Deep Dish
Psst––heard the scoop on Matthew McConaughey, Lauren Bacall, and Don Henley? In a freewheeling give-and- take, Texas’ top gossip columnists tell all.
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PEOPLE THEY LIKE
Mesinger: I met Frank Sinatra years ago, when he was working at the Sands Hotel, back when Nat “King” Cole was still working in the lounge. It was during the five minutes I was divorced in my 55-year marriage, and I went to Vegas at Joe E. Lewis’ invitation. Joe was kind of down at the moment, and Frank was wonderful—he picked him up and used him as his opening act for a long time and got him back in the business. I was at the Houston Press then, and they were so excited that I was hanging around Frank that they sent a photographer to shoot him. I was there for three days, and every time I’d say, “I’m going to get the photographer,” Joe would say, “No, don’t do that. This isn’t a good time.” Well, my last night came, and I still hadn’t gotten a picture. So I just took a chance and went to the house phone and asked for Frank Sinatra. And they rang me right through—I didn’t even say who I was. So I said, “Listen, I can either get fired or I can kill myself. Will you let me take my photographer to your show? There are no flashbulbs or anything. I’ve gotta get a picture.” He said, “Well, what’s the problem?” “They all said that you wouldn’t let me have him there.” And he said, “Oh, baby, be my guest.” I fell so in love with him that night. He was wonderful.
PEOPLE THEY DON’T Peppard: Every few years they run Elizabeth Taylor through town to launch a new perfume. The security on her is so tight—it’s much worse than when the president’s around. I had to have my ID checked three times while I sat in the same chair waiting for her to arrive to be sure that I hadn’t switched my pass with someone else’s. I mean, they absolutely treated me despicably, like dirt. For whatever it was worth, I was sort of the dean of the press corps, so when everybody was asking questions, the flack who had treated me so horribly said, “Alan, do you have a question for Miss Taylor?” And I looked right at her and said, “I do not.”
Mesinger: Lauren Bacall was the bitch of all time. I met her some years ago. She was on Broadway—I think it was Woman of the Year. I was with Tommy Thompson, who had been at the Press when I was there. They were really close friends. At the time, he was an editor at Life magazine, and she was kowtowing to him. We went backstage and started talking. Then she came to Houston. No trust; she wouldn’t say anything. I tried to get through to her to say that I had met her with Tommy Thompson: “No, she doesn’t give a damn who you are. She’s not seeing anyone.” Then, when she came back to Houston to promote her book, they were calling everybody. I said, “Tell Miss Bacall that I don’t see anybody.” “What do you mean you don’t see anybody?” “Well, she ought to understand that.”
MAKING SOMEONE MAD
Yerkes: One time I described Henry B. Gonzalez’s nose as large. He has this big, huge nose. It turns out he has a condition, and his wife, Bertha—she’s this wonderful woman, she loves him—she called me up and cursed me out. I had no idea it was medical.
Peppard: A restaurant manager I know well told me that B. B. King and Don Henley were having dinner together at his restaurant. Because I knew this guy, I went with it. The next morning, I got to the office and there was a fax from Henley’s manager, Irving Azoff—a rather steamy one. Not only was Don not having dinner with B. B. King, he had never met B. B. King. It was totally erroneous, and it had to be dealt with on the spot.
Corcoran: Don Henley is extremely sensitive.
Peppard: Carefully chosen word.
Corcoran: He used to call me all the time: “My mother’s reading this stuff.”
Peppard: Actually, I did Don wrong twice. He was in a steakhouse that some friends of mine owned, and the waiter told me, “He said that was the best ribeye.” So I wrote that—and, oh, man. I got a personal letter from him that said, “I didn’t work hard all my life to be shilling for steakhouses.”
Yerkes: I have a good friend in public relations, and she worked for the Fairmount Hotel in San Antonio. So when their chef left, he called me and told me that he was leaving, and I confirmed that with the hotel he was going to. It was sort of a big deal. He went to a hotel right down the street. So, having confirmed it with both the new hotel and the guy who was leaving, I felt I had no reason to call the manager of the Fairmount. At a certain point in time, you know somebody’s going to lie to you. You know they’re going to say it’s not true, and if you can confirm it, you just don’t bother calling them, because it’s kind of a hassle. So I ran the item. About a week later, my friend said, “Come down to the hotel and have lunch. I want to talk to you about some stuff.” When I got there, she kind of attacked me. “How could you run that? It hurt our business. People canceled their parties.”
Mesinger: Can you believe that?
Yerkes: She kept saying, “What kind of a friend are you?” And I said, “I’m a friend who has a job to do.” Then the manager of the hotel walked in and grabbed my arm, bruised it really badly. He sort of threw me up against a wall and said, “Don’t you ever write anything about this hotel again without calling me.” The next time I wrote about the Fairmount was the day I heard he’d gotten fired. I led the column with it.
Mesinger: Good for you. It would have to have been a major news item for me if I ever ran anything on that hotel again.
Peppard: I don’t mean to be piggy, but I just remembered my favorite story. I was in the lobby of the Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas, and there’s Gary Busey, who’s well known for his escapades. He says, “Alan, I’m engaged. I’m getting married.” And I say, “I want to write that.” He gives me the name of the girl, who is now his wife. Now, generally, if someone tells you they’re getting married, you don’t need to check with the other party to make sure that this is indeed true. So I ran that story in the paper, and afterward I get this angry voicemail message from his alleged fiancée: “You can tell Gary Busey that I’m not going to marry him if he doesn’t straighten up and get off cocaine.”
Corcoran: I wrote about Matthew McConaughey, who has been living in Austin, and he called me up after a while. “Hey, you know, you got a problem with me? What’s the problem, what’s the deal?” He sort of wanted to schmooze me, to try to get me on his side. We had a long talk, and he’s basically going, “You know, the reason people like to come to Austin is because they’re not treated like celebrities. Everybody just leaves you alone, but you’re changing all of that. You’re making everybody notice: Oh, there’s Matthew McConaughey. We read about him and Sandra Bullock.”
Mesinger: Screw him. This is what you do.
What Are Friends For?
Mesinger: I get accused of not being objective, but the people who say that to me are out in the halls trying to get in, when I’m inside getting the job done. These are friends I’ve had all my professional life. I don’t give a damn if people don’t like it.
Corcoran: The good side about being friends with someone is that he’s going to call you or he’s going to have his people call you, and you’ll get something positive. After Don Henley got angry at me, he gave me his home number. He said, “Whenever you’re writing about me, give me a call.” And when the Eagles were touring, he called me first and said, “We’re coming to town on such and such date.” So I got a story out of it. It’s give and take.
Payback
Mesinger: If it’s something they don’t want in, they feel they can call you and say, “Max, don’t print this.” Carol Burnett’s daughter was once down here at a rehab facility, a good one, because she was on dope at age fourteen. Carol called and said, “You just can’t run it.” I wouldn’t have anyway. If it was my child, I’d have called a friend and asked them to leave it alone too. But then, when she got ready to go public, she called me and said, “I’m meeting with People magazine in two days. I’m giving it to you first. I appreciate what you did.”
Peppard: Great.
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