Some Stars Suffocate in Fame

It’s lonely at the top.

And never before has the isolation of a superstar been so vividly portrayed as in the Michael Jackson documentary airing this month on ABC and VH1.

Jackson’s trip with his children to the Berlin zoo turned into a small riot. While he was shopping in Las Vegas, gawking and photo-flashing fans pressed against the store windows.

We know celebrities live in a bubble. But this is a glimpse of what it’s like to be trapped inside.

有些明星为名所累

高处不胜寒

     本月在ABC和VH1频道播映的关于Michael Jackson的纪录片首次生动地展现了作为一位巨星与世人相隔的一面。

      Jackson和他孩子们的柏林动物园之旅引起了一次小小的骚乱。而当他在Las Vegas购物时，影迷们挤在橱窗上盯着他看，还拍照。

     我们都知道名人生活在虚幻中。然而，这个纪录片可以使观众瞥见身陷其中是什么滋味。

“It can make you rethink even the simplest things you want to do,” Daredevil star Ben Affleck said. When he and fiancée Jennifer Lopez dropped into a shop to get his watch repaired, they were mobbed by onlookers, and the shopping mall had to be closed.

Of fame, Chicago star and Oscar nominee Catherine Zeta-Jones says, “I thought it really was sunglasses and dinner parties, being invited out a lot, having a good table in a restaurant, but it’s not.”

“When I’m in the park with my son and I see six (paparazzi) running behind trees, what am I going to be doing that’s any different from any other mother in this park? I’m going to be hoping he isn’t going to fall off the swing.”

    “它会使你重新考虑人生，哪怕只是你想做的很简单的一些事情，”“Daredevil”一片中的明星Ben Affleck说。当他和未婚妻Jennifer Lopez来到一家商店想把他的手表修一下时，他们受到影迷聚众包围，致使整个商业街被迫关闭。

     谈到名气，“Chicago”一片中的明星并获得Oscar奖提名的Catherine Zeta-Jones说，“我原以为作明星就意味着戴太阳镜和赴宴会，经常受邀外出，在高档餐厅里吃饭。但其实不是这样。”

    “当我和儿子在公园时，我发现他们有6个人（狗仔队）藏在树后，我所做的事和公园里其他任何一个母亲有什么不同吗？我只是一样怕儿子从秋千上摔下来。”

For Diane Lane, everyday experiences can be painful. “I’m just basically a shy person,” the Oscar-nominated star of Unfaithful says. “It’s a dichotomy to be a shy person and have fame go with the job that you do. That’s something that never ceases to be disconcerting.”

Performers push, drive and sell themselves to achieve superstar status, but they wind up sacrificing themselves. It is, as Affleck put it, “a Faustian bargain.”

“Everybody wants to be Cary Grant,” Cary Grant once said. “Even I want to be Cary Grant.”

     对Diane Lane而言，每天的经历可能变得痛苦不堪。“我基本是一个害羞的人，”因“Unfaithful”一片而获Oscar奖提名的她说。“我的生活一分为二，一方面是害羞内向的我，另一方面我的工作又与名气相连。这一点一直令我不安。”

    表演家们竭尽全力达到巨星地位，但结果是牺牲了自我生活。正如Affleck所说：名人的得失是一种“浮士德式的交易”。

   “每个人都想成为Cary Grant，”Cary Grant曾经说过。“甚至连我自己都想成为Cary Grant。”

The trade-off: A trip to Target today means an unflattering photo in USA magazine next week.

Such a life, even when surrounded by admirers, changes a person. Some adapt and thrive and are able to stay grounded. Others lose their footing and believe their own hype. And often, how they handle the fame can determine how successful a career can be.

Early film star Greta Garbo came to loathe the limelight. “Being a movie star means being looked at from every possible direction,” she once said. “You are never left at peace; you’re just fair game.”

     这是一种交换：今天去一趟Target商店，一周后，一张有损自己形象的照片就会刊登在《美国》杂志上。

     如此的生活，就算被崇拜者围绕，也会改变一个人。有些人能够适应后继续发展，能够保持清醒的头脑。而另外一些人则被冲昏了头脑，把天花乱坠的宣传报道当作是真。通常，他们如何处理名声决定他们事业的成功程度。

   早期的影星Greta Garbo憎恶如此受到关注。“成为电影明星意味着要被人从每个可能的角度关注，”她曾经说过。“你得不到片刻安宁；你就是一个猎物。”

She became a recluse, ending her career but adding to her mystique. Film critic David Thomson in the St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture observes that “in making the journey away from fame into privacy she established herself forever as a magical figure, a true goddess, remote and austere, but intimate and touching.”

Princess Diana, too, used the court of popular opinion as a weapon —not to maintain mystique, but to become a beloved figure against a royal family that she felt disapproved of her. But in the end, many believe, it was her fame that ultimately killed her.

    因此，她过起隐居生活，结束了演艺生涯，但这反而增加了她的神秘。影评家David Thomson在《St. James流行文化大全》中评论道，“在远离名利场，回归自我的过程中，她其实使自己永远成为了一个神奇人物，一位真正的女神，遥远、令人生畏，同时又是那样亲近和另人感动。”

     Diana王妃也同样以公众意见为武器———不是为保持神秘性，却因此成为与她觉得无法接受她的皇室相抗争的、深受人民爱戴的人物。但同时很多人认为，其实也正是她的名气最终导致了她的死亡。

Tyler Cowen, an economics professor at George Mason University outside Washington, D.C., and author of What price Fame?, points out that artists want not only the trappings of fame but also the validation that fame affords. “Ludwig van Beethoven loved composing music, but he probably would have enjoyed it less if no one ever listened to the product.”

“Visibility—celebrity has become a key factor in success,” writes Irving Rein, a Northwestern University professor and co-author of High Visibility: The Making and Marketing of Professionals Into Celebrities. It’s all part of the “business” of fame in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

     位于首都华盛顿市郊的George Mason大学的经济学教授Tyler Cowen写了一本名为《名气价值几许？》的书，他指出艺术家们不仅需要名声的虚饰，而且也需要名气所能起到的证明作用。“Ludwig van Beethoven热爱谱曲，但是如果没有人来听他的作品，他热爱的程度可能也是要大打折扣的。”

     “受关注性-名气已成为成功的一个关键因素，”Northwestern大学教授和《倍受关注性：将职业人士制造、推销成为名人》一书作者之一的 Irving Rein如此写道。在竞争愈发激烈的市场上，名气已成为商业运作。

“The reason is fairly simple,” he says.“Celebrity equals exposure. Exposure equals free media. Free media equals money.”

While watching the Jackson documentary, viewers might wonder, “Isn’t he courting this?” He didn’t need to let two whimpering fans bug him. He seemed to enjoy the adoration of the mob at the zoo. He dangled a baby from a balcony for the pleasure of his fans below.

“He toys with the spotlight,” Chicago star Queen Latifah says. Fans, she says, “follow him everywhere. If they want a show, then here it is.”

But she adds:“I feel for Michael. He doesn’t get to live a normal life.”

Her own fame, particularly now that she has been nominated for an Oscar, has cut into her ability to lead a normal life.

“It’s 50-50. I can go to the grocery store because, dammit, you just have to go sometime. People don’t mob me too bad. They speak to me.I come across as approachable.”

     “原因很简单，”他说。“名气等于曝光。曝光等于免费媒体宣传。免费媒体宣传等于钞票。”

      在看Jackson的纪录片时，观众可能会问，“这不是他自找的吗？”他不需要让两个哀诉的fans打扰他。他似乎很喜爱在动物园受到人们的仰慕。他为了下面fans的高兴，把婴儿从阳台上往下晃来晃去。

     “他游戏聚光灯，”《Chicago》一片的明星Queen Latifah说。Fans，她说，“跟随他到任何地方。如果他们想要一场表演，这就是。”

    但是她又补充到：“我同情Michael，因为他无法过正常人的生活。”

    她自己的名气，尤其是现在获得Oscar奖提名以后，已影响她过正常生活的能力。

     “这一切是一半一半。我可以去杂货店，因为，见鬼，你有时就是要去一趟。人们对我还不算太过分。他们和我讲话，我显得平易近人。”

However, she has to remind herself that every move is a potential headline, as was her arrest in November on drunken driving charges in California.“I consider myself a normal person, so I have to get it through my head that any mistake I make will be blown up and put across the (news) wire.”

The unreality of stardom - being surrounded by fans and those on the celebrity’s payroll - can cloud judgment. Limp Bizkit lead man Fred Durst says this has happened to Britney Spears.

“She has a life like Michael Jackson,” Durst told Access Hollywood this month. “It’s, like, out of control. The people around her that are full of (expletive), just agreeing with her, like, it’s kind of crazy. She almost can’t see what’s real and what’s not.”

Age and life experience help keep a star grounded. Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins doesn’t do a lot of out-and-abouting. “When you watch them coming on the red carpet, you see the same faces, the same mega-folks of Hollywood, yap yap yap,” he said while promoting a film. “You get sick and tired of it.”

     但是，她不得不提醒自己，她的每个行为都可能成为报纸头条，就如11月她在California州因醉酒驾车被捕那次。“我把自己当成普通人，所以我就得记在脑子里，我犯的每个错误都会被夸大，成为新闻。”

     明星地位导致的非真实性——— 被fans和雇佣的人围绕——会影响明星们的判断力。Limp Bizkit乐队的主力Fred Durst说这就发生在Britney Spears身上。

    “她的生活如同Michael Jackson，”Durst本月对《Access Hollywood》杂志说。“就象一切都失控了。她周围的那些人满怀（咒骂语），总是附和她，一切都疯了。她几乎无法识别什么是真的，什么不是。”

      年龄和生活阅历能帮助明星们保持清醒。Oscar奖得主Anthony Hopkins很少外出。“当你看到他们从红地毯上走来，你看到的面孔是一样的，一样的Hollywood的巨星们，呱呱讲个不休，”他曾在促销一部影片时说道。“你会觉得恶心，厌烦这一切。”

Emmy winner Sela Ward (Once and Again) yearned for something away from fame. “I was living in the Hollywood community, a fast-paced, insular kind of experience.” That’s one of the reasons she wrote Homesick, a fond recollection of growing up in Mississippi, published last year.

Fame doesn’t have to be so insular, some say.

“What I’ve found is that people who want to have a grounded life and live a regular life, they find ways to do it,” says Simon Halls, partner in the big publicity firm PMK/HBH. “There are people who, for lots of reasons, let themselves get so isolated that it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. They are surrounded by security people and advisers and assistants. Then you get in a situation where you psych yourself out and say, ‘I never go out in public.’”

     Emmy奖得主Sela Ward（“Once and Again”）则渴望名声之外的东西。“我当时住在Hollywood一带，那儿的生活节奏飞快、有点与外界隔绝。”这也是促使她撰写《思乡》一书的原因之一。该书去年发表，描述了她在Mississippi长大的美好回忆。

     也有人说名声不一定意味过与外界隔绝的生活。

    “我发现那些想过真实、正常生活的人总能找到办法做到，”PMK/HBH广告公司的合伙人Simon Halls说。“也有些人出于种种原因，使自己与外界隔离起来，从而充分实现自我。他们被保安、顾问和助手围绕。结果你弄得精神紧张并决定，‘我永远不去公共场合了。’”

But there are exceptions, he says. Calista Flockhart walks her dog down San Vincente Boulevard in Los Angeles. You can see Woody Harrelson strolling down Madison Avenue in New York. Neither is mobbed by fans.

Ideally, for Jackson or any other star, celebrity is about controlling one’s own fame - something that isn’t always possible.

Michael Douglas and Zeta-Jones are suing Hello Magazine for publishing photos of their 2000 wedding. The magazine says the stars forfeited their right to privacy by making their wedding an “international media event.” They sold photos to the highest bidder. Hello argues that if the couple had wanted to marry in private, they could have; it cited the weddings of Michelle Pfeiffer and David E. Kelly and Madonna and Guy Ritchie.

Jennifer Garner, who stars in the hit movie Daredevil and the hit ABC show Alias, says she’s lucky when it comes to public attention in private moments - she’s oblivious.

     但是，他说也有例外。譬如Calista Flockhart在Los Angeles 的San Vincente大道上遛狗。你也能看见Woody Harrelson在New York的Madison街上散步。他们都未受到聚众围观。

对Jackson或其他任何明星而言，最理想的是名人要能够控制自己的名声 ———但这点并不总是能做到。

       Michael Douglas和Zeta-Jones正在起诉Hello杂志，因为该杂志发表了他们2000年婚礼的照片。杂志则说，这两位明星因把他们的婚礼办成了一次“国际性新闻事件”而丧失了他们的隐私权。他们将照片出售给出价最高者。Hello辩驳说，如果当时这对夫妇想私下结婚的话，他们本来可以做到；该杂志还举了Michelle Pfeiffer和David E. Kelly和Madonna和Guy Ritchie婚礼的例子。

    Jennifer Garner曾主演热门影片Daredevil和ABC频道风靡一时的电视节目Alias，她说，在隐私生活某些时刻受到公众注意这件事上，她是幸运的——— 她可以做到不在意周围人的盯视。

“I’ll walk into a restaurant, and I’ll have no idea people are looking at me,” she says.

    But her husband, Scott Foley, isn’t blind to the stares. “It can make him really uncomfortable when we go out to dinner,” she says. “He’ll tell me that people are staring at me, and I will have had no clue. Maybe that will change over time, but I hope I don’t ever pay it too much attention. You have to go out and live your own life as much as possible.”

Matthew Broderick of ABC’s The Music Man says the kind of celebrity he and Sarah Jessica Parker (Sex and the City) are experiencing now is bigger than anything they have known. But Broderick says, “I’m sure we’ll be upset when nobody gives a damn.”

    “当我走进一家餐厅时，我会不察觉人们在盯着我看，”她说。

      但她的丈夫Scott Foley却做不到不在意这些目光。“当我们外出吃饭时，这一切可以使他非常难受，”她说。“他会告诉我人们在盯着我看，而我则完全没有意识到。也许随着时间，这一点会变，但是我希望我对这些不要太在意。你得出门，尽可能地过属于你自己的生活。”

    ABC频道节目The Music Man中的Matthew Broderick说他和Sarah Jessica Parker（Sex and the City）现在感受到的名气要比他们所能设想的要大。但Broderick说，“我相信，当没有人关注我们时，我们会不安的。”