Fitzgerald said that there are no second acts in American lives. Now everyone lives in a series–no final curtain, just one episode after another. From Woody Allen to Mike Tyson, no one, it seems, ever really goes away after a scandal. They just carry on. And so will Albert, who got good news and bad news last week. A Virginia judge went easy on the sportscaster, suspending sentencing for a year. (In September Albert pleaded guilty to assaulting his longtime sexual companion, Vanessa Perhach, in a hotel room.) But Perhach, who suggests Albert is insufficiently contrite, may file a civil suit. So may Patricia Masten, who claimed during Albert’s trial that the longtime voice of the New York Knicks–wearing panties– assaulted her in a Dallas hotel room. (Despite this, Albert’s agent, Evan Bell, says his client has many broadcast offers.) We won’t know for a while whether Albert is still radioactive. What’s certain is that redemption in America has its own rituals. If Albert has any sense, he’ll follow them.
The most important of which, of course, is: the apology. The political theorist Jean Bethke Elshtain writes in The New Republic that in the mea culpa ’90s, ““we are awash in confession. There is the proverbial low form on daytime talk shows and the slightly higher form in bookstores. Rectitude, it seems, has given way to “contrition chic’.’’ And nothing was more chic than Hugh Grant’s 1995 ““Tonight Show’’ apologia after he was caught with a prostitute. It’s the instructional video for the ethically challenged. The British hunk apologized plainly, ridiculed himself completely–and charmed everyone utterly. So far Marv Albert’s no Hugh Grant. His apology from the stand–““I’m sorry if she felt she was harmed’’–lacked vigor. Albert could learn a thing from Dick Morris, who apologized to any camera he could find after he was caught cavorting with a call girl. Morris may have been forced out of the White House, but his fall hasn’t stopped him from snagging lucrative consulting jobs.
Time, it is said, is a healer, too. But the question of when to begin one’s comeback is a tricky one. Like a frustrated parent, America demands a ““timeout’’ when celebrities misbehave. Sheila Tate, who helped Nancy Reagan transform her image from a spendthrift who demanded new White House china to the compassionate ““Just say no’’ mother, urges celebrities to wait. ““The person has to have the decency to disappear for a while,’’ Tate says, citing the case of financier Milken. After jail Milken came back, sans toupee, and started a crusade to help fellow cancer patients. Those who know sports suggest that Albert should also hang low for a while. ““Marv must take an extended sabbatical, a year or two,’’ says Jeffrey Pollack, publisher of the Sports Business Daily.
Lower expectations are also essential to a comeback. After claiming and then later denying that he’d doled out campaign cash to suppress black turnout in New Jersey’s 1993 governor’s race, Ed Rollins had to aim lower. The onetime adviser to Ronald Reagan and Ross Perot had to settle for advising a few congressional candidates before giving up politics for a career in corporate PR. Likewise, Charlie Sheen, the paradigm of the Hollywood bad boy, has gone from starring in Academy Award-caliber films like ““Platoon’’ to cheesy shoot-’em-ups. Albert may have to adjust his sights accordingly. But he has cause for optimism, too. ““If O. J. Simpson called the police and said, “I lost it. I killed her. I’m sorry,’ he’d have been out in five and had a show in eight,’’ says King. ““This country will forgive anything.''
