A Current Affront to Steve Dunleavy

Oliver Stone’s take on the tabloid turk incenses its subject

by Mary Talbot
Daily News Staff Writer

It’s 5 P.M. AND THE BAR AT Tom McGrath’s on E. 67th St. is already littered with Steve Dunleavy’s highball glasses and crumpled Parliament boxes.

The notorious star of “A Current Affair” would like to get one thing straight: He is not upset “or bitter or twisted” over Robert Downey Jr.’s portrayal of a scurrilous Australian TV reporter in “Natural Born Killers” - a role modeled after him.

No, not upset. Enraged.

Sure, Downey, as Wayne Gale, adopted a passable Aussie accent and the showy, in-your-face tabloid tactics for which Dunleavy is famed. “But the portrayal of the reporter, if indeed it’s me, as Oliver Stone claims, is about as accurate as his trying to rewrite history with JFK.” says Dunleavy.

As for Downey, “that tiny, obsequious, little man, that begging little trick, he’ll have about as much success in “Natural Born Killers” as he did in the superflop ‘Chaplin.’”

Dunleavy was underwhelmed by Downey, he says, when the actor trailed him for a week to prepare for the role and “didn’t ask a single question. He’s either arrogant or very stupid. Was he pleasant? Sure, but frighteningly boring.”

Downey’s offenses, he says pale in comparison with Stone’s: “He’s full of absolute hyperbole and hypocrisy.”

The director, in fact, pins all the pathological and murderous impulses in society on the media - namely, tabloid TV and its practitioners. By movies end, Wayne Gale reveals himself to be every bit as demonic and murderous as the serial-killing couple.

“Mr. Stone announces to the world that the movie is all about me and suddenly puts himself on that incredible moral high ground,” says Dunleavy.

As Dunleavy sees it, his tabloid show occupies a higher ground than any preachy Stone film. He likens “A Current Affair” to a series of object lessons.

“People are more likely not to commit violence when they see criminals thrown in the bin for 50 years. I don’t make on scintilla of apology for our show. If you look at it, as 26 million viewers do, we’re totally violence-free.”

Stone, on the other hand, “exploits every blood cell ever spurted out of a human body.” Dunleavy hisses. “I don’t begrudge him making a buck - he’s got two alimonies to pay - but leave the moralizing to priests and rabbis.”

So what about perennial charges that Dunleavy digs up prurient and bloody stories for the sake of ratings, just as Wayne Gale does? Or that he takes center state in his reporting? Or that he pays sources?

All water off his well-groomed back. “If someone said Steve Dunleavy was inaccurate or unfair and that was true, I’d die the death of a thousand cuts. But if they criticize my style, I don’t care. And I can count the times we’ve paid for stories on my fingers and toes.”

The final natural born outrage cam last week, when Dunleavy phone Downy, “fully prepared to do an interview about his alleged sendup of me, and got a wall of silence. Four Thousand secretaries later, he wouldn’t talk to me.”

Perhaps that’s the most infuriating insult of all: Thanks to Stone’s movie, the only story Steve Dunleavy can’t get is his own.

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