We watch... so you don't have to.
The Idiot Box 4: Nipples of Virtue -- The Teri Hatcher Chronicles
You are reading this article because you are a Pathetic Loser. You are in front of your computer, in your underwear, eating a Swanson's microwave meal, and you are looking for nude pictures of Teri Hatcher. Perhaps you already found some, and you satisfied yourself. Maybe you're feeling a little lonely, a little guilty, a little depressed. Perhaps things just haven't gone your way, and the only thing that takes a little of the sting out of your pathetic existence are nude pictures of Teri.Well, unlike you and the rest of your ilk, I don't search the Internet for lascivious pictures of Teri. You see, Pathetic Loser, I actually met Teri Hatcher, and spent the day with her. But let's get to the lurid and intimate details that you seek, that of Ms. Hatcher's nipples.
I was a designer for a regional magazine in Southern California. Part of our appeal was our celebrity covers. Those celebrity kept the magazine from going under. Every month was a desperate race to find some B-level actor or actress who was desperate enough to grace our cover. Once a month, our shrew of a publisher would hold a staff meeting to brainstorm a list of people for the cover. At any other magazine, it would be a simple process, but The Shrew was a woman whose only exposure to pop culture was what she heard at the plastic surgeon's office.
"How about Sammy Davis? I like Sammy." The Shrew suggested.
"He's dead." someone said.
"We'll do a retrospective." she said.
"How about Tori Spelling?" someone threw out.
"She's a little too downtown for us, wouldn't you say?"
"What?"
"She looks like a hooker. Our readers wouldn't understand."
"How about George Clooney?"
"Who?" the Shrew said.
"From ER..."
"I don't know that..."
"How about Jason Alexander."
"Who?"
"From Seinfeld..."
"What?"
And it would go on and on until we had a short list of Cliff Robertson, George Segal and Angela Landsbury. Every fucking month. And the staff would get together on its own and conspire against The Shrew to decide who we wanted on the cover. And one month, we convinced her to do Teri.
At the time, the whole Lois & Clark thing was just taking off, and at the time she fit the bill for the type of person who'd agree to doing a photo shoot with us. Now I won't bore you with a diatribe about publicists how they are a step lower than rats, cockroaches, and other vermin, but lets just say that after a significant amount of ass-kissing, the publicist agreed to let us photograph her.
Once the shoot was set, we called a stylist to pull clothes for her. "What you want to dress her in?" the stylist asked.
"Something semi-transparent," I said showing her some pictures from Paris Vogue.
The art director, laughing lasciviously, said, "She won't wear any of that.."
"I just want to get her to try it on," I said.
At a celebrity photo shoot, no secrets are hidden. We find out everything. I can tell you who has arm flaps like an old lady (Fran Drescher); who has a little mustache (Halle Berry); and who has aged so badly that retouchers had to work overtime to make her look decent (Catharine Bach of "Dukes of Hazzard"). And I was sure I'd see something that would disappoint me.
Now the trick good photography is this: Treat a star like an ordinary Joe, and an ordinary Joe like a star. So unlike a Pathetic Loser like yourself, who would at some point begin fawning all over Ms. Hatcher, I play it cool -- like the big bald beautiful black cat that I am. It works, too -- I freaked the fuck out of Fran Drescher's manager once. (I don't think she knows too many black people).
So when Teri came into the studio I kept a distance until the photographer introduced me. I want to say, Pathetic Loser, that Ms. Hatcher was very nice, didn't come with an entourage or an attitude, and that even her publicist was kinda cool. But when the photographer introduced her to me, it took every once of self-discipline not to leer at her breasts. They looked good, even in the modest T-shirt that day. In fact they looked too good, so I asked the stylist (who was friend of mine) to look for any tell tale signs of enhancement.
"Anything for you, my big black deviant," she said.
"Hey," I said laughing, "it's all in the interest of science."
A few minutes later, she walked out and said "They're real."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, they're just very perky."
I was in the presence, Pathetic Loser, of perfection.
Now the main prop for the shoot was a phone booth. We shot some pictures of her in a suit inside and then we had her try on the sheer dress. And then the photographer told her he wanted to take the phone booth outside and photograph her on top of the booth.
"Okay," Ms. Hatcher said.
It was a cold and overcast day in Los Angeles, and the dress offered little protection for Ms. Hatcher from the elements or leering eyes. And the second a cold gust of air hit her, everyone on the set noticed a peculiar change with Ms. Hatcher -- her nipples were, to put it delicately, excited. And it was a wonderful sight. Just to be in the presence of her glorious nipples would make the lame able to walk again, the feeble into sharp minded geniuses, and the weak into the strong. I was in the presence of something holy-- something bigger than myself. All of the answers I'd sought were made as simple as children's puzzles. In the presence of those nipples I was at peace with the world and my fellow man.
But it was not to last. The Shrew went to all the photo shoots. She was an aging bitter beauty. No amount of surgery, makeup, or clothing would save her from that horrible fate she feared -- the loss of her power over men. And with this holy vision of perfection in front of us, The Shrew had to find something to bring her back to earth. She slowly walked up to me and whispered in my ear: "Look at those veins on her legs. They're absolutely horrible. I think they're pulsating. We'll definitely have to retouch those out." And I when I looked I saw these horrible green veins on her legs. The magic was gone. And I cried many bitter tears.
