Suck It, Wonder Woman!: The Misadventures of a Hollywood Geek (8 page)

Some women achieve
remarkable greatness by soulfully stitching together the rough red, white and blue fabric that made up the very first American flag, thus bringing Old Glory herself into existence. Other women find greatness in the hot chamber of a .22-caliber rifle. Others marry into greatness and then play an integral part in the fight for civil rights for every human being on Earth. And some women assume the mantel of Empress of Russia before allegedly assuming the position in order to make great, sweet love to horses. Some simply rock their great asses in electric blue short shorts adorned with glittering stars.

So while all of the great women portrayed here in this Gallery of Great Women arrived at greatness by vastly different routes, they all helped pave the path before me. As a woman, I am always looking to other women for inspiration, courage and determination to help me achieve in what is still, in many ways, a man’s world. Several of the women pictured here have inspired me in just that way, and I am not only talking about Wonder Woman, Princess Leia and Sailor Moon. The others are pretty cool, too. Please enjoy these stirring and heroic images of great women throughout history.

Something totally crazy
just happened to me and I have to tell you about it: I got the offer. Yep. The cover of
Playboy.
I was really surprised. I thought the only people who were offered a
Playboy
cover were celebrities trying to prove they’re still hot at forty, and reality stars with sex tapes. Let me check—nope, I’m neither of those things. I had done a celebrity page for the magazine a few years ago, but that wasn’t anywhere near nude or as high profile as the
cover
.

My publicist and I instantly—and politely—responded with, “No, thank you.” But, still, I couldn’t resist telling everyone that I got the offer! It was hilarious to me. I mean, I’m not super-skinny, I don’t have huge boobs—and do people really know who I am? I was flattered. To be offered the cover of
Playboy
is prestigious in its way…or was at a time. And I was pretty happy to get the offer—even if I did turn it down. Without even asking how much it would’ve paid. From what I hear, to do a nude cover could’ve easily fetched a cool seven figures. Seven! As in the number just after six! Wow…

So why didn’t I do it? Well, first off, a million dollars is not enough for me to get nude for the sake of…getting nude. Second, everyone I knew agreed with me that it was not the right time. When is the right time? When I want to prove I’m hot at forty! Thirdly, I couldn’t imagine my stepfather, brother, or cousins seeing me spread-eagle in any magazine, let alone spread-eagle surrounded by feathers or pearls or on top of a car or eating a cheeseburger or whatever the hell else it is people do while they happen to be butt-ass naked. But more than all of that, I couldn’t and wouldn’t do it because I didn’t want the fans to be disappointed.

Okay, maybe that sounds crazy. I know a lot of people think my fans are sweaty, overweight geeks who
want
to see me naked. Well, they might be right. But they’re mostly wrong. I think the fans would look at me like a sellout, a fame whore who is trying to get by on her looks alone—well, that
and
her vagina. My fans and I have something special that most people in the spotlight don’t have: it might sound cheesy, but the truth is we are friends. And I wasn’t about to let down my friends.

So I turned down
Playboy
and everyone I knew was in support of it. Oh, wait. Everyone except for one of the higher-ups at G4 (the network I host
Attack of the Show!
on). I sent the Playboy e-mail to a bunch of my colleagues as a “can you believe the offer I just got?” laugh. I was surprised by the response; people thought I should do it—saying it would be great for my career. In some ways, I think they were right. Everyone would know my name for like a week. Sure, my “career” would be “great” for a week. What about after that? I’d just be another chick who got naked for
Playboy
. And at this point, there isn’t a price tag on that for me.

A few weeks later I get an e-mail from my publicist. It’s
Playboy
. And they’re offering me the cover…again. But this time
no nudity
. Wait. What? They want to put me on the
cover
of
Playboy
and I
don’t
have to get naked? Weird but true.
Playboy
, it seems, is in a rebranding period and they thought I represented the “new era” of Hollywood, celebrity and all that stuff. Wow. Okay. I’m in.

For this shoot, I requested my normal glam team—makeup artist, hair stylist and wardrobe stylist.
Playboy
sent some suggestions for photographers they wanted to use. I chose a photographer I’d previously worked with on a different magazine shoot and whose work I really like.

I get a call saying that this photographer insists on using a different wardrobe stylist. He has a guy that is “fantastic” and “would really make the shoot great.” Some photographers in this business insist on working with the same stylists, makeup and hair people. So much so that sometimes the entire shoot hinges on it. Now the same goes for the celebrity. Especially for someone like me. Look it—I’m half Chinese and half white. My face is not like a normal person’s—my cheeks are big, my eyes are small; a little bit of makeup goes a long way on me. And despite my hair being heavy and long, it can hold a curl super well. These are all things you have to know to help me look my best. I’ve had one too many bad experiences with so-called “fantastic” artists and stylists and I didn’t want the cover of
Playboy
to be something I wasn’t proud of. Like that time I made out with that boy throughout the entirety of
Forrest Gump
! This was not about to be another
Forrest Gump
make-out session!

But this photographer was really pushing his stylist on me and since he had done numerous
GQ UK
covers and we could talk about the look and feel of the shoot ahead of time, I figured it would be okay.

I had once seen some pictures of Heidi Klum that I liked. She was sitting on the grass, smiling and being very flirty, playful and summery. I sent the pictures to the photographer, stylist and
Playboy
. Everyone loved them and agreed the shoot should have the same spirit.

Playboy then said that if I flash the same amount of skin that Heidi had, they would pay me a certain amount—I’m not gonna reveal too much here (it’s a trend!) but suffice it to say it was a very good amount of money. No seven figures, of course, but still. Heidi had only showed some side boob and maybe the top of her butt. Hell, I’d shown that much in surf magazines. We agreed. After all, I wanted the pictures to be sexy and would’ve felt comfortable showing that much with or without the money.

Before the shoot, my poor publicist had to have legal conversations that I’m sure she’d love to forget: side boob, no nipple, no pink. No butt crack, but you can show top of back. No vagina, no anything. Yes, you can show underboob, but there can be no areola. Again, only side boob, no pink anywhere.

Yes, you can show underboob, but there can be no areola. Again, only side boob, no pink anywhere.

By this point, I’d had numerous conversations and e-mails with both the photographer and the stylist. Everyone was on board and it was gonna be a great shoot.

The day before the shoot I go and get spray-tanned at
Playboy
’s request—they want me to have a nice glow. I like a good glow as much as the next girl, so sounds good to me! The night before the shoot I eat a salad of iceberg lettuce, tomatoes and balsamic vinegar for dinner and hit the hay at 10
P.M.
, wanting to get all the beauty sleep I can.

I wake up the next morning at 6
A.M
. and head to the shoot at a house in Venice. When I get there my makeup artist is setting up and the stylist, Gustav, whom I had only spoken to on the phone, was lining up shoes. He is a tall, heavyset, bald man from Scandinavia with a very heavy accent.

“Oh my God! Gorge! Gorge! So much more gorge! Olivia, you are so gorge! You have to see this stuff I get for you. It is so amazing…Zia is ze one that Steven ze photographer just looooooves.”

Suddenly and quite horrifyingly, he pulls out—and I’m not making this up, I swear—a black, fishnet, one-piece bathing suit where you can see
everything
going on. And by everything I mean my vagina would be completely exposed and look like a honey-baked ham trapped in supermarket netting. Um—no! On the top were two small, pink half-cups. As I scanned the teeny tiny garment—waiting for the punch line to this bad joke—Gustav explained:

“You would be wearing nothing under here and then your boobs just hang right over ze pink part. Zis is sooo gorge, no?”

Before answering I scanned the rest of the clothes on the rack—black leather, shiny silver, crazy tranny heels. Wait, is that a whip? Holy crap. This is nothing like we discussed. Fun, flirty, playful? What the hell?!!

I calmly tried to gather all the spit in my very dry mouth that I could and said: “Um, this is a non-nude shoot. I told you that.”

“Vat? Oh, no dahling. Zis is
Playboy
—you show
everything!
” Gustav replied.

“No. Who told you that? I told you it’s not nude. We talked about this. There’s a contract that says no nudity.” I felt woozy and tried to understand what the hell was happening. When had I wandered into a Franz Kafka story as imagined by Larry Flynt? Was I about to turn into a giant insect wearing a leather G-string?

“Steven—ze photographer. He says all nude today for Playboy. It’s
Playboy!
” Gustav responded again in a very what’s-wrong-with-you attitude.

I told him to go get the photographer and I got on the phone with my publicist and told her to get there right away.

When Steven arrived he had the same opinion and then added, unhelpfully, “Oh, yeah, you’ll be nude but we’ll just Photoshop everything out.”

Luckily my publicist got there right then and let them know there would be no nudity and that there was a contract to confirm it. That seemed to be the end of that conversation.

As the shoot goes on, my publicist and Gustav bicker non-stop. She doesn’t want a lot of jewelry, he of course does. He thinks I should show more skin, she of course doesn’t. The photographer isn’t doing much to help ease the tension. He wants me to pose nude, while strategically placing my arms and legs; my publicist of course doesn’t. He wants to do a shower scene nude with strategically placed bubbles and steam on the glass; my publicist of course doesn’t. It’s exhausting. All the while I’m trying to pose flirty, fun, summery with about five dudes—strangers working the set—watching my every move. One of the shots has me without a top and my long, thick hair covering my breasts. The whole time I’m worried about the wind blowing, exposing a nipple, the filthy five and the photographer snapping away because that’s the shot he wants.

I can hear them bickering again with my publicist. The photographer and stylist insist they’ve shot more revealing stuff for
Esquire
and
GQ
.

Of course you have!
I think to myself. Afraid to speak up and yell at everyone because it would ruin the shoot. I’m the one who sets the tone and energy on the shoot. If I show everyone I’m upset, the shoot will spiral downward faster than it already has. What I want to say is this: “Of course you’ve shot more nudity in those magazines! It’s not
Playboy
.
Playboy
still has a stigma. I’ve shown more of myself in
Vanity Fair
. But that’s different. If I show more in
GQ
I’m being artsy and sexy. If I show more in
Playboy
, I’m just one more tart in…
Playboy.
”

Getting the cover, and not having to be nude, was a huge deal to me and my team. Only a handful of people have done it without having to take it all off. And here we are, contracts decided, conversations spanning weeks about this day, and everyone has a different agenda.

The bickering escalates right before my cover shot. We’ve done about four looks already, all the while my anxiety is skyrocketing from the tension and my feelings of not trusting the stylist. We are in the dressing room with my makeup artist, publicist, Gustav the stylist and his two assistants. He wants me to—surprise, surprise—wear a see-through top and nothing underneath. My publicist says…well, I bet you can guess what she said. Then I see something I thought I’d only see in a Christopher Guest mockumentary—the chubby, tall, bald Scandinavian begins to scream at my publicist inches away from her face and not much farther away from me.

“You know what?! I am a great stylist. I am not one of ze…ze Hollywood stylists. I am European!! And this is not all about Olivia, okay? It iz about me, too! I have my own motivations with this shoot and I’m going to get what I want out of it! Zis iz
Playboy!!!
She haz to be naked! If not, why iz she do
Playboy
?”

Now I can’t take it anymore. All the excitement and preparation leading up to this day had been gone since before I took my first shot. I really couldn’t deal with it anymore. My publicist was doing a great job standing up for me, but I thought I was going to have an anxiety attack if I didn’t say something.

“Look, Gustav,
Playboy
came to us and asked me to do a nude cover. We declined the offer and then they came back and offered us the cover, no nudity. We have a contract that says this and you and I have discussed this as well.”

My publicist chimes in, “Yes, Gustav. The big deal about this shoot is that she
doesn’t
have to
get naked
and she
still
gets the cover. They came to us. We didn’t go to them.”

Gustav, now looking like a very big, juicy—but not so much delicious—Scandinavian tomato, gets closer to my publicist’s face and says, “Fine! You zink you are so good at style? You pick out ze panties!”

He flips his head back as if he had a mane of hair atop it, puffs out his chest and as he reaches the door, he snaps his fingers and says, “Girls, let’s go!” And as if they are tiny toy poodles, the two assistants who were arranging shoes on the ground, leap up and scurry out behind him, their four-inch heels clicking all the way.

The door shut and we all sat in stunned silence. I was fine dressing myself, but I didn’t know where anything was. I was sick to my stomach and wanted to leave. But it was an expensive shoot and I knew I had to keep things copacetic if we were going to finish the day. I called the photographer in, told him what happened and he went and spoke to Gustav.

Moments later he came in as if nothing was wrong, no apology, just came back in. He wasn’t helpful. He just said yes to whatever we asked. But we didn’t want a yes-man. We wanted a stylist who could offer his expertise and input, but could also stay within the concept and contract of the shoot.

We go upstairs to the rooftop pool to get the cover shot. As soon as we get to the top, clouds blacken the sky and the wind blows the pillows off the chaise longue chairs. It was like the last scene of a slasher film. If I didn’t know better I would’ve guessed this was God telling me to run…Run as fast as I could.