5/16/00 8:35 p.m.
Always a Rerun
The Stars on the issues.

By M. Christine Klein, freelance writer and attorney with the Cato Institute.

hat sovereign of insufferables," Ambrose Bierce once sneered, referring to Oscar Wilde. Mr. Wilde may or may not have deserved the epithet, but there are precious few of today's celebrities who don't. Nary an issue of public policy passes by without some movie star or other using his or her unparalleled access to the masses to comment, and comment poorly.

Most recently, while celebrating Earth Day, Chevy Chase made the surprising concession that "free markets are important," but the point he really wanted to get across was that "sometimes socialism works," too. Indeed, Mr. Chase explained that "you can do both [capitalism and socialism] and I think Cuba might prove that." Cuba? According to the 1999 World Factbook, Cuba's GDP per capita is $1,560, compared with $31,500 in the United States. Mr. Chase's cut, one must assume, is a bit higher than the average. In 1995, he put his 7,700-square-foot Pacific Palisades, CA home (complete with "sunken wet bar," sauna, and wine closet) on the market for $2.195 million, and purchased a Westchester County, NY home for $2.75 million. Kids, don't try this in Havana.

At the same time Mr. Chase was offering his incisive politico-economic insights, nighttime-soap-opera star Donna Mills deplored American excess: "We do have to cut down on consumerism. We're the worst offenders in the world . . . ." Happily, Ms. Mills is willing to serve as a role model: " I can't speak for other celebrities, but I try to cut down and use less if I possibly can." The realm of the possible is, it seems, somewhat limited for Ms. Mills. In 1998, she put her 5,873-square-foot home on the market for $3 million; the home's two-acre lot includes a swimming pool with waterfall. In her current home, built by the set designer for Frank Capra's classic Lost Horizon, she has decorated her living room with striped-silk curtains, lined with felt wool; and a powder room's walls are padded with toile fabric. I'm all for Ms. Mills's version of simple living, I just can't afford it.

One simply can't discuss the world of swanky, sanctimonious stars without running smack into Barbra Streisand. In a June 6, 1995 interview with Larry King, the ever-reigning diva demanded: "[D]oes it make sense to you . . . the things that they're proposing, to give tax cuts to the rich, to give tax cuts to me? I don't need them." Well, I guess not. La Streisand's 1998 wedding to James Brolin cost more than $1 million. A year later, she held a garage sale, but not in her garage. Befitting her exalted station in life, this tag sale took place at Christie's in Los Angeles. Her total $4.8-million take included $607,500 for an Art Deco piano and $1,150 for Ms. Streisand's used, monogrammed towels (complete with towel rack). Clearly, Ms. Streisand is left with some spare change even after Uncle Sam takes his hefty cut of her impressive earnings. But really, couldn't she be a bit more sympathetic toward us little people whose used bath accessories end up in the trash, not on the auction block? If we get a tax break, we'll notice.

A few years ago, the "Queen of Nice," Rosie O'Donnell, gushed that Barbra Streisand was "my hero, idol, god, queen." The two do share certain political characteristics. In 1996, Ms. O'Donnell expressed concern that she had revealed herself — on the air — as a Democrat. "'I thought: 'Uh-oh. . . . I'm gonna get letters from Republicans about this.' Then I realized: 'What Republicans are watching daytime television? They're too busy tryin' to make more money than anybody else.'" Well, I know a lot of Republicans who would be hard pressed to make more money that Ms. O'Donnell. Consider: In 1996, she purchased theatre legend Helen Hayes's 22-room Nyack, NY mansion for $770,000, spent some $300,000 on renovations, and now has the estate back on the market for $2.75 million. Last year, Ms. O'Donnell purchased an 8,000-square-foot weekend and vacation home on Miami's super-exclusive Star Island for $6.75 million. This is where she keeps her six personal watercraft. The most recent Forbes Celebrity 100 awarded Ms. O'Donnell a "money rank" of 40, with earnings of $25 million; she's cut a $3-million deal for her autobiography with Warner Books. Guess it’s not just those nasty Republicans scrambling up the money tree after all.

And then there's the helium-toned Melanie Griffith, featured not too long ago in George magazine's unwittingly uproarious "If I Were President" column. Curiously, Ms. Griffith's required White House reading would be Ayn Rand's magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, but yet … but yet. She'd also pass a law requiring that "no one should make more than $1 billion a year. (Sorry, Mr. Gates.)" One billion? I suppose we can all agree with Ms. Griffith that that's a lot of money, but then the U.S. household median income in 1998 was $38,885. In this context, Ms. Griffith might as well be Bill Gates. Current hubby Antonio Banderas recently received $12 million for his work in the upcoming film The Body. The couple recently sold their 4,000-square-foot Brentwood home for somewhere around $4 million, upgrading to a 15,000-square-foot Hancock Park mansion complete with ballroom and wine vault. Never fear, though, Ms. Griffith has plenty of pin money left over: She recently paid $16,000 for a four-day "crash course" in Spanish, the better to communicate with her in-laws. And in 1997, she bought four Motorola cell phones at one pop, for $1,350 each. If Ms. Griffith were granted her wish of arbitrary caps on income, she'd soon discover there are plenty of people out there who think she has more than her "fair share" of mammon. (Suddenly, a seeming inconsistency vanishes: Ms. Griffith's reading preference must have more to do with teaching her hypothetical White House staff the ways and means of James Taggart, not John Galt.)

So, who cares, really? Who cares about the illogicalities, the abuse of reason, the utter lack of irony, the pharisaical cant? Unfortunately, lots of people do, which is exactly why the Hollywood hordes have opportunity after opportunity publicly to spout their palaver. It's never redundant to point out — yes, yet again — that these emperors of entertainment have very little in the way of wardrobe.