by Allen Morris
Most readers of TYLER TODAY MAGAZINE know me, but don’t know it. I spent twelve years writing for the magazine under the name Robert Marlin, a name chosen to honor my father and my maternal grandfather. Under my real name, I had a reputation for my work in television. The magazine’s owner wanted a writer solely connected to the magazine. Hence the pseudonym.
At the age of five, I met Mickey Mantle in a Dallas restaurant. That night, my mother asked how I felt upon meeting Mickey Mantle and I confessed to her that I wanted to be famous someday, like Mantle was. She replied, “Maybe you will,” spoken in her always calm, quiet voice, “but there are more important things in life than being famous. You should aspire to be a good person. Fame is fleeting. Character lasts.”
Today, “celebrity” is pervasive in American culture. Throughout fifty-plus years, I developed expertise in writing and directing; guiding projects with people who were famous in their fields, enhancing their fame; but failing to achieve my own long-desired fame. At its heart, this book demonstrates how fame eluded me as I developed a fulfilling career in television and live events working with people who did achieve fame.
With mentoring from television professionals, I learned to operate every piece of equipment needed to create television broadcasts. I studied for and passed the exam to obtain a First-Class FCC Broadcast Engineering license. By the time I graduated from college in 1975, I had four years of experience directing live newscasts, which helped me get a job at a major market television station. Within a year, I was given my first gig as a producer. The work I did began winning awards, first a Clio for advertising, and eventually Emmy Awards, the highest honor in the television industry. Soon, the show I produced began to attract famous individuals as guests. At last, I was a peer among individuals who had achieved fame.
Eluding Fame differs from other books in that, rather than describing the life of one single person, it is about many famous people and organizations, framed amid a single event, that brought me and that celebrity together in a working relationship. I worked with prominent people in sports, business, medicine, politicians, and criminals (sometimes the same person). Many were giants whose work defined their respective fields: Orson Welles, Mickey Rooney, Joan Rivers, Earl Campbell, Patrick Mahomes, Charlie Wilson, Jodie Foster, Nancy Ames, Dr. Emil J. Freireich, Larry Dierker, Ben Vereen, Joel Grey, Rita Rudner, and Larry Hagman, to name a few.
The result is a book filled with intimate and personal stories, providing a look inside the celebrity world from the perspective of unique situations and circumstances in which I was a participant and a leading player.
Readers can learn more about this book at www.eludingfame.com and can purchase the eBook, paperback, or hardcover at Amazon.com.