One of the saddest falls from grace among many in this category of the blog was that of John Edwards, whose hopes for our nation's highest office were wiped out by an affair he had with one of his campaign staffers, Rielle Hunter.
The sadness was not so much in the disappointment suffered by Edwards himself, but in the anguish caused his wife and the mother of his four children, Elizabeth Edwards, cancer sufferer.
John Edwards became known to the nation as Sen. John Kerry's vice presidential running mate in the 2004 election. Having lost that one, Edwards returned to the state he once served in the U.S. Senate, North Carolina, and in 2001, accepted a position at the Chapel Hill School of Law.
Having retained his hopes of making it into the White House, Edwards became a Democratic candidate for president in the 2008 race. His Republican opponents derided him as "The Breck Girl" due to his shiny mop of hair, which made him look younger than his actual years.
In his younger years, Edwards had become the most successful plaintiffs' lawyer in North Carolina and had his own highly profitable firm in Raleigh.
His undoing as a candidate stemmed from his affair with Hunter, which he initially denied, then finally confirmed. Americans' hearts went out to his wife, still fighting cancer.
A child born to Hunter has never been proved to be Edwards', but in a seamy twist to the tale, Edwards' aide Andrew Young (not the one from Atlanta) at first claimed that he was the father of Hunter's child, then recanted that story, saying Edwards had pressured him to make the bogus claim.
It has not been a pretty story, to say the very least.
About this Blog
"In the future everybody will be world-famous for 15 minutes." So said the bleached-out, late lamented artist Andy Warhol. Having lived and worked in New York City, Warhol came to fully grasp the hold celebrity has on us. In this very famous sentence, he meant to point out that in a culture fixated on fame, many people will suddenly flash brightly onto the public screen, then--poof--will just as quickly disappear from public view--like shooting stars. Other individuals derive their celebrity from one stellar accomplishment (one hit song, one iconic role, etc.) that they never again match.
This blog is devoted to the one part of our celebrity culture that no one has written much about: temporary/one-shot celebrities.
The pace of modern life has quickened, and now we hear people speaking of someone's 15 seconds of fame. These "celebrities with a lower-case c" who will appear in this blog sometimes come to us from the world of entertainment, sometimes from the world of news. All are fascinating.
The need of our communications media for a continual stream of new material assures that we will have no end of colorful people who go quickly, where celebrity is concerned, from zero to hero (or villain) and back to zero. Now you see 'em, now you don't. What a crazy world, eh?
Temporary celebrities coming from the world of entertainment include one-hit recording artists; TV and movie icons who, although they might have had a great many accomplishments in their career, are remembered for one big role; standouts of reality TV; sports figures remembered for one remarkable accomplishment; and people whose celebrity came from one big role in a commercial or print ad.
News-based temporary celebrities come in many forms: mass/serial killers, other murderers of special note, sex-crime offenders, disgraced figures of government/military/business/media/religion, spies/traitors, hoaxers, femmes/hommes fatale, heroes, whistle blowers, inventors/innovators, and victims.
Celebrity Blogsburg will consider each category in turn.
This blog is devoted to the one part of our celebrity culture that no one has written much about: temporary/one-shot celebrities.
The pace of modern life has quickened, and now we hear people speaking of someone's 15 seconds of fame. These "celebrities with a lower-case c" who will appear in this blog sometimes come to us from the world of entertainment, sometimes from the world of news. All are fascinating.
The need of our communications media for a continual stream of new material assures that we will have no end of colorful people who go quickly, where celebrity is concerned, from zero to hero (or villain) and back to zero. Now you see 'em, now you don't. What a crazy world, eh?
Temporary celebrities coming from the world of entertainment include one-hit recording artists; TV and movie icons who, although they might have had a great many accomplishments in their career, are remembered for one big role; standouts of reality TV; sports figures remembered for one remarkable accomplishment; and people whose celebrity came from one big role in a commercial or print ad.
News-based temporary celebrities come in many forms: mass/serial killers, other murderers of special note, sex-crime offenders, disgraced figures of government/military/business/media/religion, spies/traitors, hoaxers, femmes/hommes fatale, heroes, whistle blowers, inventors/innovators, and victims.
Celebrity Blogsburg will consider each category in turn.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
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