old singer named Barbra Streisand, they wanted her for the part. Stark wanted a more glamorous star (ironically, since his mother-in-law, Fanny Brice, wasn’t glamorous). But Robbins won out and Streisand got the part. Merrick ultimately dropped out of the project—but before he did, he convinced Stark to change the name of the play from
My Man
to
Funny Girl.

Epilogue:
Stark was proved right when his dream of a movie version finally came true in 1968. It was Streisand’s film debut, and a huge hit; she won an Oscar for Best Actress.

Here’s what the Presley estate did to preserve Elvis’s memory…and make a fortune from it in the process. Continued from Part I,
page 177
.

E
NTER PRISCILLA

The effort to keep Elvis’s estate out of bankruptcy was exhausting and probably contributed to his father Vernon Preslev’s death from heart disease in June 1979.

In his will, Vernon named three co-executors to take over his responsibilities: Elvis’s accountant Joseph Hanks, the National Bank of Commerce, and Priscilla Presley—Elvis’s ex-wife and the mother of his daughter, Lisa Marie. Priscilla had no business experience and had known nothing about the King’s financial affairs during the marriage…but to everyone’s surprise, she and her advisors took a leading role in rescuing the Presley estate for Lisa Marie.

FORCED INTO ACTION

With the bulk of Elvis’s fortune gone forever, Priscilla was forced to make the best of what remained, namely: 1) Graceland, and 2) Elvis’s name and likeness.

She immediately put both to work for the estate. First she opened Graceland to the public, charging $5 a head to the hundreds of thousands who visited each year. Then she took over the Elvis merchandising operations. Her strategy was simple but brilliant. “Since…the estate would have to rely on Elvis’s memory to generate revenue,” writes Sean O’Neal in
Elvis, Inc.,
“Elvis would be transformed into a symbol, a character that could be licensed to merchandisers. The estate would turn Elvis Presley into its own
version of Mickey Mouse.”

      
The problem with this idea was that, during the last eight years of his life, Elvis’s image was not very Disneyesque. His weight had ballooned and he had been addicted to prescription medication. By the time of his death, Elvis had become a grotesque caricature of the performer he once was. This Elvis would never do as the symbol of the new empire.

Priscilla’s solution to this problem was also simple and brilliant: she would act as though the 1977 Elvis never existed. Only the young Elvis, the King in his prime, would be acknowledged. It was this Elvis that would adorn the T-shirts, plates, shot glasses, billboards, and promotional literature of Priscilla’s new empire. In her sanitized version of his life, he died after his
1968 Comeback Special
, an idol in his prime, like James Dean.

COPYCATS

The only problem with this approach was that it had no teeth. After the King’s death, hundreds of companies had come out with Elvis posters, T-shirts, videos, calendars, velvet paintings, whiskey decanters, and just about anything else imaginable. The knockoffs were cheap and tacky; even worse, they competed against “official” Elvis memorabilia licensed by the Presley estate.

Obviously, without control of the Elvis image, Priscilla’s strategy would never work…and Lisa Marie would inherit nothing. So the estate was forced to fight for control of Elvis in court.

The heirs to Bela Lugosi and Laurel and Hardy had put up strong fights, but those battles were nothing compared to the efforts of the Presley clan. They fought lawsuit after lawsuit, in state after state. They put up millions of dollars. But they still couldn’t get the issue resolved.

The outcome in every state was different: In New York, for example, the estate won—Presley’s name and likeness were considered their exclusive property; but in California and Tennessee, Presley’s likeness was judged to be public domain. The upshot: Merchandisers who were chased out of one state could set up business in another. Then the Presley estate would have to start all over again and fight them there, too.

THE ELVIS LOBBY

As the legal battles continued, Priscilla and Co. adopted a new tactic. They began lobbying the Tennessee state legislature to create a “Personal Rights Protection Act.” This act was finally passed in 1984, and though it only officially applied in the state of Tennessee, its passage was quickly felt all over the country. Reason: In the American legal system, the laws of the state in which a person dies are the ones that apply in federal court. If someone in Missouri began selling an unlicensed Elvis poster, the Presley estate could now go into Missouri federal court and force the person to comply with Tennessee law. For the first time, the Presley estate had teeth all over the country.

Not long after the Tennessee law passed, California enacted a similar law, the Celebrity Rights Act, thanks in large part to a lawsuit filed by the heirs of comedian W. C. Fields (they had been trying to block a centerfold-style poster of Fields’s head superimposed over another naked fat man’s body).

Several other states, including Virginia, Florida, Utah, and Kentucky, passed their own versions of the law. And as more and more states followed, courts began recognizing that control of a celebrity’s name and likeness were as “inheritable” as any other piece of property.

ELVIS PRESLEY ENTERPRISES

These laws changed the face of celebrity merchandising in America. Suddenly, officially licensed products featuring icons such as Marilyn Monroe and James Dean started popping up. And in Memphis, Elvis Presley Enterprises, the merchandising arm of the estate run jointly by Priscilla and Jack Soden, became the “Elvis police.” They controlled every aspect of the Elvis image, from T-shirts to TV documentaries to random snapshots that had been taken by private photographers.

Priscilla’s original strategy was implemented—and today there are no fat Elvis photos floating around, ruining the King’s memory. Licensees only use “approved” pictures of the early Elvis; if they don’t have one, they can pick from the estate’s library of several thousand acceptable photos. And woe to anyone who tries to use Elvis’s name or likeness—no matter how innocent the motivation—without the consent of Presley Enterprises. Charities, cities, artists, and even school teachers have received lawyers’ letters.

The result of this effort has been impressive. In 1981, the Presley estate was on the verge of bankruptcy. By the 20th anniversary of Elvis’s death, in 1997, it was worth nearly $200 million. And it just keeps growing.

More morbidly fascinating details of the death-styles of the rich and famous.

C
ATHERINE THE GREAT

Claim to Fame:
Empress of Russia, 1762-1796

How She Died:
Like Elvis—from a stroke, suffered while going to the bathroom

Postmortem:
There are probably more rumors about Catherine’s death than that of any monarch in history (except “The King”: Elvis). Most of them relate to her reputedly unusual sexual appetite. For some reason, many people believe a horse was being lowered onto her when the cable holding the beast aloft snapped, crushing her. That’s 100% myth (perhaps invented by the French, Russia’s enemies at the time).

The truth:
Two weeks after suffering a mild stroke at the age of 67, Catherine appeared to be making a strong recovery. On Nov. 5 she began her day with her usual routine: she rose at 8:00 a.m., drank several cups of coffee, then went to spend 10 minutes in the bathroom. This morning, however, she didn’t come out. When her footman Zotov finally looked in on her, he found her sprawled on the floor, bleeding and barely alive. She died the next day.

GEORGE EASTMAN

Claim to Fame:
Founder of Eastman Kodak and father of modern photography

Postmortem:
In 1932 the 78-year-old Eastman was tired and ill. On March 14 he updated his will; later in the day, he asked his doctor and his nurses to leave the room, telling them he wanted to write a note. It turned out to be a suicide note. “As methodically has he had lived his 71 years [sic],” the
New York Times
reported the following morning, “he penned a brief note, carefully put out his cigarette, placed the cap back on his fountain pen and removed his glasses before firing a shot through his heart.”

ISADORA DUNCAN

Claim to Fame:
One of the world’s most famous modern dancers

How She Died:
From a broken neck

Postmortem:
On September 14, 1927, Duncan climbed into the passenger seat of a Bugatti race car wearing a long red silk scarf. The scarf was a little too long: when the car started off, the tail end wrapped around the wheel and yanked Duncan out of the car, snapping her neck and dragging her for several yards before the driver realized what had happened. It was too late. Final irony: A day before she died, Duncan had told an
Associated Press
reporter, “Now I’m frightened that some quick accident may happen.”

MARGARET MITCHELL

Claim to Fame: Author of Gone
with the Wind

How She Died:
Run down by an automobile

Postmortem:
Mitchell was crossing busy Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta with her husband. She was halfway across when she saw a speeding motorist bearing down on her. Mitchell had previously said she was certain she would die in a car crash. Perhaps that’s why she panicked, darting back across the street and leaving her husband standing there in the middle of the road. She got hit; he didn’t. She died in the hospital five days later. The driver who hit her turned out to be a 29-year-old taxi driver with 23 traffic violations on his record.

NELSON ROCKEFELLER

Claim to Fame:
Former governor of New York; vice president under Gerald Ford; grandson of John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil

How He Died:
According to official reports, he had a heart attack while sitting at his desk

Postmortem:
It was a cover-up. He was actually alone in his townhouse with 25-year-old Megan Marshack, who was on Rockefeller’s staff. She had reportedly been working with him on a book about his modern art collection, but as the New York
Daily News
reported, there were no work papers in the house—just food and wine. What really happened? Only two people know for sure…and one is dead.