When a Friend Makes it in Show Business

In this age of 15-minute fame, sooner or later it will happen to you too,guaranteed: You'll be sitting there flipping through the channels and pow! There will be one of your pals, whooping it with Jay or Dave or smooching with Brad or Uma.

At first, it won't even register. And then, some minor feelings of conflict--about how your dear friend (the bitch/prick) deserves it all (should go to hell) because by talent and sweat alone (sheer luck/nepotism/the tastelessness of the masses) they made it!--you'll be stuck with that same hollow, queasy feeling I had recently when an old friend called to say he was coming to New York to play a gig with his band.

I replied to my buddy "Love to," wished him luck, and adjusted my plans accordingly. As I hung up the phone, though, I started to feel a little queasy: This time around my pal's band was headlining a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden, one of the undisputed goalposts of success. Did this mean that my somewhat drab friend from Mrs. Johnson's science class was an actual rock star? And if it did, then what would it mean for Me?

Now, there's nothing new about competing with your friends. Everyone does it to one degree or another; always have, always will. And let's face it, there is always a bit of envy or grief when someone you know makes it, and at least a trace of subliminal joy when this big-shot pal takes a fall.

But there is something much different--and far more menacing--about those friends or former friends who make a quixotic tab at a showbiz career and actually succeed. After all, no matter how far one goes in a "straight" career, it can't compare to the cachet of the famed entertainer. Even presidents suck entertainer. Even presidents suck up to movie stars and famous jocks.

If anything, this effect is doubled for anyone under 40, for success in the early years of professional life is usually invisible or at least easy to ignore. How threatened can you really be by the youthful queen of marine biology or real estate or even the young king of advertising? As long as you don't compare pay stubs or accept invitations to their industry awards ceremonies, who cares?

But contrast this with the potential psychic pain lurking in even minor showbiz success: Take the case of a college friend of mine whose former live-in boyfriend landed a role on a weekly TV drama. For two months she couldn't turn on her TV or leave her L.A. home without being accosted by billboards and bus signs of her smirking ex--hugging, if you can believe this, the same curvy homewrecker who had caused their breakup in the first place. Now, just think how puny Madonna's exes or high school chums feel.

So when your best friend, your oldest friend, or the geek from chem class lights up the screen, remember these eight helpful tips:

1. They're probably not such a big star after all.

The first thing to remember about your pal the star is that, hey, they're probably only a smidgen less of a nobody than you. This is due to what might be called the "atomizing" of popular entertainment: As consumers are given ever more choices--of cable channels or musical genres, for example--it is increasingly likely that an entertainer who is an idol to one person may draw a total blank from another.

This is how it is possible that my friend's band can pack Madison Square Garden to the rafters, sell hundreds of thousands or records,and still be relative unknowns. They are,) Even the loftiest peaks of TV do not break this dense fog of competing spectacles: a friend visiting from overseas was surprised to turn on my tube and find that a high school pal of hers was a featured regular on a show, though a show she had neither seen nor heard of.

Of course, the show was "Baywatch"--reportedly the most highly watched in the world. How could this happen? My friend simply isn't in the "Baywatch" demographic, and, living abroad, she hadn't gotten wind through the high-school grapevine of all the excitement. All she could do was shrug and say, puzzled, "Good for her . . . I guess."

2. They probably don't think they're such a big star, either.

While it is perfectly natural for the newly successful entertainer to be flush with self-confidence, all the frothy competition described above tends to quickly make a conspicuous nuisance of itself. Put in a more personal way, your friend the star may be the most famous person you've ever met hell, they might be the thing that finally puts your hometown on the map--but it's unlikely that they're the biggest thing they've ever met. Think about it.

In more professional terms, the average successful entertainment career offers more reality checks than a lifetime behind the counter at McDonald's. Consider the experience of an acquaintance who landed a regular spot on a sitcom occupying one of the most highly coveted slots in television. Does he think he's king of the world? Hardly.

Like all but a handful of the top draws, he and his fellow cast members have spent their year of triumph on network death row, with daily reminders from the corporate hacks upstairs that it's big ratings or death.

3. They're probably not making as much as you think.

Naturally, with all this pressure often comes a big paycheck. After all, if the dub of highest-paid entertainers is full of people making 100 times as much as the average corporate heavy, then the fraternity of freshly minted and lesser-known personalities must be making 100 times as much as you and me.

Maybe, but not necessarily. The entertainment industry operates under economic rules unlike those governing any other industry. For fresh talent this economy is a land mine of contractual ripoffs and other legal villainy. I recently ran into another musician friend who last year became the drummer of one of America's most venerable alternative rock bands. Upon joining, my friend groused, he was given a list of all the managers, lawyers, accountants, and such, all generously paid to mind the band's business. It was, he said, the size of a short novel.

But he is still grateful, knowing that many rock bands gross millions and somehow still end up with nothing--or less. The same goes for Hollywood, where the permanent oversupply of talent keeps first-time movie and television contracts relatively modest.

So while they may be making a high multiple of your petty wage, the two of you combined are probably making only a fraction of the millions being pulled down by one of those invisible poindexters who did so well in your Algebra II class.

In short, money-wise, being talent means being a tool.

4. They're probably not getting as much as you think.

This, as any evolutionary psychologist or rock-and-roll roadie will tell you, is what show business is really all about: the frenzied hoarding of social status that can, in turn, be converted into shameless bouts of promiscuity.

Now to be perfectly honest, your friend, even if he or she is a relative bit player, is without doubt getting more than you, or at least more offers. (Sorry, but it's true.) However, as outlined in point number two, they could very well be unhappy with this outwardly wondrous state of affairs--it's easy, after all, to let your standards get ahead of you.

Or maybe your friend's ideal type simply does not fit their audience demographic. They could even be unhappy just in terms of raw numbers. Hell, think about basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain. There weren't enough hours in the day for that man's libido, and all his fame and success could do nothing about those frisky hands on the clock.

Finally, they might just be looking for the same kind of respectable, monogamous relationship you feel so trapped in, and find all the new distractions a bother and a menace. This, amazingly, seems to be the case with my friend who headlined the Garden: I waded through a sea of doe-eyed and bra-less teenage groupies only to find him at the side of his longtime girlfriend.

5. Maybe the whole thing is not what they want.

My honorable friend, if that old-girl-friend thing is really on the level, would not be the first to look the other way at the perks and rewards of a successful career in showbiz. For some, success itself is a problem; fame and adulation just a big albatross. Remember the long self-imposed exiles of Greta Garbo and Marlon Brando and the stubborn refusal of Bruce Springsteen to leave his old digs at the Jersey Shore?

Then again, those few who, like Garbo, genuinely shun popular acclaim usually become legends, and for the average American, watching a friend become a show business legend is guaranteed to cause serious psychological problems.

6. Maybe it's not what you want

Try to imagine how repulsive and exhausting it would be to find oneself surrounded by grasping agents, smarmy hangers-on, and murderous rivals, and to constantly doubt your own greatness. Aren't you grossed out? If so, then congratulations, you're off the hook.

But if you're still reading this, you're in touch enough to admit that at least part of you still pines to be the one under the klieg lights. And that's why it's most crucial to never forget Rule Number Seven, the most important law of show business:

7. Nothing lasts forever.

Who remembers the lineup of Journey or the guy who played Carmine on "Laverne & Shirley" or, for that matter, the butthead ex of my friend who jeered her from every billboard on Hollywood Boulevard? Nobody, that's who. And this law, like gravity, applies to everybody. (Just ask Burt Reynolds or Bill Cosby--if you have the heart.)

So when I found my friend backstage at the Garden, I gave him a hug, a pat on the back, and then shook my fist in his face and screeched, "This won't last."

And you know what? He knew it, too. And it is this knowledge, in turn, that animates the cardinal law of dealing with friends who make it in show biz:

8. They're probably just as happy to see you as you are to see them.

Or more. Remember, the reason most entertainers become entertainers in the first place is to amuse and impress their friends. Even though you might find yourself lined up with a bunch of toadying fans and receiving only a nod and a wink, you're the one who holds the trump card in the relationship, the one who makes it real.

So go ahead, take the free tickets, dig into the dressing room deli platter, and drop their name all over town.

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