If you are over the age of 50 or so, you might remember Pia Zadora.
Back in the 1970s, she was a constant presence on The Tonight Show and other TV variety programs. She was a big-bosomed, remarkably untalented woman who would pop up, show her body and purr her catchphrase "Coochie Coochie." She was as much a subject of ridicule as anything else, but in her mind, she seemed to consider any sort of public attention to be a net positive.
From a young age, Zadora had wanted to be a star, but until 1972, the highpoint of her career had been when she was nine and was cast as the young Martian girl, in 1964's Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, a film that is considered by many to be one of the worst films ever made.
But in 1972, she met Israeli financier and businessman Meshulam Riklis, who later married her. And in the years that followed, he spent a lot of money and personal capital on efforts to make his young wife a star. She was cast as the Dubonnet Girl in a series of high-profile ads, and it's likely not a coincidence that Riklis was one of the wine's major distributors. In 1982, she won a Golden Globe for Best New Star of the Year after co-starring in the movie Butterfly, a movie whose plot involved father-daughter incest and included Zadora singing the tune "It's Wrong for Me to Love You." The Golden Globe award was memorable primarily for widespread complaints her husband had bought her the win thanks to paying some strategic stipends to open-minded Globe voters.
She appeared in several other movies, including the John Waters movie Hairspray, in which she appeared as a beatnik reciting Allen Ginsberg and the musical comedy Voyage of The Rock Aliens.
And it was her music career that eventually provided a bit of prestige, although we are grading that on a very gentle curve. She had a modest Top 40 with a remake of the Shirley Ellis tune "The Clapping Song," and received a Grammy Award nomination in 1985 for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, losing to Tina Turner's "Better Be Good to Me." She had albums produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis ands Narada Michael Walden, as well as songs remixed by Shep Pettibone and Robert Civillés and David Cole of C+C Music Factory.
And yet in the end, Zadora remained best known as the "Coochie Coochie" girl. But there was also a recognition that while her husband bought her a career, she worked hard to try and make his investments pay off. It wasn't her fault that she wasn't especially talented, but she gave it her all.
Zadora was the first person I thought of after watching Melania, a slick and soulless documentary that Amazon overpaid for in hopes of staying in the good graces of the Trump Administration. Amazon paid $40 million for a film that is essentially unwatchable and another $35 million on marketing the film to the small number of true believers willing to pay to sit in a near-empty movie theater and watch one of the least interesting women in America stroll through two hours worth of rooms in search of something interesting to do or say.
Now it's one thing to use your power and influence in an effort to raise the profile of your staggeringly untalented wife. That is a story that probably dates back to whatever passed for dinner theater in the Middle Ages. But what is remarkable about Melania is that after all the money that was spent on the film, audiences will spend nearly two hours not learning anything knew about the First Lady of the United States.
Based on the film, Melania Trump has all the emotional depth and self reflection of a first generation AI model. And for all of the movement in the movie and the efforts to make her seem substantial and as if she is doing something, audience will be hard-pressed to name one of her accomplishments. Other than maybe keeping Donald Trump happy enough that he was willing to help get her a documentary.
I am not going to go through the film scene by scene and dissect it. In part, because it's a bit like spending time attempting to uncover the hidden meaning of the lyrics from a Partridge Family album. But mostly, because everything about Melania is a depressing example of the worst aspects of late-stage capitalism. From what I can tell, once Melania Trump got paid, she did as little as possible in order for her to cash the check and brag about having her own film. Maybe I am old-fashioned, but if someone is going to accept a bribe, the least they can do is put a minimal amount of effort into delivering on the bribe's promises.
Say what you will about Pia Zadora. She might not have had much talent, but she was willing to go out there and hustle for the crowd. Melania feels more like a filmed hostage situation, with everyone appearing to be unwilling to even try and be personable or engaging.