Hollywood’s big scandal dissected
by Ray Gustini
Monday, April 24, 2006
Right now, Hollywood is in the midst of the biggest scandal in recent
history that does not involve Charlie Sheen and hookers dressed as
cheerleaders. It involves a private investigator named Anthony
Pellicano, who is currently awaiting trial on charges of racketeering
and illegal wiretaps. For whatever reason, the country has not fully
embraced this scandal, if only because the details are so exceedingly
complex. In order to help everybody understand why this is such a major
scandal, I have endeavored to compile a sort-of “Idiot’s
Guide to the Anthony Pellicano Investigation.” Here goes:
Who is Anthony Pellicano?
Anthony Pellicano is a 62-year-old surveillance expert who has been
labeled “private investigator to the stars” (rule of thumb:
Anytime you want to convince people you are more important than you
actually are, simply add the suffix “to the stars” to your
job title. Works like a charm). He got his big break in 1972 after Liz
Taylor hired him to find out who stole the corpse of her late husband
Mike Todd. He was able to trade on his reputation as “the guy who
finds Liz Taylor’s dead husbands when they go missing” and
ended up starting the Pellicano Investigative Agency. His agency was
employed by numerous big-time Hollywood lawyers (including Bert Fields,
widely recognized as the “lawyer to the stars,” which only
serves to further my point). Pellicano also earned a reputation as
somebody you could turn to if you ever needed a little hired muscle.
Wow! Private investigator to the stars! That sounds like a really great job. He must be living the good life!
Ehh, not so much. In 2002, FBI agents swarmed his Sunset Boulevard
office looking for evidence connecting him to threats made against Los
Angeles Times reporter Anita Busch. Busch was working on a piece about
possible ties between Steven Seagal and the mob. In order to dissuade
her from this idea, Pellicano allegedly shot a bullet through her
windshield and put a dead fish with a rose in its mouth on her hood,
along with a note saying “Stop.” While the FBI didn’t
find any incriminating salmon fillets in his office, they did find
enough military-grade C4 to take down a jumbo jet. But wait,
that’s not the best part — after he served his 30 months
for illegally possessing dangerous material, he was arrested again,
this time on charges of racketeering and illegal wire-tapping.
Why should I care about this? Because the illegal wiretaps he is
accused of performing were allegedly performed at the bequest of
Hollywood lawyers and powerbrokers representing various players in L.A.
And when this thing goes to trial, we are going to be hearing a.) which
celebrities he was indirectly representing and b.) why he was
representing them. This has the potential to be embarrassing for a lot
of very important people since, if you are to believe press reports,
pretty much everybody in southern California who needed any kind of
skullduggery performed turned to Pellicano. So basically, a lot of very
dirty laundry is going to be made public in the very near future.
What famous people are associated with this guy?
Peripherally, pretty much everybody in Hollywood, which is what makes
this thing so dangerous. Anybody who ever hired a lawyer in L.A. could
be a target if that lawyer then turned to Pellicano to help gather
information. Whether they like it or not, we are probably about to hear
some very embarrassing things about the likes of Tom Cruise, Dustin
Hoffman, Michael Jackson, Nicole Kidman, John Travolta, Kevin Costner
and Brad Grey (the former talent czar who took control of Paramount six
weeks ago), all of whom have been peripherally linked to Pellicano, via
their lawyers. Others — including Garry Shandling and Keith
Carradine — are rumored to be victims of his wiretaps.
Have any famous people been charged with anything?
The only quasi-famous person who has actually been charged and
convicted of anything is director John McTiernan (“Die
Hard”) who pled guilty last week to lying to federal
investigators about hiring Pellicano to wiretap Charles Roven, his
producer on “Rollerball.” Personally, I can’t wait
for the government to unseal McTiernan’s testimony, if only so we
can hear his rationale about why it was necessary to risk five years in
a federal pen for the sake of “Rollerball.”
Who stands to lose the most?
Well, here we’re operating under the assumption that McT
didn’t have much to lose, unless he had a “13th
Warrior” sequel in the works that nobody knew about. The one
person who is sweating the most is newly minted Paramount president
Brad Grey, who has long been an associate of Pellicano’s. The New
York Times reported back in March that Grey may have hired Pellicano to
wiretap phone conversations between screenwriter Bo Zenga and his
attorney, Gregory Dovel, and used the information Pellicano obtained to
access Zenga’s bank accounts. This was just the latest in a
string of revelations that suggest Grey may have been listening in on
everybody’s phone in L.A., with the possible exception of the
busboy at The Ivy. These are not the kind of rumors the Paramount board
of directors want to hear about the guy they went on a limb to hire
just a year ago (he only assumed power on March 1). It’s gotten
so bad that it now looks like a question not of “if,” but
“when” Grey will be forced out of his office on the
Paramount lot. Prominent British gossip hound Toby Young has suggested
that if Grey’s implosion plays out to it’s logical
endpoint, Paramount may turn to Vanity Fair managing editor Graydon
Carter to help right the ship, thus continuing Paramount’s
decades long streak of “Huh?”-inducing moments.
On a scale of 1 to 10, just how creepy is Anthony Pellicano?
A solid 9. Over the years, he certainly has lived up to his moniker,
“The Big Sleazy.” Alex Constantine, author of
“Virtual Government,” claims Pellicano has “more mob
connections than J. Edgar Hoover.” Indeed, Pellicano admits to
taking money from the son of mob boss Paul de Lucia. Along with the
whole Anita Busch dead-fish-on-the-dashboard incident (which, frankly,
to me, seems like overkill: I think she probably would have known to
“Stop” when she saw the dead fish and bullet through the
windshield), he’s boasted about how he keeps a Louisville Slugger
in his car and is not above using it.
Case in point: In the early-’90s, Rod Lurie (who would later go
on to direct “The Contender” and “The Last
Castle”) was working on an expose on The National Enquirer for
Los Angeles. After receiving threatening phone calls from Pellicano,
telling Lurie that his life was going to drastically change, Lurie
ended up being the victim of a hit-and-run when he was biking near his
house. Even John Connolly, a reporter known for his own aggressive (if
effective) tactics conceded that “[Pellicano’s] tactics
have a real chilling effect” on reporters. Connolly was a subject
of these tactics when he was working on a story about Steven Seagal.
All in all, the guy is a real prize.
What lessons can the average person glean from this scandal?
Unlike a lot of scandals that come out of Hollywood, this case
doesn’t have a lot of lessons that apply to the common man. There
are no easily arrived at conclusions, like “Don’t pick up
transvestite hookers” or “Never enter into a sexual
relationship with Tom Cruise unless you want your core beliefs totally
altered.” Really, though, if we’ve learned anything,
it’s this: a.) Don’t trust a man who built his reputation
on finding the dead body of Liz Taylor’s ex-husband and b.) If
you are a journalist and you feel compelled to write an article about
Steven Seagal (I’m looking at you, Nerd Alert), make sure
it’s a positive one. But you already knew that.
Ray Gustini is a freshman majoring in history and political science.
Want to talk scandal with him? Send him an e-mail at gustini@wisc.edu.
http://badgerherald.com/artsetc/2006/04/24/hollywoods_big_scan.php