An Actress Who Shuns The Spotlight
When you grow up in an exclusive Beverly Hills neighborhood, attend school with the children of Michael Ovitz and Aaron Spelling and rub shoulders with movie moguls and starlets, where do you search for fame, fortune and glamour?
Monica Lewinsky went looking for it at the White House.
The dark-haired, dark-eyed 24-year-old woman, accused by special prosecutor Kenneth Starr of having an affair with President Clinton and trying to cover it up, came to Washington three years ago to serve as a White House intern, a position she secured through her mother's connections.
Armed with a degree in psychology from Lewis & Clark College in Oregon, Lewinsky headed east to embark on a career in government. The baggage she brought with her included low self-esteem, a troubled childhood and a fixation with school dramatics.
The daughter of a Beverly Hills physician, Lewinsky grew up in one of the most affluent and prestigious suburbs in America - its zip code, part of a hit TV show title, is known by teen-agers across the country.
Her parents later divorced, with her mother accusing her father of violent rampages and her father complaining about her mother's clothes and cosmetics bills.
After the divorce, Marcia Lewis, Lewinsky's mother, wrote free-lance stories for the Hollywood Reporter and published a tell-all book, The Private Lives of the Three Tenors. She recently married New York media mogul Peter Straus.
Lewinsky, who reportedly went on her first diet at age 8, attended both private and public schools in Beverly Hills. Her classmates included Tori Spelling, Kelli Williams and Erik Menendez. Friends described the overweight and bespectacled Lewinsky as awkward and unsure of herself in high school.
She didn't find her niche until she joined a high school dramatics troupe, working first at behind-the-scenes jobs and later stepping into spotlight roles. According to faculty members and classmates, she became obsessed with dramatics, spending every spare moment in the drama department, even returning after graduation to help with some of the productions.
"Monica was always in the drama department, before and after school," former teacher David Medford told George magazine.
It was during this time that Lewinsky met Andy Bleiler, the Oregon professor who in January admitted to having a five-year affair with her. Married with children, Bleiler was a stage technician when he met Lewinsky, who was then a student, in Beverly Hills.
After two years at Santa Monica College, Lewinsky enrolled in Oregon's Lewis & Clark College, from which she graduated in 1995. A year after Lewinsky arrived in Oregon, Bleiler moved his family to the Portland area, where they now live. Bleiler has said the affair continued while Lewinsky was in college.
Lewinsky was recommended for an internship at the White House by a Democratic Party fundraiser who knew her mother. She parlayed her experience there into a paing job in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs, where she worked on correspondence with members of Congress.
In April 1996, she was transferred to the Pentagon. Reasons for the transfer have been the subject of much rumor and reports since the Lewinsky affair surfaced in January.
Some White House staffers say she performed poorly in her job; others say she was moved after reports of inappropriate White House behavior began reaching the personnel staff.
It was during her time at the Pentagon that she became friendly with Linda Tripp, who tape-recorded her phone calls and later turned the tapes over to the Whitewater prosecutor. In them, Lewinsky reportedly talks about an 18-month affair with the president.
Within months of becoming an aide to Pentagon spokesman Kevin Bacon, Lewinsky was looking for a new job in New York City. With the help of President Clinton's friend Vernon Jordan, she interviewed for jobs at the United Nations and at Revlon, where she was offered a public relations position. The offer was withdrawn when news of her suspected relationship with the president was made public.
Since then, she has been what her former attorney has called "a virtual prisoner"in her Watergate apartment, leaving only for a few shopping trips, salon visits and basketball games. Lewinsky was rarely seen, except in the company of her one-time attorney, William Ginsberg.
More experienced in medical malpractice than perjury cases, Ginsberg is the Los Angeles lawyer that her father has retained for years. Shortly after the scandal broke, he took over from the Washington lawyer recommended to Lewinsky by Vernon Jordan. He was replaced by two experienced Beltway lawyers in June.
Suspected of perjury by the Whitewater prosecutor, Lewinsky faces criminal indictment, now that her efforts to obtain immunity in exchange for her cooperation have fallen through.
She flew to Los Angeles to be with her father shortly after the scandal broke. A week later, she returned to Washington to comfort her mother who broke down after two days of grand jury questioning.
Lewnsky has declined all interviews and media requests, save for a Vanity Fair photo shoot in Los Angeles in April.
"She was becoming very depressed by this torture that she was going through, "said Ginsburg, who was then still her attorney. "I thought it would be a good idea. This young lady needs to feel good about herself."
By MARY JAYNE McKAY