Celebrity Sleuth
“She is one hell of woman. God, what a body she has!”
During the course of renovating a sixty-year-old home a surprise behind the drywall or underneath floorboards is a possibility, maybe a defect that will add thousands of dollars to the budget (likely) or a strongbox filled with gold coins (hey you never know). So far, no budget buster has been discovered in demolition and no great treasure. But what has been discovered behind drywall is a time capsule in the form of “Celebrity Sleuth Magazine: Good Sports 2” Volume 5 Number 6, 1992. The cover is graced with Argentine tennis star Gabriela Sabatini with the caption:
“She is one hell of woman. God, what a body she has!” Donald Trump on GABRIELA SABATINI.
The issue is predominately photographs of female sports celebrities mostly unclothed, and for no particular reason a photo of Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona naked. Argentines of Italian ancestry are not a theme of the issue but I cannot help but notice, both of my parents were born in Argentina. But I digress.
Although there are genuine female athletes featured in the issue (Jackie Joyner Kersee) the category of sport is stretched to well beyond its limit: several of the featured women come into close proximity to athletics by running naked onto the pitch during a sporting event, dating or marrying a sports star. Surprising me were the number of chiseled female bodybuilders that to my eye are the antithesis of the female form, long live the difference.
But the historical treasure is the profile of Sabatini with a future president’s opinion of her charms:
• One whom she might have “opened up” to is bygone billionaire Donald Trump, who escorted gorgeous Gaby to his Trump Plaza casino in September 1989. As described by his right-hand man and eyewitness Jack O’Donnell: She was lovely, dark-haired and Donald kept her close by his side. They made their way to the casino and from there to the baccarat pit.” The pair then disappeared for the night, but the following morning Trump was informed by O’Donnel that Gaby, at 19, was underage to be on the casino floor. “Holy Shit!” exclaimed Donald. “I never even thought...” Then he grinned: “But man, I’ll tell you what. She is one hell of a woman! She is really something else. God what a body she has!” With two employees present, Trump continued: “She’s a beautiful girl. Just a beautiful girl. Fucking gorgeous. An incredible boy, just incredible body. She is so physically fit. Beautiful face. A beautiful, beautiful girl.” And at least she has money.
What are the rules for italics? Is it just whatever the editor feels needs italics: one hell, something, body, fucking and so on do seem like words The Donald- as his then still current wife Ivana called him- would place manly emphasis. I am guessing the editorial money comment at the end was due to Trump’s money troubles at the time.
After a bit of sleuthing, I found the quotes, without italics, from “Trumped! The Inside Story of the Real Donald Trump-His Cunning Rise and Spectacular Fall-From the Inside” by John R. O’Donnel with James Rutherford (Simon & Schuster, 1991).
When published a Trump spokesman called O’Donnel a “disgruntled employee.”
All of this is old news, the book was predictably reissued in 2016. But re-reading the passages in O’Donnel’s book nowhere does the phrase “the pair disappeared for the night” nor the stage direction “he grinned” appear. I know that I’m not supposed to expect journalistic integrity from “Celebrity Sleuth Magazine” but six years after Trumps’s successful run for POTUS my nitpicking seems quaint.
In 2016 when he came down the escalator to announce his presidential run, he had been a public figure for decades. He was box office, a pre-marketed product that would generate clicks and give the talking heads of cable news something to blather about for every hour of the day for months, as it would turn out for years, much like a terrorist attack or natural disaster. When he won the election, he became a target that justified any means to destroy him: accuracy, objectivity, and impartiality was not allowed, in fact they were condemned. I don’t need to substantiate my claims of journalistic seppuku, social media is littered with the receipts from prestige media journalists. One underappreciated benefit of social media is that it is like Toto pulling back the curtain on bad wizards.
Putting aside ancillary phenomenon, what some have called, The Great Awokening, it was Trump that broke the veneer of impartiality and objectivity of American journalism. Journalism has now reverted to its nineteenth century roots of political partisanship, and perhaps that’s a good thing, cards on the table and all that.
A few days ago, I discovered another treasure behind a wall, another magazine, presumably left by the same horny contractor, a 1994 issue of “Gent” It clearly states on the cover what the magazine offers inside and it delivers: “Home of the D Cup.”
