Shooting Stars
Authors: Jennifer Buhl
Copyright © 2014 by Jennifer Buhl
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Cover images © Jennifer Buhl
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This book is a memoir. It reflects the author's present recollections of her experiences over a period of years. Some names and characteristics have been changed, some events have been compressed, and some dialogue has been re-created.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Buhl, Jennifer.
   Shooting stars : my unexpected life photographing hollywood's most famous / Jennifer Buhl.
       pages cm
   Includes index.
   (alk. paper)
   1. Buhl, Jennifer. 2. PaparazziâUnited StatesâBiography. 3. Women photographersâUnited StatesâBiography. 4. CelebritiesâCaliforniaâLos AngelesâMiscellanea. I. Title.
   TR140.B845A3 2014
   070.4'9--dc23
2013046457
To Rhe, Al, and Jo, who have never stopped believing in me.
Author's Note
All the events in this book are true to the best of my recollection.
Celebrity names, appearances, and/or details have been represented as accurately as possible to the best of my recall.
To keep the nonfamous
nonfamous
, some names, distinguishing characteristics, and other details of noncelebrities, events, and individuals have been changed to protect identities.
pa·pa·raz·zo
noun
, plural -raz·zi
a photographer who pursues celebrities to get candid pictures for publication.
in slang, paparazzi is used as singularâa successful paparazzi.
paparazza
is the singular feminine; possibly a word I made up.
Origin: Italian. The last name of a news photographer in Federico Fellini's
La Dolce Vita
(1959), which was the name of a restaurant ownerâCoriolano Paparazzoâin George Gissing's
By the Ionian Sea
(1901), a book read by Fellini at the time of the movie's production.
An alternate and contested origin of the word states that it originated from the Italian word
pappataci
, which describes a small, buzzing mosquito-like insect.
My lunch shift at Tropicalia, the Brazilian restaurant up the street from my apartment, has just ended. I'm sitting on the restaurant's patio drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. I didn't come to L.A. to be a waitress, but I'm thankful for the job.
I hear tires skid on the pavement and look up. Eight blacked-out SUVs have come to a screeching halt in front of White Trash Charms, the boutique across the street. I watch as seven guys jump out of their vehicles and a beautiful, skinny blond gets out of hers. It could be a mugging or robbery, or possibly gang violence.
No. It's Paris Hilton. Shopping.
I've never seen paparazzi in action before. For ten minutes, the guys press their cameras against the store window, bursts of flash going off every few seconds. When a meter maid walks up to write Paris's car a ticket, one of the paparazzi tries to negotiate on her behalf. Unsuccessful, he instead captures the ticket-writing moment. When Paris exits, the men crouch in front of her, moving backward while taking her picture. It's very physical, but oddly friendly somehow. The men thunder about loudly and intrusively, yet Paris remains untouched in a small bubble of space. And keeps smiling.
She drives off in her Range Rover, followed by a chain of similarly sized vehicles. But I notice one nice-looking Latino paparazzo has stayed behind and is sorting through pictures on his camera. I'm curious about the whole spectacleâand a little starstruck tooâso I amble over and strike up a conversation with the first question that comes to mind: “How much do you make on a picture?”
“Oh, at least five hundred,” he says.
Holy snap.
Right then and there, it's like God whacks me over the head. I have $50 in my pocket and less than a thousand in my bank account; my life is lackluster and I want more. I just haven't figured out how to make “more” happen.
“Do y'all ever hire girls?”
* * *
One week later, Richard (the nice-looking Latino paparazzo) has agreed to let me ride along. From the passenger seat of his SUV, I witness the year's No. 1 out-of-control celebrity: Britney Spears.
At least twenty guys swarm her car like bees around a hive.
They ought to call this a
gangbang, I think. Later I find out they do.
1
I see bursts of light amid thick, burly men. Britney is the only woman. I hear her name:
“Britney, can I get a smile?”
“How you today, Brit?”
“Brit, here!”
“Here!”
“Here!”
Five minutes prior, we were midway in the caravan, eight or nine cars back, when Britney's car turned into a parking lot and abruptly stopped. Richard followed, slammed into park, left the engine running, and took off sprinting. No way could I ever move that fast.
Immediately I lose track of him in the mass of men. Britney is the one to watch though. She is the passenger and has her door open with one leg hanging out. After about thirty seconds, her driver, Sam Lutfi, a guy who will later have a restraining order slapped on him by Britney's dad, starts to pull away with her door still ajar and her leg still hanging out. Slowly though, lest he run someone over. Or lest the Brit fall outâ¦
Some of the men run alongside the vehicle as it begins to move through
the deserted parking lot. Perhaps they think she'll stop again and get out. Others run back to their cars so they don't miss what is apparently called
the follow
.
Richard startles me when he opens the car door and jumps back in. Carelessly, he tosses his gargantuan camera, flash, and handful of tangled cords off to the side, and thousands of dollars' worth of equipment thuds to the floorboard where he leaves it. His car lurches when he pulls into drive, and we play no-touch bumper cars with the others, inching forward little by little until we fall into line. The race restarts.
This seemingly purposeless pass through an office park is our first stop, ten miles out from Britney Spears's Malibu home. According to Richard, she does this frequentlyâstopping haphazardly, sometimes getting out, sometimes not. “She likes to see us run,” he says.
Why
, I wonder,
would anyone participate in something like this? Does she have a choice? Is this what happens to all the stars?
Now we're headed up Sunset Boulevard, toward town, into Beverly Hills. Though it's rush hour, we move fairly fast in our seamless convoy. Nobody stops at lights: it's as if we were strewn together like one long beaded necklace.
When we first left Britney's, Richard called in backup on his walkie-talkie and it has now arrived: Jean-Luc, a well-dressed Frenchman wearing dress pants, not jeans like everyone else, and an ironed shirt, joins us on the
chase
. He's on a motorcycle, and another guy is sitting behind him recording video. Richard says that's stupid: “Does he want to kill himself? Lunatic Frenchie.”
