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.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Disgraced political figure Rudy Giuliani

OK. Ok. Maybe "disgraced" is a little harsh in Giuliani's case. Perhaps "sullied" would be more accurate.

Giuliani, almost always photographed smiling broadly, was Mayor of New York City in between the terms of David Dinkins and Michael Bloomberg, and a very popular mayor he was, too.

The Republican, George W. Bush-backing Giuliani was appreciated most for his part in reducing street crime in the city, his success at prosecuting the various New York crime families during his time as the city's U.S. Attorney, and for his seeming omnipresence to bolster morale after the World Trade Center disaster.

The Brooklyn-born politician, having achieved widespread name recognition all over the nation, made a run for the White House in the 2008 election, but his campaign fizzled amid accusations of fraudulent billing associated with an extramarital affair he was having at the time. This affair, with Judith Nathan, whom he later married, was the second such drawback to his political hopes. In 1997, a story in Vanity Fair magazine had reported another affair, this one with his communications chief, Cristyne Ford Lategano.

After his term as mayor ended in 2001, Giuliani joined a law firm and opened his own investment banking company plus his own security consulting firm.

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