Wasn’t there also a Kim sex tape very early on?
Yes, but “rich heiress makes porn video” is news. “Random woman makes porn video” isn’t.
Oscar Wilde was probably the first superstar “famous for being famous” celebrity in America. Unlike Twain and Dickens, who were best-selling author’s before they became huge entertainers as well, at the time of his 1882 tour Wilde had written one play that had flopped (Vera, a melodrama that’s not even produced today) and a self published book of poetry and that was about it. The most famous thing about him was that he was lampooned in Gilbert and Sullivan’s musical Patience, The really only Londoners and Dubliners knew who he was. He gave lectures on art history and aestheticism and dressed funny and that was the extent of his fame at the beginning of his tour, but by the end he was a superstar. (The writings for which he is remembered all came years later.)
Only rough drafts of his lectures remain and of course his delivery and voice and mannerisms were not recorded. I am guessing that he was tongue-in-cheek enough to be in many ways a cerebral standup comic. Several people wrote reviews of his lectures that basically said (my words not their’s) “I can’t explain why it was a great evening, but it was a great evening”.
Back in the day I sometimes visited a gossip group, and they were discussing Paris and Nicky Hilton for about a year prior because word on the street was the Hilton heiresses wanted to become celebrities and had hired a publicist.
kim k was sort of nationally famous because of her dads connection to oj simpson as a kid and she was well known on the teen party circuit in L.A …
Quibble with your quibble. The Simple Life was already in production when the Sex tape came out.
Bob Hope was in some very popular movies, including the “road” pictures with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour, The Big Broadcast of 1938, The Paleface, and The Lemon Drop Kid. He hosted and occasionally starred in the TV anthology show The Chrysler Theater. He did stand-up comedy. He performed in and hosted many USO shows.
As he got older, he did less and less creative work. He hosted some TV shows, and showed up on talk shows, but he no longer made movies. Younger people who weren’t familiar with his earlier work probably did think of him as famous for being famous. He wasn’t though - he was famous for being an actor and comedian.
I’m partial to Georgiana Cavendish (1757 – 1806).
Indeed. The Lemon Drop Kid is still shown on TV this time of year, and Silver Bells is still one of the most popular Christmas songs of all time.
yeah that horrid set of movies he did in the late 60s/early 70s didn’t help either
Bob Hope’s best work was probably in radio. “The Pepsodent Show” ran from 1938 to 1948 and was the most popular show for two years during World War II. My father used to say that the day after his show, kids at school would recite their favorite jokes from Hope’s opening monologue. But radio shows, while many survive, don’t really have an audience today.
For whatever reason, a lot of the radio comedians of the day: Hope, Fred Allen, Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen, etc didn’t make great comedy films. The Hope and Crosby “Road to” films are probably the best of the lot. One of the minor gags in the Jack Benny tv show was what a lousy picture “The Horn Blows at Midnight” was.
Even before the radio shows, Bob Hope was famous as a vaudeville performer. He made enough money doing that that when he moved to Hollywood for The Big Broadcast of 1938, he could buy land in the San Fernando valley. A lot of it. The joke went that Bing saw Bob walking down Van Nuys Boulevard singing “This land is my land, it isn’t your land…”
“a big ass and a sex tape” – Joel McHale
He was a working comedian all the way. How did his name even come up?
Stupid question: Why did anyone care when her sex tape was leaked? Nobody would care about anyone else’s. Was she famous in any way before that?
“Beau” Brummell.
She’s not a random woman, though. She’s the daughter of OJ Simpson’s lawyer. It’s still a “famous daughter” situation. And this was before sexting and everyone using their cameras in bed. Plus she was Paris Hilton’s friend and hairdresser, apparently.
Hilton decided to do a reality show. She needed to drum up publicity, so she leaked a sex tape to get her in the news. Kardasshian apparently followed suit, and probably for the same reason–to get publicity for her reality show.
As for the topic of this thread, I agree that what Hilton (and Kardasshian) did to become famous more fits the concept of “famous for being famous.” Sure, the term may have been made up earlier, but it was with inferior versions of the concept. Zsa Zsa Gabor did a whole lot of things besides just being famous. She didn’t just stay famous for being famous.
Hell, even when I saw this thread, my first thought was “you mean that lady on Green Acres?” I definitely think of Gabor as an actor.
I would argue that all of the siblings of monarchs (at least since the turn of the 19th Century) could be considered ‘famous for being famous’.
It’s kind of weird that Kim was held hostage, tied up and robbed and the world as a whole kind of treated it either as “meh” or “She had it coming”. She’s one of the most famous people in the world. Not sure what that says about society, celebrity or her but it is definitely a weird reaction.