Jean Ritchie - Stalkers

The writers who want to marry, have sex with or have children with the celebrity turn out to be less potentially dangerous than those who simply expressed a strong desire to meet the star face-to-face, with no sexual propositions. And while almost a quarter of all writers made threats in their letters, this was found not to influence whether they actually turned up outside the celebrity’s home or office – perhaps the most important finding of the research.

There were some other interesting conclusions: anyone who writes on regular tablet-sized note paper is less dangerous, anyone who attempts to instil shame into the celebrity is less dangerous and anybody who repeatedly mentions other public figures is not a high level threat.

The research bore out one of Dietz’s earlier theories: that stalkers who write hate mail are less dangerous than those who write to stars romantically. ‘The person who sends hate mail is achieving their catharsis from putting the note in the mail,’ he said. The fan who believes he is destined to have a romance with the celebrity, on the other hand, will experience nothing but disappointment and rejection, and is more liable to have aggression born of frustration. Male stalkers are more likely to ‘act it out in a violent way’ says Dietz, but adds that this does not mean that women letter writers should be ignored. The same criteria for deciding which ones are likely to attack a celebrity apply to women as well as to men, it is simply that more men match the criteria.

Dr Dietz is accepted as the top world authority on stalking, and works as a consultant to a number of big American companies, helping them identify potentially dangerous employees. He has appeared as an expert witness at numerous trials, including those of John Hinckley and serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, and is known to some sections of the American press as ‘the FBI’s premier shrink’. Legend has it that he was the inspiration behind Thomas Harris’s book The Silence of the Lambs. He became fascinated by the criminal mind as a student after reading a book by Britain’s famous forensic pathologist Professor Keith Simpson.

He sees the rise of celebrity stalking as moving in parallel with the growth of television and video, bringing ever more intimate images of stars into the homes of potentially obsessed fans. It is now possible to replay on video, in the privacy of a bedroom, the exact moment in a film or TV programme when the stalker imagines the star is talking directly to him. It is not hard, for the determined stalker, to track down a star. ‘There’s an entire industry devoted to selling proximity to celebrities. There are books published on how to call and write famous people. In Hollywood there are tours to stars’ homes, and magazines often give overly personal information about stars. And stars themselves often reveal overly personal information in publicity interviews such as talk shows,’ he says.

In Britain and the rest of Europe, as well as America, a whole new ‘profession’ has been born from the public’s obsession with the famous, and we even have a new word for it: paparazzi. These are photographers who earn their living hanging around stars, always hopeful of a compromising or in some way interesting picture to sell to the ever-hungry newspapers and magazines. Some of them have grown rich from their dedication to hanging around outside nightclubs until the early hours of the morning. While the celebrities claim, perhaps genuinely, to be distressed by this level of media intrusion, there is a peculiarly symbiotic relationship between the two camps. The line between stardom and obscurity is a thin one, easily crossed; celebrities have been known to go back inside a club or hotel when there were no photographers waiting for them, and emerge again at the pop of a flashbulb.

Professor Dietz says that there has been more celebrity stalking in the last ten years than in the whole of previous show business history: ‘We have more celebrities at risk than ever before. The reason is … because of how visible and personal they become. We have close-ups of every glamorous performance, or even a personal interview about someone’s favourite restaurant or artistic likes. And the more personal and intimate the media portrayal, the more that mentally disordered people will misinterpret this as something personal for them.’

He has known instances where the mentally ill stalker has proved more adept at locating a celebrity than the police or mental health professionals who were trying to warn the star. The stalker, he explained, may have nothing else to do but pursue the career of the star, filing away every kernel of information they can glean. As Gavin de Becker once ruefully observed, the people he monitors may be unbalanced but they are not idiots: at least they CAN write letters.

Dr Dietz understands but does not approve of the feelings of reciprocation celebrities have towards their fans. Just as they court the attentions of the media, many stars accept the ‘where would you be without us’ attitude of a large number of fans. They may, as the actor Tom Conti puts it, regard obsessional fans as ‘a complete pain in the butt’, but on another level they feel grateful to their public who have, as they are constantly being reminded, given them the wealth, security and self-esteem that go with fame. What they fail to do, until they have the help of an expert like de Becker, is differentiate between the ‘normal’ fan and the potential stalker.

Dr Dietz believes the first and foremost rule for any star is not to respond to the stalker, and if he had his way famous people would never send out photographs of themselves, would certainly never sign them ‘with love from’ and would reduce the frequency with which they answer their fan mail.

‘The best thing a celebrity can do is to vanish as far as their private lives are concerned,’ he says. He believes court action against a stalker is a last resort, to be taken only when life is in danger.

‘The one thing that is certain to guarantee persistence is to respond on the level he seeks.

‘I want people to understand that nut mail is not harmless and that waiting for threats is not appropriate. Customarily, people who do not know anything about this will say “Well, we don’t have to worry about this person. He’s mentally ill, and he hasn’t made a direct threat.” The truth is that direct threats are not associated with whether or not people make attacks. On the other hand, several kinds of nonthreatening but inappropriate communications have a definite relationship to attacks.’

Dr Dietz does not give advice directly to Hollywood stars about how to avoid or deal with stalkers, but to their security consultants, like Gavin de Becker. The stars themselves, he believes, are difficult to advise because they refuse to accept that they cannot act like normal people and stay safe. It is left to de Becker to put Dietz’s theories – and his own, because he has been in the business long enough to have drawn some firm conclusions about celebrity stalkers – into a cogent code of practice for stars.

De Becker (who has not co-operated with the writing of this book) has a staff of over thirty people constantly monitoring the letters, phone calls, domestic security arrangements and public appearance plans of more than a hundred of the most famous people in the world. He does not name names, but his clientele – some of whom pay him half a million dollars a year – is believed to include Robert Redford, Michael J. Fox, John Travolta, Elizabeth Taylor, Tina Turner, Jane Fonda, Joan Rivers, Cher, Warren Beatty, Sheena Easton, Dolly Parton, Madonna, Olivia Newton John, Jessica Lange, Shaun Cassidy and Victoria Principal. It is almost easier to name the Hollywood stars who are not clients; Frank Sinatra and Sylvester Stallone head that, much shorter, list.