Hollywood rubs elbows with D.C.

Book 'Potomac' recounts history between celebs and U.S. prexys

By TED JOHNSON

Not a week goes by without some star stopping by 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue -- the latest being Marc Anthony, George Lopez and Gloria Estefan, for the Fiesta Latino concert on the White House lawn last week.

But as much as President Obama is embraced by celebrity -- and vice versa --the mix is really nothing new.

"Hollywood has always been involved in politics," says Jason Killian Meath, a media strategist and author of "Hollywood on the Potomac," a just-released book of photos and history. The tome, from Arcadia Publishing, details just how close that relationship has been over the years.

Meath, a media consultant who worked on messaging and advertising for President George W. Bush’s campaigns, even starts the book with a 1918 photo of Charlie Chaplin delivering a pitch in D.C. for the Third Liberty Loan benefiting U.S. forces in World War I.

"A lot of people feel, ‘Oh, it’s Obama who is bringing people here,’ " Meath says. "But I remember a similar sentiment when Bill Clinton came into office. In fact, (stars) have always been there."

Meath got the kernel of the idea for the book when he was a teenager watching news coverage of President Ronald Reagan hosting Michael Jackson at the White House in 1984, an appearance he thought was "the most bizarre thing I have ever seen in my life."

Over the years, Meath began compiling photos, searching through archives in Washington and presidential libraries. The result is a gallery of staged press shots and surprising encounters.

The book’s 200 or so photos do show that some presidents mingled with the glitterati more than others, namely Clinton, Reagan and John F. Kennedy, who seems to have met just about every A-lister of the early 1960s.

Obama’s interaction with showbiz figures, Meath says, echoes the days of JFK and Reagan.

Some photos, like one of Reagan trying to break in to Frank Sinatra’s dance with First Lady Nancy Reagan, are famous -- if not infamous. Less well known is a 1981 shot of Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton speaking with Nancy Reagan at the White House, where they watched a screening of Beatty’s "Reds."

Other shots are unexpected: Mamie Eisenhower, for instance, is clearly wowed by Laurence Olivier at the 1956 D.C. premiere of "Richard III."

Meath says that while George W. Bush "didn’t care one way or the other" about celebs, there is a shot of an Oval Office meeting between Dubya, U2 frontman Bono, Laura Bush and rocker-activist Bob Geldof.

Richard Nixon may have been better suited to Bob Hope and John Wayne, but he’s got a surprising number of entries, including shots with Ray Charles and Elvis.

Some of the more candid moments feature Betty Ford being swept off her feet by Fred Astaire and visited at the hospital following breast-cancer surgery by Hope, her husband sitting by smoking his pipe.

Lyndon Johnson couldn’t match his predecessor in star appeal, but he didn’t seem to mind taking to the dance floor with Carol Channing, in her full "Hello Dolly" costume. Meath notes that Johnson was such an "unabashed fan" of Channing that it may have been a reason she landed on Nixon’s enemies list.

And other images remind that as much as pundits see Obama as rewriting the rules of campaigning, in many respects it isn’t all that different from past presidencies.

Evoking comparisons to Shepard Fairey’s iconic portrait of Obama, one 1977 photo features Jimmy Carter standing somewhat awkwardly with Andy Warhol, who presented a portrait to the president after some of his screen prints were sold to raise campaign cash. Meath writes that Carter "credited the Warhol paintings as ‘one of the turning points in the financing of our campaign.’ "

"Republicans and Democrats both have sort of this love bug with Hollywood," Meath says. "Republicans love to say they don’t. But look at last year: (Mike) Huckabee didn’t go many places without Chuck Norris."

And while many of the images show that stars are often little more than window dressing for the White House occupants, it doesn’t mean that the visits lead nowhere. Among the lesser-seen photos is a 1952 shot of Harry Truman, slumping very comfortably in a chair, being entertained by none other than Reagan.