People in the News for September 9, 1997

Tuesday, Sept. 9, 1997 | 10:24 a.m.

Who says dead men make no sales? Here in a time we whimsically call "the cusp of a new millennium," being deceased for 23 years is no obstacle to a lucrative career as a product pitchman. Why, witness Bob Hope and Texaco. Now comes a commercial featuring a dead-since-'74 Ed Sullivan hawking a new Mercedes sport utility vehicle. And compared with the technology it must require to make Hope appear life-like, the video trickery involved in the Sullivan ads must be a snap. Graphics wizards lifted his image from old "Ed Sullivan" shows and a vocal impersonator supplied the sales spiel. It's not yet clear what the advertising puppeteers will have their digitized Sullivan doing, but our money is on a spot extolling the vehicle's brakes and their "really big shoes." The ad debuts Sunday. "Ed Sullivan introduced some of the most incredible acts in history," says one of the admen involved. "Who better than Ed Sullivan to appear in a Mercedes commercial and introduce the car?" Of course! All that television pioneering was just a warm-up for Sullivan's true calling, shilling pricey SUVs to yuppie adventurers for those grueling trips to Starbucks. See, there is life after death!

Paparazzi snapshots

And now for a Moment on Hypocrisy, brought to you by "ER" star George Clooney. Although he's trying to rally fellow celebs to his anti-paparazzi crusade -- rage, rage at the flashing of the lights! -- he's not exactly promophobic himself. According to the ever-reliable New York Post, "flacks for his new movie, 'The Peacemaker,' are flooding fax machines with press releases begging journalists -- especially photographers -- to dutifully cover the glittering arrival of Clooney, Nicole Kidman and others" at the movie's premiere. Rage? Rage? ... Oh, never mind. Meanwhile, at least one celebrity isn't giving annoying photographers the cold shoulder or the big finger: Woody Allen. When a scene in his latest movie called for a fly-swarm of paparazzi to surround Leonardo DiCaprio, Allen hired actual paparazzi.

Regular student

You won't catch the Stanford Daily -- a student paper at Stanford University -- caught up in the paparazzi-ization of the media. Soon-to-be student Chelsea Clinton will be treated like any other student, says Daily Editor in Chief Carolyn Sleeth. You know, any other student with a retinue of Secret Service agents, any other student whose well-being is a matter of state. OK, Sleeth admits, the cameras and cub reporters will be on hand when the first family arrives Sept. 19 to install Chelsea in her dorm room. But after that, she "will be treated by us as a student, a regular student." Her academic life, her social life, her toga parties and beer bashes will be as unnewsworthy as any other freshman student's. "Of course, if she involves herself in a newsworthy event, we'll cover it," Sleeth said. "For example, if she founds a Stanford Democratic club." Well, missy, journalistic ethics like that have no place in the cusp of this new millennium!

Compiled by Scott Dickensheets