| Don’t get famous
Book review
SEINFELD: THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN ICON (AN UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY)
by Jerry Oppenheimer
Harper Collins, 398 pp.
Aren’t showfolk supposed to have unusual relationships, fetishes and poor judgment? In the case of Jerry Seinfeld, here’s a stand-up comedian (not the most grounding of all professions) who’s done very well for himself by working hard, endlessly going on the road and developing one of the most popular TV shows ever. The result: he may not make particularly brilliant choices in relationships (unlike other comedians like Jim Carrey, Phil Hartman, Ellen DeGeneres…). This is news unearthed in Seinfeld: The Making of an American Icon (An Unauthorized Biography) by Jerry Oppenheimer, who interviews Seinfeld's bitter ex-girlfriends, old pals and childhood neighbours from Long Island – "I never thought he was funny. And he didn’t donate anything to the local temple."
Just imagine if you make it big on TV and Oppenheimer starts calling your exes – preferably the ones you broke up with because they’re nuts. Or the ones who want to kick-start their own careers by getting quoted in your biography, going so far as to supply photos of the two of you together. For instance, if you go out with Tawny Kitaen, she could add to your vitally important life story by saying, "I was in the same business – doing the acting thing."
Imagine my surprise when I found out that Seinfeld, an American icon in the entertainment industry, joined the drama club and travelled with his friends. Because of this shocking revelation, he’s dubbed a Drama Queen who is very likely gay. "Not," as Oppenheimer freely steals from Seinfeld’s own work, "that there’s anything wrong with that."
When Oppenheimer tries to come up with his own lines, things get jaw-droppingly bad. He describes Seinfeld’s first meeting with the teenaged Shoshanna Lonstein as, "Jerry zeroed in on her like an Iraqi Scud missile on an Israeli warplane." Or the ratings of Seinfeld were, "…like an army of Green Berets sweeping the Taliban from their caves." His co-writer/producer was, "as sharp and as dangerous as a box cutter." I started to think the book was a code guide for the troops in Afghanistan.
The worst dish Oppenheimer could come up with is that Seinfeld dabbled in Scientology, meditation, travelled with and befriended African-American male comics, collects a ridiculous number of high-performance cars (Leno does this too – weird). But everything else – his odd marriage to a woman who left her first husband during the honeymoon and the whole 17-year old Shoshanna debacle – is old fodder collected by other paparazzi.
In astonishingly poor taste, Oppenheimer opens this kooky book by assuming the position of being in the same room as Seinfeld when the World Trade Center was attacked. "After showering, washing his hair, flossing and brushing, Jerry automatically reached for the remote." If I were Seinfeld, I’d be automatically reaching for Oppenheimer’s throat.
The ultimate irony of this book is that Oppenheimer uses a quote from a Playboy interview where Seinfeld speaks about the scrutiny his life is under: "Now I just laugh. It means people are thinking too much about you."
I’ll say.
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