There are a number of magazines in the UK that cater to the sort of people who like to kiss the collective arse of the nobility (not royalty) and the nearly-noble. Harper’s & Queen springs to mind, though apparently it now follows its US counterpart in both name and content. There’s also Tatler. Most of the people those magazines cover fall perfectly into the famous-for-famous category, though the most prominent are usually considered tastemakers and therefore (I suppose) famous on merit.
That was (at least originally) Sylvia Miles, who was not famous-for-being-famous but famous for acting.
A few seasons back, at the Lord Lieutenant’s Ball, this rummy little chap wandered up and the old buster had to shake his hand, since he was the guest of her Grace, albeit with a bemused look on his face. Then we discovered the fellow was in trade.
The county talked of nothing else for weeks.
Nesbit was a model (in fact, she’s considered to be the world’s first “super model”) and an actress on stage long before she met Henry Thaw. I wouldn’t consider her “famous for being famous”.
Oh yes. Germany has a lot of these and it’s not really a new phenomenon. Usually, it involves individuals who happen to be filthy rich (just like the Kardashians).
Also, Germany hasn’t had royals for almost 100 years now, but the descendants of the many ruling dynasties from the past are still very much visible today, which is an interesting subject in itself.
In the pre-Internet era, one of the major examples of FFBF (in the U.S.) was Zsa Zsa Gabor. Although she started her career as an actress, and made a number of films in the 1950s, by the mid-1960s she was better known for her multiple marriages (nine to date) to people like Conrad Hilton (great-granddad to that other FFBF, Paris Hilton), and actor George Sanders. She was a regular on the talk show circuit, and at a certain point only appeared in films as herself, or as a novelty cameo.
On her many marriages, she commented: “I am a marvelous housekeeper: Every time I leave a man I keep his house.”
(In researching for this post, I was shocked to learn that she’s still alive, and will turn 99 next February.)
As a variation of the original question, one could look for individuals who are (1) to some extent distinguished in their field/profession, but (2) the amount of publicity they receive is not warranted by their actual success. I go first and nominate Anna Kournikova. A woman tennis player who (unlike Kournikova) unfortunately happens to be an ugly duckling doesn’t become a household name in mainstream media if she never wins a major tournament.
