Evening Standard: How to respond to a dirt-digging biography
By David Rowan
WHAT'S an artiste do when muckraking authors insist on digging for dirt? The latest victim is Barry Manilow, whose avowed heterosexuality placed in serious doubt by an unauthorised biography out next month from Patricia Butler.
As for Madonna, she can hardly be looking forward to Barbara Victor's assault, also hitting the shelves in November. Having 'done' Hanan Ashrawi and Aung San Suu Kyi, Ms Victor takes on this quiet Dorsetbased mother-of-two by quoting her grandmother and her alleged highschool girlfriend. Early reports suggest the book chronicles the singer's 11 denied abortions, and an unflattering story about how she snared her current husband. Muck enough, surely, to bring the libel writs flying.
Well, apparently not. Rather than sue, Madonna's team has opted for far less risky strategy: the Overdone Denial. It's just one in a range well-tested celebrity responses to the scandalmongers, from the Dignified Evasion to the Snotty Putdown. To Barry Manilow, and other biography victims, we offer this guide to your options.
MADONNA
Goddess, by Barbara Victor
Claims: She has terminated at least 11 pregnancies, including one 'with a British man' just before she met Guy Ritchie. Who, by the way, married her only when she 'deliberately' became pregnant by him.
Response: The Overdone Denial.
The allegations are 'completely untrue' and 'ridiculous', her former US music publicist said. The book 'is just being dismissed', added her UK spokeswoman. There are no plans for legal action.
JK ROWLING
JK Rowling: A Biography, by Sean Smith
Claims: The Edinburgh cafe where this 'penniless single mother' was forced to write was in fact owned by her brother-in-law, who liked her being there. She once argued in the street with her first husband, Jorge Arantes. Oh, and she was fined for overdue library books while at Exeter University.
Response: The Dignified Evasion.
'We have no comment,' said a Rowling spokesman.
VICTORIA AND DAVID BECKHAM
Posh & Becks, by Andrew Morton
Claims: The alleged attempt to kidnap Brooklyn outside Harrods was just a publicity stunt to have David's driving ban quashed. There was no 'manic fan', said witnesses; it was just 'spin doctoring to get him off '. If so, it worked: the judge returned his licence.
Response: Heavy-Handed Litigation.
The couple tried hard to ban the book, on the grounds that a former bodyguard had breached his employment contract by talking. After an aggressive court case, they settled for the removal of about 200 words.
JEFFREY ARCHER
Stranger Than Fiction, by Michael Crick
Claims: He's a compulsive fibber from pretending to be the youngest MP to inventing academic qualifications.
He falsified his own expenses and offered to complete fellow GLC councillors' expenses for a fee; his father was a bigamist and fraudster; he gets involved in dodgy business projects. And he writes bad books.
Response: Loud Legal Threats.
Archer promised legal action against Crick and his wife. In fact, by interviewing 1,000 people, Crick had the evidence to halt the lawyers. Archer is now on a long-term residential writing course.
THE WINDSOR FAMILY
The Royals, by Kitty Kelley
Claims: A juicy portrait of just another typically dysfunctional British family - promiscuous, adulterous, drug-abusing, alcoholic, sexaddicted, money-grubbing, Nazisupporting, stupid and duplicitous. They father illegitimate children all over the place, and the Queen and her sister were fertility-clinic babies.
Response: The Snotty Putdown.
'Nobody has seen it and nobody is interested in seeing it,' a Palace spokesman sniffed. 'Frankly, we have got better things to do than to waste our time on tittletattle.' Still, the publishers didn't take any risks, and kept it off the UK shelves for fear of libel action.
GEOFFREY ROBINSON
The Paymaster, by Tom Bower
Claims: Robinson, the former Paymaster-General, allegedly lied about £200,000 received from crooked businessman Robert Maxwell. He denied having been given the money, and did not declare it.
Response: The Unwise Fight-back.
Robinson blustered on - but Bower had an invoice for the £200,000. When the Government's Standards Committee saw the evidence, it condemned Robinson - who had committed the sin of misleading MPs. He now faces disciplinary action.
GERMAINE GREER
Greer: Untamed Shrew, by Christine Wallace
Claims: Greer isn't a proper feminist, has had too much sex, and uses the women's movement for her own PR.
Besides, The Female Eunuch was her agent's idea. She once had a naked fling on a cricket pitch, and when bored at a dinner party set fire to her hair. It all stems, apparently, from a troubled childhood: her mother beat her with a toaster cable.
Response: The Abusive Counterattack.
Greer condemned Wallace as 'a dung beetle' and 'a flesh-eating bacterium', and threatened to 'kneecap' her pursuer if she ever met her.
MOHAMED FAYED
Fayed: The Unauthorised Biography, by Tom Bower
Claims: Fayed is a sexually obsessed bully who harasses and bugs his staff, issues his private army with Walther PPK handguns, has them shoot his pets for being 'dirty', gives bricks of £50 notes to Tory MPs.
Response: The Hurt Letter. Fayed wrote to the papers to condemn Bower's 'vicious lies', and concluded that he was 'the victim of a concerted media campaign by the Establishment and the intelligence community to destroy me because of what I know about them'. Bower is no longer welcome in Harrods.
(Evening Standard, October 17 2001)
WHAT'S an artiste do when muckraking authors insist on digging for dirt? The latest victim is Barry Manilow, whose avowed heterosexuality placed in serious doubt by an unauthorised biography out next month from Patricia Butler.
As for Madonna, she can hardly be looking forward to Barbara Victor's assault, also hitting the shelves in November. Having 'done' Hanan Ashrawi and Aung San Suu Kyi, Ms Victor takes on this quiet Dorsetbased mother-of-two by quoting her grandmother and her alleged highschool girlfriend. Early reports suggest the book chronicles the singer's 11 denied abortions, and an unflattering story about how she snared her current husband. Muck enough, surely, to bring the libel writs flying.
Well, apparently not. Rather than sue, Madonna's team has opted for far less risky strategy: the Overdone Denial. It's just one in a range well-tested celebrity responses to the scandalmongers, from the Dignified Evasion to the Snotty Putdown. To Barry Manilow, and other biography victims, we offer this guide to your options.
MADONNA
Goddess, by Barbara Victor
Claims: She has terminated at least 11 pregnancies, including one 'with a British man' just before she met Guy Ritchie. Who, by the way, married her only when she 'deliberately' became pregnant by him.
Response: The Overdone Denial.
The allegations are 'completely untrue' and 'ridiculous', her former US music publicist said. The book 'is just being dismissed', added her UK spokeswoman. There are no plans for legal action.
JK ROWLING
JK Rowling: A Biography, by Sean Smith
Claims: The Edinburgh cafe where this 'penniless single mother' was forced to write was in fact owned by her brother-in-law, who liked her being there. She once argued in the street with her first husband, Jorge Arantes. Oh, and she was fined for overdue library books while at Exeter University.
Response: The Dignified Evasion.
'We have no comment,' said a Rowling spokesman.
VICTORIA AND DAVID BECKHAM
Posh & Becks, by Andrew Morton
Claims: The alleged attempt to kidnap Brooklyn outside Harrods was just a publicity stunt to have David's driving ban quashed. There was no 'manic fan', said witnesses; it was just 'spin doctoring to get him off '. If so, it worked: the judge returned his licence.
Response: Heavy-Handed Litigation.
The couple tried hard to ban the book, on the grounds that a former bodyguard had breached his employment contract by talking. After an aggressive court case, they settled for the removal of about 200 words.
JEFFREY ARCHER
Stranger Than Fiction, by Michael Crick
Claims: He's a compulsive fibber from pretending to be the youngest MP to inventing academic qualifications.
He falsified his own expenses and offered to complete fellow GLC councillors' expenses for a fee; his father was a bigamist and fraudster; he gets involved in dodgy business projects. And he writes bad books.
Response: Loud Legal Threats.
Archer promised legal action against Crick and his wife. In fact, by interviewing 1,000 people, Crick had the evidence to halt the lawyers. Archer is now on a long-term residential writing course.
THE WINDSOR FAMILY
The Royals, by Kitty Kelley
Claims: A juicy portrait of just another typically dysfunctional British family - promiscuous, adulterous, drug-abusing, alcoholic, sexaddicted, money-grubbing, Nazisupporting, stupid and duplicitous. They father illegitimate children all over the place, and the Queen and her sister were fertility-clinic babies.
Response: The Snotty Putdown.
'Nobody has seen it and nobody is interested in seeing it,' a Palace spokesman sniffed. 'Frankly, we have got better things to do than to waste our time on tittletattle.' Still, the publishers didn't take any risks, and kept it off the UK shelves for fear of libel action.
GEOFFREY ROBINSON
The Paymaster, by Tom Bower
Claims: Robinson, the former Paymaster-General, allegedly lied about £200,000 received from crooked businessman Robert Maxwell. He denied having been given the money, and did not declare it.
Response: The Unwise Fight-back.
Robinson blustered on - but Bower had an invoice for the £200,000. When the Government's Standards Committee saw the evidence, it condemned Robinson - who had committed the sin of misleading MPs. He now faces disciplinary action.
GERMAINE GREER
Greer: Untamed Shrew, by Christine Wallace
Claims: Greer isn't a proper feminist, has had too much sex, and uses the women's movement for her own PR.
Besides, The Female Eunuch was her agent's idea. She once had a naked fling on a cricket pitch, and when bored at a dinner party set fire to her hair. It all stems, apparently, from a troubled childhood: her mother beat her with a toaster cable.
Response: The Abusive Counterattack.
Greer condemned Wallace as 'a dung beetle' and 'a flesh-eating bacterium', and threatened to 'kneecap' her pursuer if she ever met her.
MOHAMED FAYED
Fayed: The Unauthorised Biography, by Tom Bower
Claims: Fayed is a sexually obsessed bully who harasses and bugs his staff, issues his private army with Walther PPK handguns, has them shoot his pets for being 'dirty', gives bricks of £50 notes to Tory MPs.
Response: The Hurt Letter. Fayed wrote to the papers to condemn Bower's 'vicious lies', and concluded that he was 'the victim of a concerted media campaign by the Establishment and the intelligence community to destroy me because of what I know about them'. Bower is no longer welcome in Harrods.
(Evening Standard, October 17 2001)
posted by David Rowan at Wednesday, October 17, 2001
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