Nov. 21, 2007
More tales of the thin-skinned city
By STEVE FRIESS
It took a few days for the phone to ring. I had expected it.
I just didn't expect quite what I heard from the other end of
the line.
Robert Earl, the impresario who just relaunched the Planet
Hollywood brand as well as his own career after ruining both
in the 1990s, was hopping mad. I can't say I was surprised.
Over the weekend, I penned a piece for the Sunday Telegraph
in London about the Planet Hollywood grand "opening" and all
the celebrities who were to attend the bash of all bashes. I
even quoted Robin Leach, who gushed on his blog that "this may
well go down as the biggest showbiz weekend in Vegas history."
In a scant 500 words, I provided Earl himself 20 percent of
my space to speak and elsewhere gave great detail about what
Earl's been up to with the former Aladdin.
But I knew trouble was coming when I saw the headline to my
piece on the Internet before leaving for Saturday night's party:
"Planet Hollywood's Vegas casino rolls out. Robert Earl's celebrity
friends will be at the party -- again -- but it feels phony."
Yes, "phony." It's British. That headline was, indeed, weird.
I hadn't made any such pronouncements about whether the sensibility
of the event seemed false, but that was the impression most
people would take away from the headline. It was problematic,
yes.
It came about, though, because I opted to turn to one of the
Vegas-watchers I respect, Hunter Hillegas from RateVegas.com,
for balance. As a journalist, I've developed a list of observers
whose expertise and independence is unimpeachable while still
being eminently quotable. Hunter has become one of mine and
he happened to be available on short notice in the four hours
I had to write the piece.
Here's what Hunter had to say about Earl's reworking of the
property and the self-conscious flooding of celebrities into
the hotel: "It feels very fake. He's got a lot of celebrity
friends, but it still feels totally phony to me. The kind of
people he's getting are on the way out, they're not up-and-comers.
I have serious doubts of the prospects of Planet Hollywood on
a long-term scale." When Earl called me, I figured he would
be angry about the headline. He had every right to be.
But as someone who has been in the public eye and in business
for so many years, I also assumed he would know that I don't
write headlines and that my piece itself was a balanced look
at the story. The vast majority of it was what he ought to have
viewed as "positive," and he should've been able to tolerate
some criticism.
Still, the entire piece was tainted by the headline, and I
conceded that point to Earl. But that's not where he stopped.
He ranted on about who the hell this RateVegas.com guy was,
why he ought to have credibility and how I could possibly defend
this "piece of sh-t."
"Did you speak to Steve Wynn or Jim Murren or any of the others
who have said they would like to do business with me?" he asked.
I did not. In 500 words and with six hours to do the piece,
there really wasn't much time or space. But even if I had, the
perspective of an advocate for tourists and an opinion maker
like Hunter remains valid. Earl himself was asked by me in our
chat on Friday for the story whether he understands the criticisms
about him, to which he said: "I 100 per cent understand people's
skepticism. But we're eroding that very, very quickly." And
that's where I left the piece, giving him the last word.
None of that mattered. Earl found the entire piece to have
a mean-spirited tone, asking me if I had read the timeline box
that also appeared with the piece. Again, not anything I had
a part in, but it seemed to me to be a straightforward accounting
of the ups and downs of the Planet Hollywood brand. Evidently,
Earl is upset by a factual retelling of history.
What was most bizarre about the conversation was that Earl
twice told me that it was his "life's mission" now to find out
how "this happened" and to find out "everything there is to
know about" Hunter, his business dealings, his conflicts of
interest. Because, you know, Wynn and Murren wouldn't have had
any.
I offered Earl my editor's email address. He didn't want it,
implied he had all the contacts over there he needed. Okey dokey.
He also expressed his grave disappointment with me. Which
is the part I just don't get. The piece was fine and fair. Tilted,
probably, in his favor. And he knows I don't do the headlines.
Yet he will never speak to me again, he declared.
What's funny is that people often wonder how I've developed
such a solid source relationship with Steve Wynn. And I have
to tell them that it started when I panned the Wynn Las Vegas
in a Chicago Tribune piece in 2005. He called me up, not unlike
Earl, and bawled me out. That happens. But what happened next
was that Wynn decided he wanted a better opportunity to explain
his hotel to me. He invited me over for a walk-about that lasted
three hours.
There isn't a time that I talk to Wynn these days when he
doesn't rub my face in the fact that things I criticized about
the hotel turned out to be the things that have made it an exceptional
experience for his guests. But he never begrudges me my right
to disagree with him and seems, in fact, stimulated by the fact
that I do. And, in the long run, even though I still think the
walkways are too narrow and "Le Reve" is le lousy, we've both
benefited.
In the case of Earl, the irony is that I didn't render an
opinion. I reported. On my blog, I did write fondly about his
party and have, over the months, given high marks to his redesign
of the place.
It's never pleasant when a source is angry with you, although
it is an occupational hazard. But when Robert Earl tells me
he's never seen a worse, less fair piece about him, he's being
hyperbolic at best. He led a publicly traded company that went
from $3.6 billion in value to bankruptcy. Surely others before
Hunter Hillegas have taken a few shots.
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