Everyone wants to be a star, until they discover it can be scary at the top. Gavin de Becker, a charismatic, controversial private-security specialist, knows all about the dark side of public life it -- the constant scrutiny, the dangers posed by wacko fans.
Now 48, he has been a celebrity assistant, presidential adviser, expert witness, author, entrepreneur and script consultant. He's worked for and been befriended by some of the most celebrated people in the world.
Such as George Harrison. The former Beatle came to Los Angeles to die late last year. De Becker wanted his friend to have privacy and safety, and if shielding Harrison would upset some people, de Becker's attitude was, so be it. He'd made enemies before.
After Harrison died, de Becker's strategy backfired, and he found himself embroiled in a big public mess. (Turned out Harrison did not die where his death certificate said he did.)
Harrison's death capped a busy season for the consultant. Understanding fear is his metier, and, after Sept. 11, suddenly the whole country was jittery.
In the weeks following the terrorist attacks, he constantly answered his phone, even at 3 a.m., whenever a celebrity or a corporate client felt the need to talk about biological or chemical warfare.
"I frequently get calls from people who are afraid or concerned about something," he says. "But after Sept. 11, I spoke to more people who were afraid than in any other time in my life. They were asking me questions that God could answer much better than I could."
De Becker's response to the public's panic was to write a book,
Fear Less: Real Truth About Risk, Safety and Security in a Time of Terrorism
(Little, Brown, $19.95).
His first book,
The Gift of Fear,
(Little, Brown, 1997) had reached No. 4 on The New York Times' best-seller list, revealing the depth of public interest in demystifying and predicting violence.
The latest work explains that terrorism isn't something completely new in America and that this country would be better off if its citizens soberly examined potential threats, rather than automatically buying into the kind of speculation and mass hysteria fomented by de Becker's nemesis, television news.
Fear, to de Becker, is more than a catchy word to put in a book title. It is the foundation of the Los Angeles-based business he has built over the past 25 years. A pioneer in the still-developing field of threat assessment, he analyzes fear, categorizes it, heeds or discounts it.
Fear Less
is a balm for psyches frazzled by current events. He debunks a number of worst-case scenarios terrorism has inspired, from mass death from anthrax to nuclear attack. ("A nuclear device used by terrorists would be low-yield; it would not, contrary to our worst imaginings, level whole cities.")
Understanding the unknown
He believes that when the unknown is studied, it can be better understood and controlled. Information is power.
But what would be considered a routine risk-minimization procedure in de Becker's world led to a brouhaha after Harrison's death.
The singer, who was not a client, didn't own a home in Los Angeles. He knew his condition was terminal and needed a place where his friends could come to say goodbye. De Becker rented a house in Coldwater Canyon for the Harrisons to use.
Everyone who visited was given a nonexistent address on Coldwater, where they were met and escorted to the house.
When Harrison died, the funeral home was given the same non-address for picking up the body and listed it on the death certificate. When it was revealed that the death certificate included a fictitious address, a chorus of questions and accusations arose.
Was someone deliberately trying to falsify information on a legal document? Why did Harrison die at a house rented to de Becker?
Lawyer Gloria Allred filed a complaint about the discrepancy. Conspiracy theories fed the gossip machine. The investigation that followed was, de Becker says, "a silly waste of taxpayer money."
The right to know
He believes the public doesn't have the right to know everything about celebrities. "Most people have no idea the kinds of challenges high-profile people face," de Becker says.
"They have the same hierarchy of risk as anyone when it comes to home accidents, disease, car crashes. What most of us don't have that they do is constant pursuit by alarming strangers. Famous people experience stalking, fear, threat, intimidation, unwanted pursuit with extraordinary frequency, and most of the public doesn't have a remote connection to what living with that is like."
The majority of his clients are corporations, government agencies and schools.
He won't name clients, but his work for Theresa Saldana, Madonna, Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer, Michael J. Fox, Barbra Streisand and John Travolta has been reported, particularly when stalking cases have been prosecuted.
Printer-Friendly Version
