National Enquirer

Book Review:
THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER: THIRTY YEARS OF UNFORGETTABLE IMAGES

Like a grisly auto accident, The National Enquirer attracts and repels at the same time. You may be too embarrassed to be seen buying it at the newsstand, but you're bound to sneak a peek when no one is looking. Despite its reputation for salacious gossip, America's favorite scandal sheet has earned its share of grudging respect in the past decade by scooping more respectable news operations on both the O.J. Simpson murder trial and Jesse Jackson's love child. And don't overlook the fact that it was The National Enquirer's popularity that led Time-Life to create People magazine in 1974, the publication that was instrumental in reducing journalism to the sensational celebrity driven pap that now passes for 'news.' So, if The National Enquirer doesn't merit a Pulitzer just yet, its 50th anniversary warrants some kind of monument and now it's here.

The National Enquirer: Thirty Years of Unforgettable Images is what's known as a 'coffee table book,' but if we compare it to coffee, it's the instant kind: fast, cheap, and not for all tastes.

If Norman Mailer hadn't thought of it first, a perfect subtitle for this collection would be The Naked and the Dead since so many of the subjects are immortalized in one state or the other. Among the naked are Nicole Simpson at pool-side with her breasts exposed and her legs wrapped around the neck of a lover. Xaviera Hollander of Happy Hooker fame is equally shameless. Her private parts remain private but her two-piece bathing suit fails to conceal the flab she gained in the years following the publication of her best-seller. Other stars are caught fully clothed but seem naked when stripped of their glamour. Liza Minnelli, her face bloated and sans makeup, looks like an anonymous housewife, and Julia Roberts reveals an unshaved armpit when waving to fans.

Then there are the dead. The National Enquirer achieved its biggest sales--six million copies--by giving Elvis Presley fans a final photo to remember him by, and the King in his coffin commands a centerfold here. Bing Crosby, River Phoenix, and Christina Onassis are also wheeled out in their caskets, but these photos are tasteful compared to the ghoulish shots of John Lennon and Steve McQueen, both seen sleeping the big sleep on slabs in the morgue before a mortician could work his magic.

Still among the living but ripe for the reaper is Frank Sinatra. In pajamas as white as his beard, ol' blue eyes is seen sneaking a smoke during his secluded last days, while Dean Martin, his tired eyes magnified by glasses so thick they might have once served as a prop in a Martin and Lewis comedy routine, is shown being helped from his limousine only weeks before he went gentle into his final good night.

And there's more, much more, the famous and the infamous, as only The National Enquirer can show them. The National Enquirer: 30 Years of Unforgettable Images delivers on the promise of its title. It has one other advantage over the weekly edition: if you're embarrassed to be seen buying the newspaper every week, remember you only have to buy the book once.

Brian W. Fairbanks
Entertainment Editor