Paris: The Memoir(72)
“What is your plan?” he asked. “Your wish? Your ambition? I ask this of all my clients: What do you want to achieve?”
I didn’t lie. I said, “I want to be famous. I want people to know who I am—to be aware of me—and I want them to like me so I can sell them things. My product lines. Nicky’s product lines. Designers, makers, anything I like. If I say something is beautiful, then they know it must be beautiful. If I go to this club or spa or resort, then everybody wants to go there. I want people to appreciate my opinion as a tastemaker. As an icon. And I want to monetize that, like a lot.”
“Your immediate presence has been established,” Elliot said. “You’re past the embryonic stage of this career you’re developing.”
I nodded. “It’s going pretty well.”
“Like a runaway train,” he said. “Do you worry about overexposure?”
“I don’t believe in overexposure.”
“There are parameters. There’s a turnaround factor. You have to be aware when it becomes obnoxious.”
I shrugged. Agree to disagree. For the moment. We talked for a long time about the changing landscape of media and what it means to be a celebrity.
Elliot said, “My specialty is how much can a person do where they’re promoting their own work, where they become secondary in that dialogue and it’s about that performance in the movie, that innovative sound they created in the music, what was revealed in the book that altered people’s lives. That, to me, is the key to great media—lasting media. You can’t simply be about the sale. Remember, there are such things as limited editions.”
“Maybe,” I said. Exclusivity. That was more my love language.
“If you reach a smaller number of people with real potency and power, they will stay with you forever,” said Elliot.
I didn’t fully understand it then, but he was describing my Little Hiltons, a rock-solid core group of fans who became my family in many ways.
“You have a career of forty years,” he said. “You don’t have to burn it all out in five. Artists aren’t like athletes with a limited number of years they can be viable. There are countless examples of artists who continue to create and inspire two and three generations of fans after decades and decades of doing the good work.”
Looking for some concrete strategy for how to apply all this theory, I showed him the flood of media requests and messages that poured into my phone every day.
“Your life,” he said, “is a whirlwind. People seldom realize how much of your life you have to devote to keeping yourself famous. It’s a round-the-clock, full-time experience. When you go into Ralph’s at one in the morning, you’re on. When you’re sick, you’re on. When you’re tired, you’re on.”
“I know.”
“When you climb a fence—”
“Elliot,” I said, “I’m in on the joke.”
He knew what I was talking about. And he knew why I needed him to know. That’s what made Elliot an indispensable part of my working life for several years and an indispensable part of our family to this day. He curated requests and helped me practice a few talking points, but more than that, he helped me figure out a philosophy that grounded me in the middle of this firestorm I’d started. In terms of crisis management, Elliot gave me the same advice he gives all his clients: “Don’t lie. Learn from Clinton and Nixon. You’re better off if you just cop to it and move on.”
Even when we were momentarily mad at each other or busy with other things, I knew I could call him if I needed him.
As it turns out, I needed him a lot. Nicky had the foresight to know that in advance.
Days and weeks rushed by in a continuous loop: work, party, travel, party, runway, party, repeat. Elliot crafted a tasteful announcement for every engagement and a sensitive statement for every breakup. Whenever my personal bullet train went off the rails, he provided the same kind of clarity and calming presence I could always depend on from Wendy White. Several nights a week, Elliot went out with me and my friends. As the designated driver, he sipped chardonnay and carted us around without judging. Brit and Nicole and I always called him Chardy. Nicky and I loved to torment him on the phone.
“Elliot, Nicky says she wants to tie you up.”
“Elliot, Paris wants to make out with you.”
‘Cause we’re sophisticated like that.
Elliot was consistently unfazed.
We usually headed out into the evening at about nine, had dinner, hit a few clubs, collecting our entourage along the way. Nicole, Brit, Kimberly Stewart, Bijou Phillips, and Casey Johnson were among the regulars, but we never knew who we might run into, and there was plenty of room in my Range Rover. By the time the clubs closed down, we’d have our after-hours raging options laid out.
Elliot spent a lot of those after-parties people-watching or looking at the host’s art while we danced and drank until four in the morning. Then, with the skill of a lion tamer, he steered us through the maze of waiting paparazzi and drove us all home.
The New York Times did a story about Elliot in 2006, which he didn’t like but commented on because they were going to do it with or without his participation. The piece speculated about why this guy who was a legend in the industry—a man Yoko Ono described as “a dear friend who went through storms with me for 25 years”—would be hanging out with a twenty-three-year-old party girl and her silly friends. The author of the article seemed to think he should be spending his time on better people—people who didn’t need him because everyone loved them no matter what—which really misses the essential element of who Elliot is: the guy who can be trusted when you can’t quite trust yourself.