Thursday, Jul 24, 2008
The Minnesota adman who helped Jesse Ventura become governor advises Warren Beatty on how he might claim the White House.
Sep 2, 1999 | When Minnesota ad guru Bill Hillsman spotted a videocassette of the movie "Bulworth," starring Warren Beatty, on sale for $9.99 recently, he bought it and took it home.
But before he got around to popping it in his VCR, he found himself playing a supporting role in the real-life version of the movie.
The day after he bought the tape, columnist Arianna Huffington telephoned Hillsman at his office at North Woods Advertising in Minneapolis to talk about "Bulworth" -- or Beatty, rather -- running for president on the Reform Party ticket.
Huffington was writing a column about the idea and she wanted Hillsman's reaction, since he had masterminded the ad campaign for the nation's only statewide Reform Party office holder, Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura.
She asked Hillsman to help her get a quote from Ventura for the column. The Body was in the air, however, flying from St. Louis, where he was attending a meeting of the National Governors Association, to Chicago, where he was hyping his appearance in a World Wrestling Federation "SummerSlam" event.
So Huffington's column of Aug. 10 hit the stands without a statement from Ventura, but she did have quotes from Beatty buddies like pollster Pat Caddell and former presidential candidate ex-Sen. Gary Hart.
"I have a notion," Hart told Huffington, "that Warren could dramatize politics in a way that hack politicians never could. He entered the world of politics in '68 with Bobby Kennedy's campaign and that is the time he, like so many of us, wants to recapture."
Huffington's story got big play in the media, though most of the coverage treated the idea of a Beatty candidacy like a freakish curiosity. Washington insiders, naturally, pooh-poohed the idea.
Later that week, Huffington called Hillsman.
"Vow, zis ting is really taking off," Huffington said in her most charming Greek accent. She asked Hillsman to fly to L.A. to dine with her and Beatty, and share his expertise about third-party politics, disenfranchised voters and campaign finance reform.
Accordingly, on Aug. 18 Hillsman hopped a flight to LAX, rented a car, and made his way to Huffington's luxurious spread, where she was hosting a small dinner party.
But the guest of honor, Beatty, was a no-show. Instead, he called during dinner and apologized for not being there, explaining that he had laryngitis.
"Give me a call tomorrow morning, hopefully I'll feel better then," he told Hillsman. When Hillsman called the next morning from his hotel, Beatty was drinking green tea, which he was confident would do the trick, though it wasn't working quite yet.
"Call me mid-afternoon," Beatty said. "I think I'll be feeling better by then." So Hillsman called Beatty again mid-afternoon, as requested. Now Beatty sounded better. The green tea had worked.
"What are you doing for dinner tonight?" Beatty asked Hillsman.
"What do you want me to be doing for dinner tonight?" replied Hillsman, a big fan of "McCabe & Mrs. Miller," "Shampoo" and "Heaven Can Wait."
"Come on over to our house," Beatty said. "It will be just me, Annette" -- his wife, Annette Bening, Beatty's co-star in 1991's "Bugsy" and 1994's "Love Affair" -- "and the kids. We can just sit around and talk."
Hillsman had expected that Beatty and "Annette and the kids" would be joined by advisors and such. But when he arrived at the Beatty-Bening Beverly Hills spread at around 7 that night, he saw that it really was just them and the kids -- and a fairly modest home.
"Their house is really nothing spectacular," Hillsman says. "I've been in nicer houses in Minnetonka."
The whole evening was low-key, modest and homey, says Hillsman. They ordered Chinese. "It was like having dinner at a friend's house, except the friends happen to be Warren Beatty and Annette Bening. We spent at least as much time talking about the kids as we did about his running for president."
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