The Tribune

With Charlie Harper

You may have heard the phrase “she (or he) is too good looking to be taken seriously”. There’s a reason a truism like that persists: it can be true. The kids who are blessed with good looks often glide through high school and even college without seeming to suffer a single setback. They are the kings and queens of the prom, the leaders of the school sports teams, the head cheerleaders.

When these good-looking men and women enter the work force, they can continue to benefit from the appearance their parents gifted to them. But if they aspire to be taken seriously in challenging work assignments, or as they rise through the ranks in their chosen professions, their looks can work against them. Gossip can stigmatise women (and, nowadays, men too) for their looks: maybe their rise was due to their appearance, rather than their ability.

Case in point: Robert Evans, a movie business legend who died Saturday at age 89 in Beverly Hills. Evans was known as being almost too pretty when he arrived in Hollywood as a salesman for his brother Charles’ Evan Picone women’s clothing line. Legend has it that Evans caught the eye of Hollywood powerhouse actress Norma Shearer by jumping fully clothed into a Beverly Hills swimming pool. One thing led to another, and he was cast in the Daryl F. Zanuck movie production of Ernest Hemingway’s most acclaimed book, The Sun Also Rises.

Hemingway reportedly objected to Evans’ casting as the bullfighter in the movie. Zanuck famously replied: “The kid stays in the picture.” Old-time movie fans may well recall Evans in the film. He almost was too pretty.

But good looks aren’t a problem for an actor in Hollywood. Evans’ looks became an issue when, in 1966, he was appointed to head Paramount Studios after the production company was purchased by Gulf and Western, a diversified holding company whose redesigned former headquarters building in New York City is now the Trump International Hotel at One Central Park West.

Pundits and columnists pilloried Evans for his looks and apparent lack of qualifications for his huge new job at Paramount. But he would go on to produce a list of phenomenally successful and critically acclaimed films, headed by the 1974 release Chinatown with Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, a movie many critics still regard as one of the finest ever made.

You may have heard of a few of Evans’ other hits: The Godfather series; Rosemary’s Baby; Serpico; Love Story; Harold and Maude and True Grit.

Evans was married and divorced seven times. One of his wives was the luminescent actress Ali Macgraw. After she and Evans divorced, Macgraw married Steve McQueen, one of the biggest movie stars of his or any era.

Evans also reputedly had mob ties, fought a long-term cocaine addiction and saw his career go in and out of eclipse more than once. But he persevered and prevailed, producing his last moneymaking hit, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, at age 73. The movie grossed $250 million.

Evans was known for recognising and giving opportunities to writers and directors not yet established in Hollywood. The Godfather’s godfather, Francis Ford Coppola, was only one of them.

“We went for original (in our movies),” he said. “We fell on our butts on some of them. But we touched on magic.” Evans told the New York Times three years ago: “I’ve always been a gambler. Craps. Poker. Pictures.”

All eyes on the Senate as the impeachment clock starts ticking

The American House of Representatives will almost certainly today approve the impeachment investigation against President Donald Trump, as support for the effort continues to build among American voters and therefore, also among politicians desirous of remaining in office in Washington. Impeachment will thus become official and will very likely produce by the end of this year an indictment that will be referred to a trial of the president in the Senate, presided over by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

Could the Senate possibly convict Trump? To do so, two-thirds of senators would have to vote to convict the president, necessitating the support of 20 GOP senators. While this seems highly improbable at this point, there’s one thing that could make it inevitable.

That’s the American voter, who sent them all to Washington in the first place. If voters register their support for removing Trump in unmistakable fashion, all those Republican senators who have piously and cravenly scoffed at the House impeachment effort will change their tune.

They’ll jump off Trump’s sinking ship as fast as they can – presuming they see it in their best re-election interests to do so. Trump has been a most useful tool for Washington conservative politicians in pursuing and implementing long-time agendas involving appointing reliable conservatives to federal judgeships, abortion, immigration, tax breaks for the rich and climate change denial.

Trump has played along and so have the professional politicians of the right. He has delivered for them, and at the same time taken over the Republican rank and file voters, nearly 90 percent of whom still think he’s doing a great job. So while they cluck and tut behind their hands in conversation with reporters over Trump’s bad manners and general gracelessness, these politicians know Trump is good for them and their re-election prospects.

So far. But if the impeachment inquiry changes enough voter minds and that situation changes, the Republicans in the Senate will abandon Trump in a New York minute.

Virginian voters will give pundits something to talk about

The American pundit class - and most voters - are understandably focused on the 2020 general election. But on Tuesday, Virginians will go to the polls to elect their state senators and representatives in the House of Delegates. How this vote turns out will be closely watched all over the country.

Republicans presently hold razor-thin majorities in both the upper and lower houses of the state government. But on Tuesday, all 100 seats in the House of Delegates and 40 Senate seats are up for grabs. Recent polling shows the Democrats with a seven percent edge among likely voters. If form prevails, the Dems will control all three statewide offices (governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general), both US Senate seats and both houses of the legislature.

This is happening in the Commonwealth of Virginia which was, after all, the capital of the Confederacy during the American Civil War. In recent decades, the naturally conservative southern and western parts of the state have been electorally overwhelmed by the sprawling Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington DC, which trend strongly toward the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee has poured over $1 million into Tuesday’s legislative elections. Polling shows the number one issue for voters is actually gun policy. Donald Trump is significantly unpopular in most of Virginia.

It all adds up to this: If the Democrats don’t rack up a fairly big win next week, Trump and his loyal GOP allies and supporters have reason for hope. Otherwise, the vote will simply add fuel to the fire consuming the current American administration.