When I profiled Kelsey Grammer for The New York Times, I went to Paramount to the set of "Frasier," where I spent a few days watching Kelsey work, and he told me to return on the day when Katie Couric was to interview him on set for "Dateline." After that, Kelsey said, we would all go to his house in Malibu, where Katie would interview him first, and then I would interview him. L., the Paramount publicist for the show, agreed to this plan, so I showed up on the appointed morning ready to wait.
I had already done a lot of waiting in the process of arranging this story. R., another Paramount publicist, had approached me with the offer to profile Kelsey; when I pitched it to the Times and got assigned, I requested background materials (video tapes of the show, old articles about the actor) from L. and had to follow up five times before I received anything at all from her. After waiting weeks for the publicist to schedule the interview with Kelsey, I received a strange call from R., who told me she was glad I'd worked things out with B., Kelsey's personal publicist, and were we good to go?
I'd never heard of B., much less from him, and when I said so, R. flew off the handle: "The lying sack of shit. I'll tell you about B. Fucking useless. Lazy. All he wants to do is hang out with celebrities. Fucking, fucking useless. I'll get on it."
Several phone calls later, each of which featured more embroidery on R.'s colorful assessment of B., we were all set.
On the day I'd been invited to visit Malibu, I hung out for rehearsal, then watched Katie Couric interview the show's whole cast on set. Afterwards, Katie and I were introduced by L., the publicist, and Katie asked if I'd seen her interview with the plagiarist Jayson Blair (I hadn't), and told me how "proud" she was of it. Then Katie and I both sat on the furniture in Frasier's living room and made calls on our cell phones. In a few minutes, she came over to me and asked, "Were you just listening in on my conversation?"
"No," I said. "Were you just listening in on mine?"
She forced a laugh, but I sensed suspicion or hostility, and I wanted to defuse it. I stood up from Frasier's dad's ratty Barcalounger and said, "This is the most comfortable chair ever. You should try it."
She reluctantly sat down in the chair and patted the arms. "It's nice," she said, but she wasn't warming up.
Much later, I wondered why I chose that particular strategy of trying to make nice with Katie Couric. I could have said anything, and what I said was, Check out this chair—which, on the set of "Frasier," was the same as saying, Spend a minute playing the fan with me. What makes this even stranger is that I'm not a particular fan of "Frasier"—it's a funny show, but Kelsey Grammer doesn't do anything to quicken my pulse. Even so, I must have felt on some level that the easiest way to overcome the tension with Katie was to get ourselves out of the way and enter, for a moment, the experience of enjoying this famous place together.
"We could get somebody to take your picture in it," I offered. "Good souvenir." Instantly, I knew that I'd said something wrong.
"Oh no, that's okay. That won't be necessary," she said, and walked away.
Copyright © 2004/2005 Michael Joseph Gross. All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication or distribution is prohibited.