Taking a Leap with O.J. Simpson

 I once saw Orenthal James Simpson at Los Angeles International Airport, walking at a steady clip, suitcase in hand. The moment stands out for me because, at the time that I spotted him, the airwaves were filled with the famous Hertz commercials, in which O.J., clearly late for something important, dramatically hurtles over airport barricades to reach the car rental counter. That series of commercials (starting in 1975) struck a chord with the public because they captured what everyone loved about O.J. in that era: the remarkable football skills, the charm, the handsome face and resonant speaking voice.

 As a UCLA student I had plenty of opportunity to root against O.J. and his USC Trojans on the gridiron. Later, I was well aware that he’d successfully made the leap from running back to media superstar. Aside from his commercials, he did TV sports commentary, and honed his acting chops with memorable comic roles as a police detective in three Naked Gun films (from the guys behind Airplane!). Like the rest of America’s media watchers, I thought of Simpson as a big, strong guy with an endearing smile.

 That all changed in 1994 when Simpson was accused of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman. Like millions of others, I watched on TV part of the baffling low-speed White Ford Bronco chase, in which an apparently suicidal Simpson tried to avoid the L.A. cops sent to arrest him. From that point forward, it was hard for a West L.A. person like me to ignore what was going on in O.J.’s world. At the time, I was working for Roger Corman at Concorde-New Horizons Pictures, which had its grubby offices on San Vicente Boulevard in the L.A. suburb of Brentwood. A short walk away was the neighborhood Italian restaurant where Goldman had worked and where Nicole had enjoyed her last meal. It quickly became a media hot spot, but then went out of business. And my daily drive home took me past the infamous condo where the two were stabbed to death. You can imagine how much the location’s notoriety added to the traffic on that stretch of Barrington Avenue.

 Of course all the grim excitement came to a head when the case went to trial—a “trial of the century” that would last a full year. In the course of it, many of the participants became famous,  including defense lawyer Johnnie Cochran, lead prosecutor Marcia Clark, and even judge Lance Ito (who found himself subject to comic parodies, including “The Dancing Itos” on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno). Also on the defense team was Robert Kardashian, now better known as the sire of a  fabulously wealthy social media clan. What I remember best about the announcement of the verdict was my personal fear that L.A. might erupt in civil violence. Thankfully it didn’t happen, though in many people’s minds O.J. would never be fully clear of the murder charges, despite his eventual acquittal.

Now Simpson himself has succumbed to cancer, but I suspect his fame will linger on. Once a media star, always a media star, right?

 

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Paroling O.J. Simpson: The Juice is Again on the Loose

So O.J. Simpson is back in the news again. As viewers of a live coast-to-coast video stream of his parole hearing know full well,  the Juice will soon walk free after almost nine years behind bars in Lovelock, Nevada. He was convicted in 2008  of participating in a bizarre caper that involved breaking into a Las Vegas hotel room to steal sports memorabilia. Before long he’ll be at liberty to resume searching for his wife’s killer on golf courses around the world.

I first heard the name O.J. Simpson at college football games, when his USC Trojans regularly trounced my alma mater, UCLA. As a running back, he was unstoppable—and charismatic. It wasn’t surprising that he went on to a record-setting pro career, first with the Buffalo Bills and then the San Francisco 49ers. It was while he was still playing football that he began to go Hollywood. He had featured roles in a number of thrillers, including The Klansman, The Towering Inferno, and The Cassandra Crossing. This was not surprising: there’s a long tradition of football greats appearing in action flicks, as Jim Brown did in 1967’s The Dirty Dozen. During my Roger Corman days, we cast the 49ers’ Roger Craig as a cop in something called Naked Obsession, because Corman was convinced that moviegoers would pay to see him chase down a bad guy.

O.J.’s star power helped him find roles in comedies too, like the spoofy Naked Gun series (1988, 1891, 1894). And such was his personal charm that many advertisers sought him to be their spokesperson. Most memorably, he did several commercials for Hertz Rental Car: he was always pictured sprinting through airports, leaping over any hurdles in his way, in order to claim his vehicle. (In that era, Hertz billed itself as the Superstar in Rent-a-Car.) Once when I was passing through LAX, I was tickled to see Simpson as a fellow passenger on the concourse. Like me he was walking, not running—which gave me a good giggle. I was delighted to catch a glimpse of him, because even those of us who didn’t follow pro football were not immune to his amiable persona.

That’s why it was so startling to find him connected with a murder case. It disturbed me to think of this iconic man as a criminal. And yet he had a talent for capturing the public imagination: even that infamous slow-motion white Bronco chase became riveting viewing. And the long years (1994-95) when he was on trial for murdering wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman made for must-see TV.

 Of course that was all two decades ago. We’ve had lots of other gruesome stories to entertain us since. But a duo of 2016 films returned us to the grim days of yesteryear. American Crime Story’s Inside Look: The People v. O.J. Simpson  won a prestigious Emmy for Outstanding Short Form Non-Fiction or Reality Series. Though that show was a re-enactment of the Simpson story as a courtroom drama, the same year brought us a multipart (467 minute) documentary called O.J.: Made in America, which went on to win an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. The documentary raised some Academy hackles because of its length and its TV connection, but it had the virtue of probing in some depth why O.J. Simpson’s story continues to fascinate.  Why the “Made in America” subtitle? Because O.J.’s life somehow contains all the elements—not just money and murder but also race, class, gender, and celebrity culture—that make American life what it is today.