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Only last year, talent agents Ruth Webb and Sherri Spillane were trundling along, finding supper-club gigs for aging stage and movie actors who might be presumed dead were it not for their appearances on Murder, She Wrote. But that was before the women embraced the dark side and transformed the 32-year-old Ruth Webb Enterprises, Inc., into a den of iniquity.
Here in their Hollywood Hills office, nestled among more than a thousand stuffed raccoons and various live birds, is a world where it is safe to celebrate Kato Kaelin, Tonya Harding, John Wayne Bobbitt, and Daryl Gates. Here is perhaps the only place on the planet where pictures of Sydney Biddle Barrows and Joey Buttafuoco are as coveted as glossies of Zsa Zsa Gabor and Barbara Eden. Here is a universe in which Gennifer Flowers is a darling and Mickey Rooney is nothing but trouble.
Webb, who could be anywhere from 55 to 75, and the sharp-eyed, fortysomething Spillane (ex-wife of author Mickey), used to have a more legit client list, but it just wasn't worth the hassle. After 26 years of handling Rooney -- ''I nursed him through a nervous breakdown. I brushed his teeth, I flushed his john,'' Webb says -- she was left with a prescription for Prozac and a $500,000 lawsuit against the actor for unpaid services. (''I owe her nothing,'' says Rooney. ''I left her because she wasn't fit to be my representative.'') Then, a year and a half ago, Harding's story made its way into Spillane's heart.
''Who knows if she had anything to do with [Nancy] Kerrigan?'' Spillane asks in a brassy tone that would befit a criminal lawyer. ''She said she didn't. I told Ruth, 'I can make her hot again.' We actually got her a job before I ever contacted her -- a production of Starlight Express in Vegas.''
Flush with success, Spillane went after Bobbitt and Buttafuoco, Flowers and Barrows, arranging game-show appearances and spots in revues, and in Gates' case, a tentative book deal. Barrows, a client for a year, thinks it's only a matter of time before Spillane has a lock on the scandal market. ''As wacky as she is, she's extremely tenacious and professional. She's good at helping people take advantage of a situation, people who may not have any talent but want their 15 minutes.'' But all does not run smoothly on a path paved by pathology. To wit:
Tonya Harding ''She had an offer for a Woody Allen film -- I don't remember which one -- which she turned down because she didn't like his morals,'' Spillane says, rolling her eyes. (''He was interested in her,'' Allen's spokeswoman confirms. ''But it became apparent there was a conflict in their schedules.'') ''She turned down an appearance in Boston because she was supposedly afraid she'd be attacked by Nancy Kerrigan's fans. We kept trying and finally said, 'That's it, enough.'''
Kato Kaelin ''We got him an audition for a serious role, in High Sierra Search and Rescue with Robert Conrad, and the casting people said, 'We don't think he's a good actor.''' (''He gave a good go of it,'' says casting director Jennifer Fish, ''but there were people who were more talented.'') Ultimately, says Spillane, ''Ruth and I said, 'What are we bothering for?'''
