It could be worse. They could have hired Kelly Osbourne.

 

Ted Rall takes a swipe at the latest highly qualified journalist hired at NBC.

We've always had a flare for nepotism in this country, and I'm not referring to John Quincy Adams, whose bona fides were pretty well independently established before he ran for the White House. No, never mind, let's include him, too. And throw in Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., though I think fils did a pretty good job of not just proving himself but of outdoing pere.

But I was thinking more of Marlo Thomas, who, when she landed the title role in "That Girl," had a number of interviews where she explained that being Danny Thomas's daughter had simply opened a few doors. She still had to earn the role on the basis of her talent, she said.

It is something you could never say with a straight face if you had ever actually faced those doors.

Or met some of the people who have talent but simply aren't good at getting through doors.

I've often quoted Catherine Hicks, an actor I knew in college and interviewed a few years later, on the topic. None of the other people in her MFA program went on to professional theater, and she said that it's not enough to want it. A lot of people want it. "You have to have to have it," she said, "and not many people have to have to have it."

It's a great quote, and one that rumbles around in the back of my mind whenever I meet someone famous. There's something extra there, a competitive edge that is too easily encapsulated (in women) with a term like "barracuda," which I dislike because it suggests that some stranger had an obligation to be kind and to defer to you, which is nonsense.

It's not that it's a matter of everyone being out for themself, but rather that there are people who want something more than you do, and they're apt to get it.

Sometimes it's shoe leather -- Cathy tells of purposely going from Ithaca to New York City by bus after earning her masters, simply for the thrill of fulfilling the archetype, being the aspiring actress getting off the bus with her suitcase. But the thrill having been achieved, she then set about pounded the pavement until she had landed a couple of TV commercials and a role on "Ryan's Hope."

It's a matter of kicking those doors open because you have to have to have it.

And sometimes it's happenstance. A former co-worker, Anne Easter Smith, was at a party and was talking to someone about a historical novel she'd been working on for several years, and the research she did each time she went back to England. A woman in an adjoining conversation turned around and said something along the lines of, "Excuse me, I'm a new literary agent looking for clients and I'd like to talk to you."

That's a case of the door opening, and someone being able to then come up with the necessary quality of work to take advantage of it. Anne ended up with a multi-book contract, having not simply been in the right place at the right time but with the right stuff.

Now, Chelsea Clinton is not chopped liver. Genetics can be uncertain, but degrees from Stanford, Oxford and Columbia do not come in boxes of Crackerjack.

Still, if the ever-reliable Wikipedia is reliable on this, you have to admit that not all bright young women get personal fashion tips from Donatella Versace, and, when combined with the talent for grueling scholarship that it takes to read the local reporter's notes for a "Making a Difference" featurette, those tips do seem like one more unfair advantage.

And it's not really like Jakob Dylan, Sean Lennon or Kelly Osbourne, who could tap into the family network for a chance to record their music, but then had to leave it up to the public to accept or reject them. A lot of mud gets slung at that wall and you still have to be one of the bits that sticks.

By contrast, while certainly not all TV reporters are as bright as they are telegenic, there are a good number who are and for whom this is a case of someone jumping the queue to get a shot at a job of which there are only a very limited number.

Still, the answer to someone else's success remains the same as it has always been: If there is a lesson, learn from it. Otherwise, get over it. And, whichever the case, your task is to go kick some more doors until one of them opens.

If it helps motivate you, take a bus into the city and carry your suitcase.

Or a train. Trains are good, too.

Comments

[John]

Surely to heaven you aren't suggesting that someone other than Marlo Thomas might have made a better "That Girl", are you?!

[Mike Peterson]

Yes, but she'd have to drive into town rather than take the train, and, instead of waving to a mannequin, she'd have to toss her hat in the air in the middle of an intersection.

I don't know where you'd find anyone who could pull THAT off!

[Brian Fies]

The claim that "my name just got me in the door, then I had to prove myself" gets old. Especially when the proverbial "kid born on third base who thinks he hit a triple" actually seems to believe it. I loved it when Will Smith explained with a straight face how hundreds of young boys were auditioned to play his son in "Pursuit of Happyness" and the one who just happened to do best was his own kid. What are the odds?

A while ago I read an interview with the child of someone famous going into the same business as Mom or Dad--wish I could remember who it was--who very refreshingly said something like, "Yes, I got in because of my name. I would've been a fool not to take advantage of it. But my interest is sincere and I work extra hard to show that I deserve it." I liked that.

I love Catherine Hicks and didn't know or remember that you knew her. I disagree a little about "having to have it" (or its corallary, "don't do it unless you can't NOT do it"). We all know people who luck and bumble their way to great success, and others who want it very, very much but never make it. It's Darwinian. A thousand try, one succeeds, and no one ever interviews the 999 who don't. Still, luck always favors the prepared.

[Sherwood Harrington]

@Brian -

"A while ago I read an interview with the child of someone famous going into the same business as Mom or Dad--wish I could remember who it was--who very refreshingly said something like, 'Yes, I got in because of my name. I would've been a fool not to take advantage of it. But my interest is sincere and I work extra hard to show that I deserve it.'"

Maybe that was my friend Brendan Parsons.

[Mark Jackson]

No way she would have driven into town, Mike - Rhoda Morgenstern lived in New York City.