Tinseltown gold

0 Comments | Insight on the News, March 23, 1998 | by Tiffany Danitz

Just weeks before theater marquees are to proclaim the showing of Primary Colors, the movie version of the roman a clef about Bill Clinton's first run for the presidency, Hollywood clef about Bill Clinton's first run producer Harry Thomason has arrived at the White House, sans golf clubs but packing his toothbrush, to bring his cinemagic touch to the president's defense in the Zippergate scandals. In the meantime, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose approval ratings in the polls are up near 50 percent, received a standing ovation from 300 members of the entertainment-industry elite.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde of Illinois was feted in mid-February by the Screen Actors Guild. Other Republicans, including House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich of Ohio and Rep. W.J. "Billy" Tauzin of Louisiana, and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi and Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, have been trooping around Hollywood as well. Not exactly politics as usual. Or is it?

Hollywood is liberal -- everybody knows that. So effectively has Clinton wooed the town that Democratic coffers are stuffed full of Tinseltown gold and Primary Colors, the movie, has been mellowed from the author's scathing book. If critics listen quietly they may hear the voice of Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs hissing, "Quid pro quo."

"You surround yourself with the glitterati," Media Research Center Chairman Brent Bozell says of Clinton, "you get their money and their star power and they get to sleep over in the Lincoln Bedroom and attend state dinners and all the various trappings of government. It is almost a nefarious arrangement."

But since the Republican sweep into the House, followed by the president's support of the V-chip electronic channel-blocker and toleration of trade restrictions on U.S. film exports, Hollywood is suffering. The masters of the film capital are facing the need to listen to conservatives, who oppose the V-chip and are furious about restrictive foreign regulations. Indeed, some in the film capital are reconsidering Hollywood's half-century devotion to one party.

This hope of a Republican renaissance coincides with the retirement of Lew Wasserman, the man who took care of Hollywood's interests in Washington. Wasserman, the former chief executive officer of the vast MCA talent agency, still has plenty of influence, but less than before. He and his wife, Edith, have contributed approximately $450,000 to Clinton and the Democrats since 1991, and he held a million-dollar fund-raiser for Clinton in his backyard in 1996.

But Wasserman's point man in Washington, Jack Valenti of the Motion Picture Association of America, is dealing with a Republican Congress as well as the president's somewhat embarrassing position on important issues for the entertainment industry. This tiny tear in the hull of the SS Hollywood's presumably unsinkable liberalism just may be enough for the Republicans to begin slipping in by taking advantage of the industry's famed interest in the bottom line. Valenti may be a long-time Democrat, but he learned the ropes from Lyndon Johnson, and he can tell political reality from trick photography.

Film reviewer, radio talk-show host and author Michael Medved says "that in a time when even Albania has welcomed a two-party system, it is time for the walls to come down and a two-party system to come into being even in Hollywood."

But this still is in the making. There are endless examples of Hollywood's allegiance to the Clinton administration, the latest of which is what has happened to Primary Colors. The making of this movie about a Southern governor passionate about ideals but clumsily adulterous on the campaign trail is a case study of the relationship that has grown between the Clinton White House and Hollywood.

Mary Matalin, the former campaign deputy for George Bush who battled Clinton's team daily in 1992, says Clinton is "starstruck in a way that betrays his own inadequacies. He is a brilliant man but of no gravity because he has no convictions or moral bearings. Everything is fluff and image." Very Hollywood.

The head of Universal Studios, which is releasing the film, has contributed to Clinton's campaigns. The film's director, who is said to have won the rights to the film by declaring it to be about "honor," is Mike Nichols. A friend of Clinton's, Nichols campaigned for him and was on the president's Martha's Vineyard party list. Elaine May, who joined Nichols to perform at Clinton's first major Hollywood fund-raiser, adapted the script. As the Clinton character, Nichols cast John Travolta when Tom Hanks passed it up, reportedly due to a scheduling conflict.

Matalin says Travolta's connection to the film indicates how stars and politicians scratch each other's backs. Clinton gives John Travolta, who is devoted to Scientology, "access to the highest reaches of government, and then they change the movie to be more favorable to Clinton. That smacks of an irregular relationship," she tells Insight. White House National Security Adviser Sandy Berger was named the point man on Scientology, briefing Travolta last fall about the administration's efforts to help the beleaguered church created by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard.