http://www.smh.com.au/news/spike/hig...400353973.html
High life not always a bed of roses
By Andrew Hornery
October 29, 2005
An all expenses paid, champagne-fuelled day at Australia's most glamorous racing carnival complete with limos, adoring fans, limitless prawns and your choice of designer outfits.
Oh, and a cool $US200,000 ($264,000) for your troubles. Sound tempting?
As petite Hollywood star and Desperate Housewife Eva Longoria will no doubt know after Derby Day today when she finally steps down from her towering stilettos, you should be careful for what you wish for.
On the outside the life of a celebrity heading to the races during the Melbourne Cup carnival looks like a charmed lot, but digging into the complicated contracts and never-ending negotiations between agents, publicists, journalists, editors, photographers and marketing executives, the gleam soon starts to rub off.
Longoria is heading for Flemington today where she will the guest of Myer. She is the first of many celebrities headed for the races in Melbourne over the coming week including Carson Kressley,
Stevie Nicks, Ron Moss, Kelly Clarkson and Luciano Pavarotti.
Depending on how hot they rate on the fame radar and how clever their agents are, each of the celebrities will be paid handsomely for their appearances, either in contra or cash. But there's a catch. The further up the celebrity fame tree they live, the more complicated their day becomes.
"We are certainly very happy with what we are getting from Eva. She and Myer are a really good fit," Myer's spokesman John Gillman explained.
"Eva has been bombarded with requests from various media and invitations to go to a lot of marquees. She will only be at Flemington for six or so hours, there simply isn't enough time for her to oblige the invitations. She will only be in the Myer marquee."
Needless to say, Longoria, like the other celebrities with their respective marquees, is contractually obliged not to enter any other marquees besides their host's. Emirates and Motorola are both touting exclusive celebrities in their tents, while the traditional celeb hot spot, Moet, is taking a more demure approach this year, banning soap stars from the guest list in favour of home grown socialites such as Penne Peacock, Erica Baxter and Louise Daniel, who will even be dressed by their hosts in the latest threads from Christian Dior.
Over at Myer, Gillman admitted Longoria's crammed itinerary had been planned down to the last minute, including where she should be seen and who she should be seen talking to.
"Those celebrities are given a road map, told 'do not pass go' and kept on a very tight leash," said one marquee organiser, who asked to remain anonymous as she was still trying to build her guestlist. "Sometimes you can pull it off and get them in, other times it's just too difficult. The minders are like pitbulls, they jealously guard their guests because of the amount of money they have spent getting exclusivity."
Last year Myer's key guest was Kressley, who arrives in Sydney tomorrow for a couple of days before heading to the cup again. There's been no word if John Laws will be looking up Kressley. Laws ignited an ugly row when he called the TV fashion guru a "pillow biter". Golden Tonsils claimed it had all been intended as a joke, later publishing an apology in the gay press.
Heh. "pillow biter." :D
