Fame! Fame! Fame!

Fame Junkies: The Hidden Truth Behind America’s Favorite Addition
Author: Jake Halpern
Published: 2007
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Fame Junkies is the book the fame industry doesn’t want you to read. At times funny, other times sad, Jake Halpern, author of Braving Home, has written an excellent critical account of what it means to be famous in America.

There are many striking examples of what passes for fame in America today. Halpern starts off with hip-hop star J-Kwon, who had a six-inch long bar code tattooed on his forearm. Why? “I got the bar code because I knew that someday I’d be a product,” he told Halpern. J-Kwon has earned some fame in the hip-hop world and the respect of countless other hip-hop wannabes.

Our culture of celebrity got its start, Halpern says, from the long ago television program Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Today Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood and American Idol feed society’s young, and not so young, with visions of instant fame and wealth. American Idol, Halpern tells us, “has more viewers than the nightly news on the three major networks combined.”

Magazines like People, Teen People and US Weekly, as well as the supermarket tabloids, keep us informed about the every movement of Brad and Jen, Nick and Jessica, Britney and Kevin, Paris and Nicole and all the rest. We have a 24/7 cycle of celebrity. Enquiring minds want to know who is with whom and for how long and what the breakup was about.

These TV programs and magazines have brainwashed legions of kids into thinking they too can be famous. Halpern introduces us to Personal Best, a small town fame school for kids wanting to be stars of commercials, billboards or, the ultimate, a national television program.

The school, conveniently for Halpern, is located in his hometown of Buffalo, New York. Jessica White is a Personal Best graduate. You might have seen a lot of her in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue.

A former beauty queen, also a local TV “movie lady,” manages Personal Best for kids of varying ages who want to learn acting and modeling so they can go to Los Angeles and be famous. Halpern meets one young lady who immediately tells him, “You can ask anyone in my family or any of my friends, and they will tell you that what I want more than anything is to be famous.” It is a desire she shares with others at the school.

Instead of memorizing poetry or historical speeches, kids at Personal Best memorize mouthwash commercials in hopes it will lead to fame and fortune. And their parents pay good money for them to get this “training.” As the reader gradually learns, when dreams of fame are at stake, no expense is too great.

Students at Personal Best are trained to go to the International Modeling and Talent Association (IMTA) convention in New York City. Many of Buffalo’s budding young talents have never been to New York City and, in some cases families can barely afford the trip and the convention fees, which Halpern estimates at $10,000. Since West Coast agents will attend the convention, families intent on fame find the money to attend.

Throughout the book, Halpern interviewed psychologists and educators who study fame and celebrity. It helps readers understand some of the illogical behaviors of the fame seekers.

One psychologist says, “The danger is that if these adolescents don’t curb all this daydreaming with a healthy dose of reality, they could end up in relationships that are manipulative or exploitive.” This seems excellent advice for the many young girls intent on fame at any cost.

From New York, Halpern takes us to the IMTA convention in Los Angeles. It is here that Ashton Kutcher and Elijah Wood were discovered. Equipped with a press badge, Halpern is besieged by kids wanting to give him their “head shots” along with a speech on why they want to be famous. After one young boy delivers his speech, a veteran of the conventions tells Halpern “it takes balls to do what that kid is doing.”

Halpern leaves the convention to visit a colony of young would be stars and starlets at Oakwood Toluca Hills, just outside Hollywood. Built in 1971, the gated community has 1,151 apartments. Some of the kids live with a parent or guardian while older kids room together.

Hilary Swank and Jamie Foxx passed though Oakwood. Sadly, many parents finance their kids’ stay at Oakwood with money that would have been used to finance college. Alas, economics and life are all about choices.

For those who don’t have the confidence to become a celebrity, there is still fame to be found in the Association of Celebrity Personal Assistants. I found this the saddest chapter. One guy works as a personal assistant to Tiffani Thiesen, a star of the 1990s show Beverly Hills 90210.

The show may be defunct, but we learn from “celebrities” like Thiesen, and the guy who assists her, that once granted celebrity status is permanent. The average celebrity personal assistant earns $56,000 annually, but psychologists suggest they also get satisfaction from the reflected glory of being near a celebrity.

Halpern learns from an academic that teen participants in a survey preferred dinner with Paris Hilton and 50 Cent rather than Jesus Christ. Halpern also informs us that teens prefer celebrity status by a wide margin over careers as political or corporate leaders. Dismal news? At least one academic suggests teen minds will likely change with maturity.

The author condenses celebrity craziness to a single person: Marcy Braunstein, a Pittsburg housewife who idolizes rock star Rod Stewart. She has a “Rod Room” in her house with such items as a glass he drank from. She travels around the world to see his performances.

Why does she love Rod Stewart? “It’s the whole package—the hair, the raspy tenor of the voice, the high cheekbones—it just drives me crazy,” Braunstein tells Halpern. When she learns Stewart has no star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, she takes this on with a personal zeal that astounds.

Braunstein succeeds and gets Rod his star. She even gets to give a speech when it is unveiled in a high profile Hollywood ceremony. Stewart is appreciative, but not overly affectionate to the obsessed Braunstein.

Halpern ends his critical look at fame at The Fund, a Woodland Hills, California, retirement home, where he meets some of Hollywood’s octogenarian stars. They manage to keep their spirits high by waiting, hoping and praying for a comeback and an Academy Award.

“Ultimately, our obsession with celebrities isn’t about them; it’s about us and our needs,” Halpern writes. “We love them, or hate them, or pity them, or profess not to care but secretly do. In one way or another we use them. And when they grow old and lose the traits that once made them noteworthy--when they become frail, aged mortals like the residents of The Fund--we conveniently forget them, because they no longer serve our needs.”

Fame Junkies is an excellent critical appraisal of the American love affair with celebrity and fame. After reading this book, I suspect readers will think beyond the smiling faces on TV and magazine covers to the kids who spent everything and got nothing in return. This book is an instant classic of our times.

-30-Jim Patterson, an economist and freelance journalist, is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. A former Washingtonian, he now writes from San Francisco.