CHAPTER 22
Most stars have a closet they don’t want opened because it’s full of skeletons. Actors become actors because they don’t want to be themselves; they want to be someone else. During a production, an actor often personifies the role he is playing off-camera as well as on—it’s more than make-believe to him. Sometimes an actor adopts a role and keeps it long after the movie is finished. The baggage an actor brings to Hollywood is usually rooted in childhood, often in a dysfunctional family. Suzanne Somers had more skeletons in her closet than a natural-history museum.
Her father was an abusive alcoholic, a sick man. I don’t think he physically abused his children, but mental scars are often worse than physical ones. Suzanne had more scars than the victim of a lion attack; you just couldn’t see them. She hated being Suzy Mahoney from San Bruno, California, and the only way to escape her past was to become Suzanne Somers, star of television, movies and stage.
When a good publicist or a good manager knows everything about his client he is prepared to counter past history when it is dredged up. Suzanne was incapable of letting anyone in on her dark secrets until they were revealed publicly, which was like treading on thin ice over a big, cold, deep lake. It was a dangerous game, but Suzanne had a problem differentiating truth from fiction. She wanted to bury the past and live happily in the made-up world of the present.
In late 1979, I received a call from a reporter at the National Enquirer. The pulp weekly was running a cover story on a hot-check scam Suzanne had been caught up in ten years earlier. She had been arrested, and now the Enquirer was using her mug shot on its front page. Suzanne was at the height of her popularity in Three’s Company. No doubt the article could damage her public image, but I was equally concerned about her fragile ego.
I called Suzanne and told her what was in the works.
“What are you going to do?” She was frantic. “You’ve got to save my career!”
“This time you’re going to have to do it yourself,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“Here’s what I want you to do,” I continued. “I want you to call Vernon Scott at United Press. He’s a good man and generally sympathetic. Tell him you want to meet with him personally. When you do, here’s what I want you to tell him.”
I gave her the following story: Suzanne was a single mother. She was struggling. Her child was sick. She was due a modeling check that didn’t come in the mail. She had to have medicine for her son, but she had no money. No one would help her—she was alone in the world. She wrote a bad check for the medicine, then another. They bounced, but she couldn’t cover them. She didn’t care. Her son’s health came first. If the National Enquirer wanted to capitalize on her misfortune as a struggling single mother with a sick child, so be it. If she had to do the same thing over again, she would.
Vernon Scott put the story on the United Press wire. It ran around the world. The tabloids had a field day for a couple of weeks, but UP’s subscribers were mainstream newspapers. They were legitimate; the tabloids weren’t. Viewers of Three’s Company who loved Chrissy Snow, Suzanne’s character, came to her defense, responding with letters to editors and to ABC. It was a cakewalk. I never asked Suzanne the true story, just as I had never asked Farrah about her being charged and convicted of petty theft; I didn’t want to know.
A few weeks later I scheduled Suzanne for a Barbara Walters interview. To be featured in one of Barbara’s well-produced specials was the epitome of celebrity, a milestone. It meant Suzanne had really made it. Walters didn’t interview wannabes or has-beens. Alan was against it; he didn’t think Suzanne could handle herself. I thought he was nuts. After the hot-check story, I felt Suzanne could handle anything.
She could and did, although the Walters interview was not without controversy. Halfway into the session Barbara handed Suzanne a ten-year-old nude photo taken by a professional photographer. “I have to ask you, Suzanne—why did you do this?”
Caught by surprise, Suzanne turned ten shades of red, but once she regained her composure she handled herself admirably. She harked back to the poverty theme: mother alone and son sick. It was plausible because almost every girl who does a nude layout, then and now, is desperate for cash. Suzanne ended the Walters session by reading one of her poems. It was poignant, and she was perfect.
The downside to the nude-photograph revelation was that Hugh Hefner bought the series for Playboy. “What are you going to do, Jay?” Suzanne was frantic again.
I knew Hefner, which meant I knew he was tough. He didn’t give a shit about a woman’s feelings if it meant an increase in Playboy sales.
First, I did the obvious. I threatened to sue if Hef published the photos, a ploy that would come to nothing if I didn’t have a better angle than hurt feelings. We made some press hay out it (“Poor Suzanne Somers. Why don’t they just leave her alone?”), but it wasn’t enough. Playboy published the photographs. By today’s standards they were tame, but this was 1980.
The first backlash came from Ace Hardware. They suspended Suzanne’s commercials and put out a Mickey Mouse press release about the company’s morals. Had it not been for the money involved, I would have laughed. But money was involved. I had to come up with an angle, a counterpunch.
I had arranged for Suzanne to be National Campaign Chairperson and Telethon Hostess of the 1980 Easter Seals campaign. Again she was walking on thin ice; it wouldn’t look good for her to be fired from a charity, particularly because of nude photographs. I called Hefner.
“Hef, I need help,” I told him. “Suzanne is being squeezed. Her career is at stake, while you’re reaping rewards from a mistake she made years ago. I don’t want to sue you, because I know we would lose. But it would still cost you a couple of hundred thousand dollars in legal fees. Why don’t you settle with us for fifty grand, and we’ll give the money to the Easter Seal Society.”
Hef, being smart and experienced, agreed. We settled. I made a big deal out of giving the proceeds to Easter Seals, including my commission. As I recall, Hef paid Suzanne with a diamond ring he said was worth $50,000. I don’t know if she gave it to the charity, but she kept her position as Campaign Chairperson. A few days later Ace Hardware lifted its ban on Suzanne’s commercials. All was well in the Hamel household.
Unlike the early days when I first became Suzanne’s manager, I was now seldom alone with her. Alan wouldn’t allow it. Pillow talk wasn’t enough for him. He had to be involved in every conversation between Suzanne and me. He didn’t see me as a threat to his marriage as much as he feared that somehow he would be overshadowed.
Unbeknownst to Alan, Suzanne and I met once a week at her beauty salon, Vidal Sassoon’s. While she got coiffed, manicured and pedicured, I got a haircut. It was the only time we could talk confidentially.
One day, aware of my depression over having been fired by Farrah, Suzanne said, “I have a present for you that will cheer you up.”
She gave me a gift box. I opened it. Inside was a silver medallion with the inscription “Mr. Mean, I love you . . . Suzanne.” I looked at her.
“If you ever think I’m going to fire you, just rub the medallion,” she said. “I’m not like Farrah, Jay. I’ll never fire you.”
I hugged her. She had lifted my spirits, but only momentarily. I knew Alan was unaware of the gift, as well as her promise. Otherwise, she would have given it to me in front of him.
Kathy Dutler had become my anchor. She lived with me as much as possible, and I was back and forth from Los Angeles to Chicago when she couldn’t be in Hollywood. Spring passed uneventfully. Suzanne opened her nightclub act at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe. She called and invited me to fly up on June 7. “We’ve modified the show,” she told me. “Why don’t you come and see it?”
I was excited. June 7 was my birthday. By this time I had given Marsha Yanchuck, my secretary, to Suzanne. Marsha had been with me thirteen years, but when the pressure became too much I asked Suzanne to hire her. She knew how important my birthday was to me. Jumping to a conclusion, I called Kathy in Chicago. “You’ve got to come,” I said. “Suzanne is giving me a surprise party in Tahoe.”
Kathy was on call for flights all over the nation, but she managed to take a twenty-four-hour break to be with me one night at Lake Tahoe. She flew into LAX on my birthday, and we caught a puddle-jumper north.
We got to Tahoe just in time to go to the show, where Suzanne and Alan had reserved front-row seats for us. Marsha was there. She wished me happy birthday. I made notes on some of the flaws in Suzanne’s performance, but my mind was really on the postshow party.
At the end of the show, Alan said, “Come on,” and we followed him into the hotel kitchen, where Suzanne was waiting for us. Neither of them mentioned my birthday. The conversation was all about the show, which they thought was the greatest performance since Hamlet’s soliloquy. From there we went the back way up to their suite. I felt good, knowing when the door opened a host of people would suddenly cry, “Happy birthday, Jay!” I held my breath.
Alan opened the door; Kathy and I followed Suzanne in. The room was empty.
My heart fell, but I didn’t say anything. Five minutes later we heard a rap at the door. I suspected again that this was going to be it, the moment of surprise. Alan opened the door. A single room-service valet rolled in a table set for two.
“Why don’t we get together tomorrow for lunch?” said Alan.
“Okay, sure,” I answered.
“Have a good time tonight,” said Suzanne.
I was more than disappointed—I was in a state of shock. How dare they! I had just saved Suzanne’s career, not once but twice. Kathy and I did not go to our suite. We drove around the lake. I finally pulled over and began to cry. I cried for thirty minutes.
Two weeks later, Kathy and I broke up.
Tony Thomopoulos was the new president of ABC Television. Suzanne, Alan and I were joining him for dinner at Michael’s Restaurant. Linda Thompson, my date, was meeting us there. I went to Suzanne’s house for cocktails first. She and Alan were annoyed because I was running late. I sensed their irritation was about more than my belatedness.
After clinking glasses, Suzanne grew serious. “Jay, Alan and I have been discussing my future. You’ve done everything for my career that you could possibly do, and we both appreciate it.”
She paused. Blood was curdling in my face because I realized what was coming. She continued: “We think it’s time for Alan to become my manager.”
To say that I exploded would be an understatement. I erupted like a volcano. Suzanne wrote in her memoir that I pulled a sword from my walking stick and swung it through the air; she also said she never thought for an instant I would harm them. She was wrong on both counts. I didn’t have a sword, just my stick, but I wanted to slay them like dragons.
After a few minutes I calmed down, but my mind was racing. We drove in separate cars to Michael’s in Santa Monica. We were an hour late for dinner. I had hoped to repair my relationship with ABC through Thomopoulos, but that was now wishful thinking. I’d been blackballed so long that it seemed normal.
Linda, who had been Elvis Presley’s inamorata during his prime, was waiting with Tony and his wife. I confess I ignored her. I couldn’t keep my eyes off Suzanne, who I stared at with laser-like intensity. My gaze unnerved her, which was my intention.
Tony ordered an expensive bottle of red wine. It was not just bad but terrible. It wasn’t tainted—it was lousy. I told the sommelier.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s usually a great wine. I’ll get you another bottle of it.”
“Please do,” said Suzanne.
“Why would we want another bottle of the same bad wine?” I asked.
“Oh, Jay!” protested Suzanne.
Thomopoulos probably thought I was setting the stage for Act I, but we were already deep into Act II. It was a miserable evening.
When we left the restaurant, I felt as if I were in a vacuum. The valet brought my car. When we got in, Linda said, “I can’t go out with you anymore, Jay.”
I looked at her, as if it were important. “Why?” I asked.
“You remind me too much of Elvis.”