Helen of Troy Riding a Bicycle
I was midway through my ten-year run as co-host of Entertainment Tonight. My face was becoming somewhat recognizable, which wasn’t always the most comfortable feeling but also had its fair share of benefits. Perhaps the strangest of which was that it put me on the short list for highly lucrative corporate events. Big companies love to hire comedians, musical acts, and TV personalities to host or perform at their company-wide events and retreats engineered to reward and inspire their employees. In early 1991 the IBM Corporation hired me to host two nights of their gala celebration honoring their top performers of the year. They dubbed it the IB-Emmys, complete with gold trophies and a red carpet, and they took over the ballroom of the Marriott Desert Springs Hotel in Palm Desert, California.
As the week of the event arrived, I walked off the Entertainment Tonight set at 1:00 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon and jumped into a limousine with my close friend, attorney, and consummate wingman, Chuck Kenworthy. We then made the two-hour trek east into the desert. Rehearsal for the two ceremonies I’d be emceeing, the first one taking place later that evening, was set for 6:30 p.m. Once the ceremony was over, Chuck and I would then limo back to Hollywood and return for the final ceremony on Friday evening. I would have much rather just stayed the entire week, but Chuck and I had our day jobs to consider.
We arrive right around 3:00 p.m. I’m in my room for maybe ten minutes and the phone rings. It’s Chuck.
“Hey, I’m down in the lobby bar. My old pal Glen Larson is here shooting his new series, P.S. I Luv U, starring Connie Sellecca and Greg Evigan. Come on down!”
“Wow, that’s great,” I say. “I’m going to hang out here. Maybe hit the gym before the IBM rehearsal. But enjoy!”
The thought of a bar full of entertainment industry people is not at all appealing to me. Besides, I am feeling more than a little unprepared for the IBM thing, and I need to use the time to come up with some snappy ET-like zingers for the gala. I spend the next couple of hours going over the show prep that the IBM folks have sent me and then decide that I need a little free-weight time in the hotel gym to clear out the cobwebs now occupying my brain. When I get to the gym I take one step inside and right there in the corner, pedaling away on the exercise bike, is none other than Connie Sellecca.
There is something you need to understand—or remember, depending on your age—about Connie. She was transcendent—and she still is. In the 1980s and early 1990s, she was it. She was the star of the hit television series Hotel with James Brolin, but my strongest memory of her was when she played Pam, the levelheaded attorney and voice of reason for the other characters on the kitschy superhero series called The Greatest American Hero, of which I was a huge fan. The show featured William Katt, Robert Culp, Connie, and a number one hit theme song I wish I had written. I’ve always been a big comic book devotee. I’m a sucker for anyone with superpowers even if they can’t figure out how to use their new super suit and they fly into walls. Connie was stunning in her role as Pam, and in her capacity as the Greatest American Hero’s love interest. Back then, did I imagine her as my love interest? Didn’t everyone?
Connie had also been a special fitness correspondent for ET, and although I had never met her in person, I did end up “throwing” to her exercise report on a prerecorded video. I even tagged her “celebrity fitness report” with a friendly jab at her New York accent that slipped out during her signoff: “I’m Connie Sellecca for EN-TUH-TAIN-MENT-TUH-NIGHT.” It was beyond cute, and a welcome reminder of the accents I grew up with as a kid on Long Island. I couldn’t resist pointing it out on the broadcast and it played great. You wouldn’t know from watching that we’d never met—at least that’s how I feel all these years later, looking back.
And so, as I stand there in the doorway of the Marriott gym, I am frozen in my tracks at the sight of her. She’s wearing a Sony headset over a white headband, a floral print leotard, white anklets, and a pair of blue Nike running shoes. Her incredible green eyes are laser-focused on the bike’s digital display. I feel like if I keep looking, I’ll turn to stone. I call on my legs to move. No response. I have just become super-geek-Johnny-Tesh, with rubber bands on my braces and dots of Clearasil on my face. My heartbeat doubles.
My first thought is that if she spots me, she will likely be furious at my cute little New Yawk ad-lib on ET. So I take a hard left in the gym and head for the chin-up bar. This is the first of a number of mistakes. I haven’t done a pull-up since junior high, so when I jump up to grab the bar, instead of actually lifting 210 pounds into the air, I just hang there swinging slowly back and forth, doing a little “chin-up bar stretch” and pretending that is a thing. That’s a thing, right? I look down toward my feet that are now thirty inches off the ground and notice that one of my socks is inside out and I have a salsa stain on my gym shirt. From my elevated vantage point I can now see that Connie and I are the only two people in the hotel gym. Thankfully, she is still staring at the digital display on the exercise bike and has not yet spotted me.
I drop off the bar onto the mat and head over to the sit-up bench where I think I’ll be safe. Mistake Number Two. The bench is elevated, and when I lock my size-16 tennis shoes under the rollers at the apex of the bench and lean back down the length of the bench, I’m suddenly staring up at the ceiling. My body is at a 90-degree angle, and the blood is rushing to the back of my head. I know I’m in serious trouble. By now, it’s logical to assume that Connie is watching all of this and reviewing her CPR training in her head. I begin doing inclined sit-ups. The sit-ups deteriorate into mini crunches. The crunches devolve into simple, feeble stretching.
I’m done for.
I am an Eagle Scout, so I am at least cognizant of the fact that in order to survive I need to save enough energy to lift myself all the way up to the rollers one last time, release my feet, and run back to my hotel room in a cramping, panicked, red-faced ball of shame. One more desperate burst of sit-up power, a thrust skyward with my arms fully extended, and I’m able to barely reach my ankles to pull myself up and out of the sit-up bench.
I’m free!
I immediately head for the exit, head bowed, averting my eyes. This could have been Mistake Number Three if it weren’t for this voice coming from the corner of the room: “Ah, excuse me . . . are you John Tesh? Is that you?”
I spin around. My legs are once again granite. I’m dazzled.
“Oh, Connie. Connie Sellecca. I didn’t see you there!”
With that cute little New York accent she quickly shoots back, “Well, we’re the only two people in the gym.”
“Yeah, you’ve got a point.” I manage an awkward smile.
“What are you doing in Palm Desert?” she continues.
“Well, I’m hosting an event in the ballroom for IBM tonight and then again on Friday night.”
“Oh, that’s great,” she says. “It’s nice to meet you. Maybe I’ll see you around.”
“Well, I’ll be back on Friday. Maybe we can have a drink at Kosta’s right here at the hotel?”
I look around to see who said that. It is me. In a nanosecond the reel-to-reel recorder in my head goes into rewind. My brain hits Play. Yep, I just asked Connie Sellecca out on a date.
Connie continues pedaling, then says, “Okay. That sounds great,” like it’s the most casual thing ever.
Her answer reaches me, drowned in reverb. And suddenly it occurs to me that I just asked out the prom queen.
I hear myself say, “Okay, see you Friday,” then see myself, in some kind of out-of-body experience, spin around toward the exit, slither out the gym door, and leave the presence of one of TV Guide’s ten most beautiful women. My head is on fire. I just spoke to Helen of Troy on a bicycle in a hotel gym and I asked her out?
I’ve now switched into full courtship mode and I’m pummeling the elevator button, frantically trying to get back upstairs to my room before Connie gets off the bike. Once there, I grab a piece of hotel stationery out of the desk drawer. I telephone guest services to “send a bellman to my room right away!” I pull my new Tour de France cassette tape out of my backpack. I sit down and write this note:
Hey Connie,
It was great meeting you. If you are listening to music while you’re on the exercise bike, you might as well listen to music that was written for the greatest bike race on earth, the Tour de France. I’ll see you Friday.
—John
The doorbell rings.
I place a twenty-dollar bill in the bellman’s palm and then hand him the note and the tape.
“Please deliver this to Connie Sellecca’s room right away.”
“Yes, sir, and thank you, Mr. Tesh.”
As the door closes behind the bellman, my first thought is that I have just made a huge fool of myself. Connie Sellecca is Hollywood royalty, and I am just one of the many reporters who cover her world. I am the tall blond guy on the edge of the red carpet, holding the big ET microphone, yelling questions about who designed her dress. I imagine her bemused look as she reads my note and looks at the cassette tape with bicycles on it.
“Wow, this guy composes music for bicycles. Lovely. How quaint. I must remember to have my assistant dash off a nice thank-you note right after I drop this tape into the waste basket.”
Despite my typical male misgivings and a whole lot of a second-guessing, I am still smitten. My feelings are all-consuming, to the point that I barely remember the next two and a half hours hosting the IBM event. In fact, the only reason I’m sure I fulfilled my obligations is because they didn’t ask for their money back and because I spend the entire limo ride back to Hollywood from Palm Springs telling my buddy Chuck about my adventure.
Chuck can feel my excitement and wants to know if he can be my best man.
“Can you imagine?” I laugh and say, “I mean, yes!”
But as Chuck continues to riff on “the perfect couple,” my initial misgivings return, and this time they’ve brought reinforcements. My mood swings dark and like a Sandburg fog, dread begins to creep in. Anticipation turns to trepidation as my powers of visualization and manifestation turn on me. I begin to envision the demise of a relationship that has not even begun. What will I say on Friday? Who am I to entertain this sophisticated woman? She must have every super-hunk in Hollywood after her. This is madness.
As the Hollywood sign grows larger on the horizon, I now have this palpable feeling that, once again, I’m about to burn my ships.
The next morning I wake up with a renewed, single-minded sense of purpose. I need to know more about this Connie Sellecca. So the first thing I decide to do after I get to work and go through makeup is visit ET’s research department for the first time.
When I step inside Sharon Smith’s research department, I’m struck by how it resembles the monolithic and historic Rose Reading Room at the New York Public Library. Yes, that smacks of hyperbole but I submit that, by both quantity and quality, it’s an accurate comparison. I’m bleary-eyed but excited after the trek back to Hollywood from Palm Desert the night before, and I’m armed with a sincere ulterior motive—finding out more about Connie Sellecca.
The place is buzzing. It feels like I’m standing in the middle of the entertainment breaking-news mecca, because I am. Research activity abounds. Lots of it. To and fro action. The constant hum of old-school, pre-internet research clamor fills the air. Clipping articles. Checking fax machines. Reading press releases. Watching prereleases of movies on VHS video players. Transcribing interviews. The scene recalls movie versions of All the President’s Men; Good Night, and Good Luck. Even better, Three Days of the Condor. My WCBS producer, Andy Heyward, used to call this “boots on the ground” research. To my surprise, what I’m looking at here inside this nondescript building in Hollywood is exactly what the research offices looked like in our newsroom at WCBS-TV back in my New York City days, which was what you’d expect from a legitimate, hard news operation but not necessarily from a show-biz show.
When I first arrived at Entertainment Tonight in 1986, I only had an inkling this research department existed because of the occasional delays, the stop-downs during show tapings, that occurred when someone yelled, “Research on the phone!” from the wings. For some unknown reason, it was always called out much like “Shark!” was shouted in Spielberg’s Amity. I knew that someone, somewhere, was rechecking a fact or two, and since the call often came from Sharon Smith, I figured she was hunkered down in her command position, a good two hundred meters and another building away from ET’s Sound Stage 28. Every day at 11:00 a.m., she was glued to her closed-circuit feed of the ET taping, standing at the ready to pick up the hotline to director Ron de Moraes. Sharon and her team had already edited and approved the script for the day’s program, but when Tesh or Hart would go rogue with an ad-lib, or if a creative graphic might imply someone was guilty of aberrant behavior, then she had the power to halt production immediately and double-check the facts to avoid the risk of slander or libel. Her decision to press the research panic button was not without its own consequences, of course, as that decision—or any delay for that matter—could jeopardize the satellite feed to our hundreds of syndicated stations and incur the cost of another half hour of what we called “bird time,” or pricey satellite feed time.
If you are struggling, as I once did, to imagine the ET research department, it’s probably because you’re thinking that the need for a research staff for an entertainment television program is (1) laughable or (2) unnecessary, since research on movies and celebrities today is mostly gathered live on Twitter and TMZ handy-cams outside the Peninsula Hotel or LAX baggage claim. But in April 1991, before Wi-Fi and search engines, when Wiki-anything was not a thing, thankless gumshoe research from the trenches was all there was. And it was a noble pursuit. In the 1991 feudal broadcasting world, researchers were its lords while hosts and reporters labored as serfs. This wasn’t reflected so much in salary or even in social standing, but certainly within the ranks of the organization itself it was an unquestioned truism. And Sharon Smith was, without a doubt, Lady of the Manor. She was revered as that buttoned-down, incorruptible protector of the realm who stood sentry over all our reputations (the show’s reputation, first and foremost).
So here I am at 10:30 Wednesday morning, face caked in preshow makeup, standing before research royalty ready to make my big pitch. In my five years at ET, I’ve never been in this room before now. This is a consciousness now confirmed by all the head-snapping and puzzled looks from the research team members at their desks. I mean, what is one of the hosts of the show doing off the set and in the research office, this close to air time no less? I’m guessing it’s because no one here has seen that episode of Star Trek where Kirk ventures down into Scotty’s warp drive room. “See, Jim. I told you. I’m giving it all I’ve got!” The only difference was that Kirk was looking for more power, while I am looking for more information.
“Hi, Sharon,” I say.
“Well, hello, John.”
“Wow, this place is amazing,” I say, genuinely gobsmacked.
“You should visit more often,” she says, I am sure half out of politeness and half out of a genuine desire for the on-camera talent to understand how hard her team works.
“I had no idea!”
“What can I do for you, John?” she says finally, having tired of the pleasantries, I assume.
I suddenly realize that the person standing before me is most definitely sporting a bull**** meter that is, right now, pegged to 11. Plus, while scanning Sharon’s “I’ve seen and heard everything, pal” gaze, I’m certain that the speech I rehearsed in my office will not sufficiently cloak my intentions the way I had originally hoped.
“So, Sharon . . . I wonder if you and your team have a file here on, ah, Connie Sellecca. I . . .”
“Oh, are you interviewing Connie?”
Oh no, she’s on to me. I’ve made a terrible mistake.
“Well, no, there’s no interview scheduled, as such, but I’d really like to get a little background information on Connie.”
Most of the clipping and transcribing and faxing sputters to full stop and Sharon’s squad members are all swiveling their chairs in our direction. I smile. My pancake makeup cracks. I would have been better off doing this in a ski mask under the cover of darkness.
“Okay, John. It’s great to see you and you are always welcome in Research,” Sharon says. “Connie’s file is right over there in S for Sellecca. But the rule here is that no files leave this room. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Also, if you want to make copies, the machine is right over there.”
“Thanks, Sharon,” I say, sufficiently chastened by her inviolable rules. “And hey, Sharon?” I whisper. “Can we keep this just between us?”
Sharon laughs as she quickly scans the faces of her workers around the room to be sure anyone who has been paying attention—which is everyone—knows what the score is. “Sure, mum’s the word, John. Good luck.”
Yep, she’s definitely onto me.
On my knees in front of Sharon’s file cabinets, I go right for S: Savalas, Schwarzenegger, Scott (as in George C.), Sedaka, Seinfeld, Sellecca. I reach for her file and it’s rife with hundreds of clippings and AP wire stories. The magazine articles alone give the file most of its weight. I am instantly impressed and, to be honest, more than a little overwhelmed. The fear starts to creep back in.
I rush to the copy machine to make copies and carefully squirrel away the Sellecca loot back in my office desk drawer before I have to run down to the set to broadcast that day’s show. There is no way I want to be caught thumbing through this dossier on the set. Still, I can’t resist sneaking a peek at the bounty before I tuck it away. Right away I see that “Connie Sellecca” is not even her name. Her given birth name is Concetta Sellecchia. How Italian and supercool is that?
Later, back in my office, following the day’s taping, I have my first real chance to experience the scope of the Sellecca file. In front of me is Connie on the cover of TV Guides in three different languages and cover photos and feature stories about Connie in Good Housekeeping, McCall’s, Redbook, and, be still my heart, Mad Magazine! This accomplishment is reserved for the celebrity crème de la crème, and there she is on the cover with my hero, Alfred E. Neuman. In the file there are stories about Connie’s early years as a fashion model, dozens of television movies, the Greatest American Hero and Hotel series, Beyond Westworld, and a Golden Globe nomination. There are also several well-written stories of her journey as a single mom to her nine-year-old son, Gib, from her marriage to actor Gil Gerard. My journalist instincts kick in, and I think it’ll be tough to share a drink with this woman without interviewing her. Then it hits me and I’m consumed by a flop sweat as I try to imagine my half of the conversation on Friday, just two short days away.
Well, let’s see, I got my Eagle Scout award in 1968. Animal Husbandry was my most challenging merit badge. In 1976, I was the first reporter on the scene at the suspicious dumpster fire outside New York’s Endicott Hotel, and later that year there was my two-part special report on disco. More wine, my dear?
In my head is the sound of bad brakes on a ’62 Corvair. And when that clears there’s another, much worse sound in my head. My own voice. And that voice is saying, There’s a reason Susanne Pickens laughed in your face when you asked her to the prom, a reason Janie Dillingham dumped you for your best friend in high school, and there’s a simple explanation for why June Malitani called you Johnny Braces in the ninth grade.
I try desperately to quiet the voice of doubt in my head, but it’s winning the battle for my confidence and so by the time Chuck and I slip into our limo that Friday, bound, one more time, for Palm Desert and another IBM performance, I know it in my bones. I quit. I am resolved to bail on the date. The talk in the limo is not at all what Chuck was expecting—about picking out a diamond ring. I am preparing myself for the terms of surrender. I even convince myself that I’d never really confirmed the date.
This is the power of fear and doubt. Whether they come from within or they are foisted upon you from the outside, they have the capacity to erode your confidence, to turn any silver lining into a dark cloud, and, in my case at least, to take a courageous act that I was honestly proud of myself for having made and morph it into an exercise in futility. Fear and doubt can make anything seem like a total fool’s errand. When you’re in their clutches, it can even feel like they change your brain chemistry and erase your memory.
“Listen, Chuck,” I say as our car hits cruising speed on the highway headed east. “I really want this to be a boys’ night out after the IBM thing. There really never was a firm plan with Connie. Let’s just hang out at a pub in town, away from the hotel. We’ll throw back a few brewskis after the show.”
I build my case and continue with even more conviction.
“I told Connie that we should play it loose on Friday anyway. And besides, she’s obviously going to be with all of her actor friends from P. S. I Luv U. I’ll end up as a fifth wheel. Plus, I’m really not interested in trying to keep up with a Hollywood actress. There’s a 100 percent chance I’d be competing with every leading man in Los Angeles.”
I’m certain Chuck feels whipsawed listening to what is coming out of my mouth. Three days earlier we were planning a wedding. Now, at the rate I am spouting doom, there is no opportunity for Chuck to bring me back to my senses.
I don’t know if there exists a demon of self-doubt and self-sabotage, but if it does, then I am surely possessed by it on this drive out to the desert.
“Are you sure about this, John?”
“Yeah. C’mon. It’s boys’ night out!”
Chuck gives it one more shot, this time with a Top Gun pitch. “C’mon, Maverick. I really think she likes you. You’ve got this! Don’t you feel the need for speed?”
“Shut up, Goose.”
There isn’t anything Chuck can do. He can tell I’ve psyched myself out and there is no chance I am going to connect with Connie.
At the pub that night, the Donna Summer song all barflies dread signals our last call along with the call for a last dance and one final round of shots. I stagger to my hotel room with the feeling that I made the right decision hanging with my buddy.
The next morning I pay the price for my cowardice with a blinding headache and a dose of regret. Initially, my self-talk sounds defiant in the face of the waves of regret that are starting to lap at the shores of my consciousness. So I messed up a date. What’s the big deal? Moving on. But something is troubling me. It gnaws at my brain. The doubt that seized control of my faculties in the two days since I poured over Connie’s research file has done such a complete job on my psyche that it has convinced me that I’m much better off playing it safe. Me. The guy who forged a professor’s signature in a desperate attempt to change majors, who lived under a freeway and then fought back into a career against impossible odds. Where is this present cowardice coming from?
I have a sense that if these dragons are not slayed, if these self-reinforcing maladies are not cured, they will hobble me and then leave me crippled for the rest of my life. If you are wondering what the greatest enemies of relentlessness are, you’ve just met them: fear and doubt.