Hollywood's Biggest Scandal Ever?
The biggest show in Hollywood these days is the federal wiretapping case against a former private eye. Anthony Pellicano is accused of spying on and for some of the biggest names in show business.
An article in the June issue of Vanity Fair magazine suggests an FBI raid of Pellicano's office turned up lots of evidence, including a taped conversation that may have been between Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman when they were getting divorced.
Bryan Burrough, co-author of the article, asserted on The Early ShowFriday that, "This is already, even in the early stages, Hollywood's largest and most significant scandal in years, perhaps, ever, because every disagreement in Hollywood, every contract disagreement, every stalker, every baby born out of wedlock, involves attorneys. And for 20 years, when things got nasty, Hollywood attorneys turned to Anthony Pellicano to investigate — and, we now know, illegally wiretap his opponents."
Burrough
co-anchor Rene Syler Pellicano "styled himself for his clientele. That is, he made himself to be kind of a movie detective: smooth, double-breasted suits, opera on the speakers in the office. He wanted to be like Sam Spade, and unfortunately, he resorted to tactics you see often in the movies that just aren't done in real life: brandishing baseball bats at people and wiretapping telephones."The scandal, Burrough says the scandal "has been percolating for about four years, since a dead fish was thrown on a newspaper reporter's car and Pellicano was implicated. He was put away on weapons charges."
The Vanity Fair article observes that Pellicano "was poised to emerge from prison in February 2006, when he was indicted again, this time with two former cops and two former employees of Pacific Bell, on 112 charges of wiretapping and of paying policemen to illegally access law-enforcement databases. Pellicano remains in custody while rumors ricochet that he will begin "ratting out" his clients."
On The Early Show, Burrough added, "Just about every week now, there are more people indicted in the probe."
Burrough told Syler that a tape of what may be a 2001 conversation between the then-divorcing Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman has entered the picture: "We know Tom Cruise, via his attorney, hired Pellicano on at least two occasions. And it got so bad during the divorce with Nicole Kidman that Nicole widely assumed that she was, in fact, being taped. We don't know that she was. But she would get on the phone during conversations and say, 'Tom, are you listening? Am I saying the right thing?' And eventually, we're told, investigators did find a single tape of her on the telephone. We don't know where that came from."
Comedian Chris Rock is the latest big name mentioned in connection to the case.
"We know," Burrough explained to Syler, "that Rock, through his attorney, hired Pellicano when a young woman several years ago accused him of fathering her child. It does not appear that Rock was the child's father, however. She alleged she had been wiretapped and harassed."
Among other mega-names to have come up: Sylvester Stallone.
"It's funny," Burrough remarked. "Stallone used to hire Pellicano, and then Pellicano went after him for somebody else. In this case, the indictments allege Stallone was wiretapped during a business dispute with his former business manager."
Burrough added, "Right now, the targets of the probe that everyone's talking about are big studio executives and big agents — people that folks in Texas probably don't read about every day.
"But there are hundreds of stars, directors, producers, who are one step removed from this at the moment, because their attorneys are under investigation.
"A lot of people are pretty scared."