Who is Gina Gershon? Actress Lies at Center of Latest "Tempest in a B-Cup" Scandal to Roil Bill Clinton's Personal Life

Who is Gina Gershon, the reputed mistress of ex-President Bill Clinton? You won't find a biography of the singer-actress on her Internet Movie Database entry, despite the fact that the cinematic femme fatale has appeared in over 70 movies and TV programs since making her uncredited debut as a dancer in Beatlemania (1981) and has since established herself as one of the leading icons of American camp. For it was fourteen years after her movie debut that Gina made movie history assaying the predatory Sapphic sister Cristal Connors (named after a bottle of champagne, no doubt), the leading light of a topless Las Vegas leg-line in director Paul Verhoeven's 1995 kitsch classic Showgirls. Exploding out a a plaster-of-paris volcano clad in nothing but body makeup and a G-string, Gina Gershon obtained cinema immortality just as Bill Clinton's administration was reaching its climax.

A sleazoid spectacle that has since obtained cult status, Showgirls was the All About Eve for the Clinton generation, winning six Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture of the Year, and copping a coveted seventh Razzie in the year 2000, when it was honored as the Worst Picture of the Last Decade. This was somehow fitting as the 1990s was the Decade of Bill Clinton, reverberating with the refrain of an old Rudyard Kipling ditty, "A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke."

[This was a time when it could reasonably be said of the Weltanschauung of the First Magistrate of the American Republic, "He'd been around the world many times, but his attention never strayed more than six inches." It was a time when, thanks to the addition of a certain set of appendices to the great works of American democracy such as the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, The Starr Report enabled the curious and the sheltered to find out that the very term "Around the world" referred to a particular subset of sexual experience, not just to a type of trip offered by tony travel agents. The traveling that Bill Clinton was called on during the latter part of the decade was akin to that of taking an extra step or two while bouncing one's ball(s) in the court of public opinion.]

After Showgirls, Gershon solidified her reputation playing a lesbian sexpot in the Wachowski Bros' neo-noir Bound. She is an icon in that part of the gay community that worships camp like a secular religion. Currently treading the boards on Broadway in the revival of the musical Boeing Boeing, Gershon now is the center of rumors that she is Bill Clinton's mistress, replacing Canadian Member of Parliament Belinda Stronach in the rumor mill as Bubba's main squeeze.

This latest "Tempest in a B-cup" that have long been a part of Bill Clinton's public persona and political life is rooted in a controversial profile of the ex-President appearing in the July issue of Vanity Fair magazine. Written by former New York Times correspondent Todd S. Purdum, the husband of Clinton's former press secretary Dee Dee Meyers, it speculates that Bill Clinton possibly experienced a personality change after having heart-bypass surgery in 2004. Clinton was characterized as being engaged in a swinging lifestyle totally out of line with the dignity of a former President of the United States, as he is depicted as gallivanting around the world with his billionaire friends in private jet airliners stocked with willing twenty-somethings. The picture being painted by Purdum, whose sources were former Clinton staff members worried about their former boss, was that Clinton was engaged in a "Bimbo Eruption" of epic if not global proportions.

A Smoke Screen?

It is interesting that all the noise about the article is issuing from the Clinton and Gershon camps, and that Belinda Stronach remains silent. The stance of a seasoned politician, perhaps? Perhaps. However, can one not intimate from the silence about Stronach from the "Hail, Mary!" corner of the Bubba brigade that the "rumors" of a Clinton-Stronach relationship were true?

After his Presidency was over, Clinton reportedly carried on a long-term affair with Stronach, who is an heiress akin to John McCain's wife Cindy, albeit of an auto-parts business empire worth billions, not the pedestrian $100 million enjoyed by McCain's missus, who inherited a beer distributorship. In the world that Bill Clinton now inhabits, as limned by the Vanity Fair article, the $100 million of a Cindy McCain (approximately the amount earned by Bill and Hillary Clinton over the last seven years) is small potatoes, indeed. In addition to being in line to inherit billions, Belinda Stronach was once a major political figure in the Great White North, who contended for the leadership of the Canadian Progressive Conservative Party. If she had won the leadership contest, she likely would now be the Prime Minister of Canada. (After losing the leadership contest, she "crossed the aisle" in 2005 and joined the then-ruling Liberal Party and served in the Cabinet under Liberal PM Paul Martin. A survivor of breast cancer -- she underwent a mastectomy in 2007 -- Belinda Stronach has become a back bencher in Ottawa and plans to retire from politics after the next federal election.)

During the run-up to Hillary Clinton's Presidential bid, the rumors of a a Clinton-Stronach love affair floated freely in the press but were uncommented upon. There was never any of the vitriol that Bill Clinton has directed towards Todd Purdum and Vanity Fair over the recent "allegation" that he had an affair with Gershon, which frankly, seems to be trumped up by Clinton as Purdum never came out and said that they were lovers. As Gertrude commented to her son Hamlet about the shadow play The Mousetrap, "Methinks the lady doth protest too much."

The Gina Gershon imbroglio seems like a smokescreen hiding a deeper truth, that of Bill Clinton and Belinda Stronach. For both Bill Clinton and Belinda Stronach have admitted that there were "friends" to the press in the United States and Canada. And how could they not, as they were seen -- and photographed -- in "meetings" throughout New York State.

Respectable newspapers reported vague rumors that Bill Clinton was considering divorcing Hillary to marry the Canadian billionaire, in order to enjoy the sweet life he had grown accustomed to by hobnobbing with his billionaire male friends. In the best tradition of the Kremlinologists who used to try to decipher the goings-on of the Soviet hierarchy, the press also reported rumors that Bubba had pledged to Hillary that he was giving up his extracurricular lovin' during her race for the Presidency, to forestall those "bimbo eruptions" that plagued the 1992 Clinton Presidential campaign and his second administration. Bubba would be made a roving ambassador to the world (including Canada, most likely), so he could carry on over there, and not embarrass the President of the United States, whom many in the press in the year 2007 assumed would be none other than Hillary Clinton.

Todd Purdum's article might have exacerbated the bad feelings between the two Clintons, as Hillary still refuses to concede to Barack Obama, despite his having passed the threshold in pledged delegates and superdelegates to earn the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination. A Bubba "bimbo eruption" at this point would hamstring her efforts to to raise money over the next two months to retire her campaign debt, estimated at between $30 million and $40 million, and foul up her machinations to strong-arm her way onto the ticket as Obama's running mate. Rumors that the Clintons likely would break-up now that her campaign is kaput is not what Hillary Clinton and her staff want to deal with at this moment in time, when she is trying to deal from strength -- what little she has left -- with a triumphant Obama.

The President & The Showgirl

In the Vanity Fair article, Bill Clinton was said to have visited California several times to "visit" with Gina Gershon. Gershon's public relations representative, Mara Buxbaum, said that, "Todd Purdum's insinuation is a lie and is irresponsible journalism. We are demanding a retraction."

Even before Gerhson had a chance to act, Bill Clinton's office had issued an official denunciation of the article in toto, calling it, "A tawdry, anonymous-quote-filled attack piece" that "repeats many past attacks on him, ignores much prior positive coverage, includes numerous errors, and ultimately breaks no new ground." The statement summed up the former President's indignation by calling the article " journalism of personal destruction at its worst."

Gina Gershon insists that she is not Bill Clinton's mistress, and that she has only met him three times, and always in the company of at least a dozen others, whom she describes as "chaperones." (An odd choice of word, since it implies the type of school girl-boy relations where adults must be around to prevent the boys from having their way with the girls.) Her public relations representative told Us Magazine, "Todd Purdum's insinuation is a lie, and it is irresponsible journalism. We are demanding a retraction."

In Los Angeles, Gershon's attorney, Lynda B. Goldman of the entertainment industry law firm Lavely & Singer said that Gershon wants both a retraction and a "sincere apology" from Vanity Fair. The magazine once lost a libel suit brought in British courts by director Roman Polanski, when it said he tried to bed a Norwegian woman the night he learned that his wife, actress Sharon Tate, had been massacred by Charles Manson's minions.

"I will make you another Sharon Tate," the diminutive director reportedly told the model, as reported by Vanity Fair. If the magazine had had to defend its case in the U.S. rather than Britain, it likely would have won as Polanski could not have successfully claimed defamation, since one has to have a reputation to defame. Polanski, on the lam from the long-arm of the American law since 1977 for having seduced a 13-year-old girl, would likely have been considered to have lacked a reputation to be damaged.

Gina Gershon, on the other hand, has been as scandal-free as Bill Clinton has been scandal-prone, although some bluenoses might find her penchant for cinematic déshabillé was scandalous.

In a letter to the magazine, Goldman said, "Rumor mongering was substituted for fact-checking. It is apparent that Vanity Fair was intent upon publishing unsubstantiated rumors, and that it avoided learning the true facts so that the truth would not get in the way. Such conduct is reckless and malicious, giving rise to substantial liability for defamation."

There is a higher hurdle to win a defamation and libel suit in the United States, since the Supreme Court's 1964 Sullivan v. New York Times decision. In the United States, the plaintiff must prove that the party being sued had malicious intent.

So far, Vanity Fair has refused to issue that retraction. The magazine is defending the article by denying that it insinuates Bubba and Gershon area a romantic item. In a statement to Us Magazine, it said, "Todd Purdum's article does not indicate that former president Bill Clinton had an improper relationship with Gina Gershon. The story merely examines the concerns of some of Clinton's aides about reports of his behavior. We don't believe that any correction is warranted."

Actress, Singer Cum Author

So, who is Gina Gershon?

Of French, Dutch and Russian-Jewish extraction, Gina Gershon was born on June 10, 1962 in the Los Angeles suburb of Woodland Hills, the last in a brood of five kids. Raised in Woodland Hills, a part of the San Fernando Valley, the young Valley Girl got the acting bug early, appearing at the age of seven in a school production of Bye Bye Birdie. Because of her acting ambitions, her parents moved to Beverly Hills so she could attend Beverly Hills High, where she indulged her acting jones in such fare as a student production of The Music Man. Her first love, she says, is singing.

After graduating from Beverly Hills High in 1980, she attended Emerson College in Boston, taking a part in the musical Runaway.while still in The Hub. She transferred to New York University, where her official biography says she studied philosophy and psychology, but she graduated from the Tisch School of the Arts, taking a bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Drama in 1983. In New York City, while perfecting her craft, she co-founded the theater company Naked Angels.

Her big screen breakthrough came with a part in the '80s "Brat Pack" teenage hit Pretty in Pink. She also had parts in the Tom Cruise vehicle Cocktail and Arnold Schwarzenegger's Red Heat. Of this period, she says, "One of my first gigs, a movie called Cocktail, I found myself at 8 in the morning, in bed, practically naked, having to make out with Tom Cruise... hmmmm... movie business - so far, so good."

Citing Frank Sinatra's song "My Way" as an inspiration, she says that following Cocktail, "I was fortunate enough to play many diversified roles in film, television, and stage. Not always to the liking of my managers and agents, but I always did what I wanted...." She played Nancy Sinatra, Frank's daughter, in the TV miniseries Sinatra.

Gershon became a celebrity in Showgirls, one of the most godawful movies to ever be committed to celluloid, but of the "so bad it's good" ilk. The following year, she solidified her claim on second-tier stardom playing the calculating dyke Corky in Bound, who is pursued by the Mafia as she is now pursued by the press. She never did capitalize on her mid-1990s breakthrough, but the 45-year-old Gershon is established as a character actress and is never out of work, unlike most of her female peers who started out in the industry at the same time. Though no classic beauty, the talented thespian remains gainfully employed while many actresses of her vintage are out of work as she is possessed of a unique look and smoldering sex appeal that comes across on camera. And due to the recent Vanity Fair profile of former President Clinton, for whom it is implied she came across, her fame is bound to increase.

Gina Gershon is at home on stage as she is in front of the camera. After appearing off-Broadway and in regional theater productions, she made her her Broadway debut in Sam Mendes' revival of Cabaret in January 2001. For six months, she played the key role of Sally Bowles, returning that October to reprise the role for another month. She currently is appearing in the revival of the musical Boeing Boeing on Broadway, which won the Tony Award for Best Revival.

She is versatile, too, as a singer and a writer. She has cut her own album, and Putmam Juvenile recently published her children's book Camp Creepy Time, the tale of a boy who discovers aliens at his summer camp, which she co-wrote with her brother Dann. Camp Creepy Time was optioned by DreamWorks, which plans to turn it into a movie.

Sources:

AOL News: "Gershon Denies Romantic Ties to Clinton"

E! Online "Gershon's Rep: VF Bubba-Love Brouhaha Bogus"

New York Daily News, "Gina Gershon insists she's not Bill's mistress, sics her lawyers on Vanity Fair"

US Magazine, "President Bill Clinton, Gina Gershon Deny Affair Rumors"

Vanity Fair, "The Comeback Id" by Todd S. Purdom