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August 2010
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ENDINSIGHT — STARDUST MEMORIES
By Beverly Bartlett
April 2006
By Beverly Bartlett
My first novel, Princess Izzy and the E Street Shuffle , is styled as the tell-all biography of a trend-setting, fabulously glamorous aristocrat. To people who know me, this raises a question.
I grew up in a three-stoplight town in Missouri. I cut my journalism teeth on stories of crime and politics in rural Kentucky. And I now live the bland and practical life of a suburban mom in a middle-class subdivision in J-town. I often wear comfortable shoes. What could possibly qualify me to write a book about the gilded world of European royals?
I have a simple answer: “Because I have been to the Skye Terrace on Derby Day.”
I did not get to Millionaires Row on my own merits, of course. I came via Courier-Journal press pass, not by ticket. But it hardly mattered. I still got marriage tips from Designing Women’s Dixie Carter. I still flirted with Sex in the City’s John Corbett. (I smiled a lot and he remembered my name throughout our lengthy three-minute conversation.) I sort of stalked country-music legend George Strait. I was personally insulted by Joan Rivers. “There’s a lovely lady from the newspaper here to see you,” a woman said to her. Rivers looked right through me and said, “Where?” Character actor Ed Lauter (Mulholland Falls, Seabisquit) demonstrated for me the appropriate way to kiss a woman’s hand: The trick is to glance up and meet the woman’s eyes, just as your lips touch her hand. It is a heart-melting celebrity move, even when the kisser is Ed Lauter, someone you’ve never actually heard of.
I warned comedian Albert Brooks that I was going to ask him the silliest question of the day and he gently put his hand on my back and assured me that it couldn’t be that bad. And then I said, “Do you have any tattoos?” — a preordained question among C-J celebrity-watchers that year since tattoos were becoming extremely popular. Brooks removed his hand and stepped away from me before saying, essentially, “no.”
My defining celebrity experience, however, was the awkward moment when I watched another reporter ask Teri Hatcher’s husband for his name and occupation. Ouch! You see, actor Jon Tenney was — at least “officially” — as famous as his wife. Hatcher, who had been perfectly lovely up until that moment, bristled, grabbed her husband’s arm and led him away as she answered for him. “He’s Jon Tenney,” she said. “He’s on Brooklyn South.” (They’re divorced now and I have to wonder if he had issues with her success. And no, I don’t remember the show Brooklyn South either.)
Covering the “rich and famous” is supposed to be a plum Derby Day assignment, but it always filled me with dread and fear. I was terrified that someone big — Madonna, George Clooney — would show up unexpectedly and walk right by me and I would fail to recognize them. That’s the reason the Tenney incident haunted me. I could see myself re-enacting it, maybe even with someone I had actually heard of.
I would like to blame this fear on my highbrow interests and hobbies. I would like to suggest that if I failed to recognize Madonna it would only be because I was trying to see if that smart-looking older man studying a racing form was a recent Nobel Prize winner. But the truth is that I’m perfectly capable of recognizing any number of A-, B- or C-list celebrities. In fact, thanks to newsstand browsing during a recent long line at the grocery, I even have a pretty good idea of what Angelina Jolie’s unborn child looks like in sonogram form.
But recognizing a celebrity on Derby Day is different — especially on the Skye Terrace and in the Turf Club. A surprising number of men circulating in the upper-crust areas of Churchill Downs on Derby Day look a little like George Clooney. Many women look as good or better than Madonna. The great thing about the Derby is that everyone you see — at least everyone with a modicum of confidence and a sufficient tan — could be a celebrity. And the celebrities you see — uninformed in their bets, unsure of their hats, defensive of their husbands — could be ordinary Louisvillians.
This is a nightmare for a working journalist trying to spot stars in the crowd. But it’s uplifting in its own clichéd way. It taught me that even the hottest TV star, and by extension the most glamorous European princess, is only a fashion misstep away from being mistaken for a local librarian. Or, in extreme cases, Ed Lauter.
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