Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 16, 1994 TAG: 9405170027
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By SUSAN PHINNEY SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The similarities stop there.
Klein is a millionaire fashion designer. Gaines is a journalist and biographer who has just co-authored ``Obsession: The Lives and Times of Calvin Klein,'' with Sharon Churcher (Birch Lane Press, $22.50).
``He's a gay Jewish boy from the Bronx. I'm a gay Jewish boy from Brooklyn,'' Gaines shrugs. ``I was able to get inside a lot of what was happening inside his head.''
Gaines admitted he has spent a lot of time researching Klein. Gaines is the former pop columnist (covering everything from rock 'n' roll to T-shirts) for the New York Daily News.
He says his interest in Klein began in 1978, when Klein's daughter, Marci, was kidnapped. ``Here was this gay captain of industry rescuing his daughter. It was a way for him to prove himself to her - how strong he was.''
Gaines says he started a Klein biography in 1983, but gave up when he couldn't gather enough information. ``Nobody would talk,'' he says.
He tried again in 1986, and again in 1991. By then, he'd been joined in his research by Churcher, a former investigative reporter with The Wall Street Journal. ``Sharon's like a pneumatic drill. She doesn't take no for an answer. If somebody hangs up on me, I pout, take a walk around the block. She hears wind chimes, and calls right back.''
Together, the authors say, they conducted more than 1,000 interviews. They were working with a $400,000 advance from publisher G.P. Putnam's Sons. But last year that publisher pulled out, telling them to keep the advance and take the book to another publisher.
``Who gives you a deal like that?'' Gaines asks.
When books are canceled, writers are generally asked, or sued, for a return of the advance. But that didn't happen to Gaines and Churcher. Why? Was there a payoff? Gaines shrugs again.
It's no secret that Klein didn't want the book published. Neither did his good friend, entertainment industry billionaire David Geffen.
``Entertainment organs own the small publishers,'' Gaines explains. Is that why magazines always do such flattering articles about Klein - articles that depict Klein and his second wife, Kelly, as an all-American couple?
``He has them by the throat,'' Gaines says. ``They're dependent on advertising revenue and he's one of the biggest advertisers in the business.''
But the authors found another publisher, and the result of their efforts is now in bookstores, being bought, according to Gaines ``by well-heeled women and gay men.''
Although ``Obsession'' does include endless intimate details about Klein's bisexual lifestyle, it's an account of nouvelle society - a world of trophy wives, and an incredible show of power and wealth. It's also an interesting expose of one of this country's most unusual economic sectors: the garment industry.
``Calvin's a manufacturer in one of the most cutthroat businesses in the world. He's fought and clawed his way from the gutter,'' Gaines says.
He describes how Klein and his business partner, Barry Schwartz, hire and fire people at will, wriggle out of contracts, and how Calvin Klein Industries reported sales of $200 million in 1990, but lost $4.3 million in the process. Klein is depicted as an insecure control freak - one to whom rudeness is a way of life, screaming matches common and thank-yous rare.
Gaines says he once encountered Klein at the gym where they both work with a personal trainer. ``I introduced myself and told him I was working on a book about him and would like to talk. He put his face two inches from my face and screamed at me [using profanity]. It was scary. He could have said, `Talk to my lawyers,' turned his back and walked away.''
But not all research was scary. Some was downright funny. The authors discovered that Klein, a man who has made millions from his fragrances, really hates them. Neither he nor his wife uses them. Fragrances, it seems, remind Klein of grade-school teachers who wore too much makeup and too much bad cologne.
by CNB