How is fame a kind of hiding place?

Warning: this post contains references to trauma, abuse and neglect

Marilyn Monroe shooting the iconic ‘flying dress’ scene for The Seven Year Itch.

I am a year into this experiment about narcissism, trauma and fame really grateful for all the interest, recommendations, comments and questions! I am starting to feel like it’s not just me. The popular narrative about fame covers over something that psychology has come to understand as narcissism – something that has benefits but also costs that are sometimes tragic. This is the second of two posts trying to sum up some of the patterns I have found so far.

In those who achieve sustained iconic fame, some strategies that are part of narcissism are taken to an extreme: performance, charisma, idealisation and persona. I have called this the performance face of narcissism (see my post about this). I am looking at the biographies of these extraordinary people. Narcissism theory makes claims about certain childhood experiences – about how narcissism is created and passed on. My main goal is to look for illustrations of these experiences and the strategies they prime the child to develop as they grow up. These strategies are what we call narcissism. For some, the consequence is fame.

In part A, I looked at the part played by trauma in the early lives of nine iconically famous people: Marilyn Monroe, John Lennon, Charles Chaplin, Michael Jackson, Marlon Brando, Jimmy Savile, Tupac Shakur, Elvis Presley and Elizabeth Taylor. I have found that added to the emotional trauma predicted by the map of narcissism, overt abuse looms large in the lives of those who reach the greatest heights of fame. And alongside the performance face of narcissism, aspects of the perpetrator face are often found.

In this post, I will focus on what these iconic lives tell us about the role of persona in narcissism and how narcissism helps us understand the fall from grace of some celebrities. I will also look at what the map of narcissism says about what lies behind the persona or façade.

The map of narcissism¹*

Is fame a way of living in a persona?

What is the story we hear in mainstream media about performance, persona and fame? It usually goes something like this: The person found that they had talent – perhaps in acting or singing or modelling – and then a persona grew up around this talent that complimented it – perhaps reflecting their personality, single-mindedness and confidence. This persona eventually shaped their talent into something iconic or archetypal. This makes sense – because their main talent or strength is their voice, or their acting ability. This is what brought them through the competition to our screens or audio device. This is what made them famous, right?

And what does the media say when a star later falls from grace, or collapses into poor mental health? They are often portrayed as someone who was strong but who has now been afflicted in a powerful way. By what? Perhaps it was the stresses of fame, or the excesses it offered that took their toll. Perhaps it all went to their head, and they lost direction. Perhaps the same would happen to any of us in that position. It is all the more tragic somehow that someone who was so talented – so strong – could be torn down. The tragedy is more profound because from the strength to the weakness is such a distance. This is I think what we are told about fame. And about the fall from grace. But this narrative starts to fall apart if the need for persona, admiration and emotional distance was a response to trauma - if the need for persona came first, regardless of talent.

According to the map of narcissism, persona serves two functions for the developing child. Firstly, born into a situation where shame and vulnerability are unmanageable, persona becomes like a protective shell. The persona has to be a kind that will shield against vulnerability. Combined with a strategy of performing, it provides distance from shame by provoking admiration and validation. This validation though, is not of the child’s actual self but of the persona. The actual self of the child has begun a path of being invisible.

The second function of persona is concerned with how we know ourselves and our identity. For the child in this situation, their moment-to-moment feelings – especially those connected to vulnerability- cannot be known to them.  Connecting to them has been experienced as unsafe. The experience of emotional vulnerability and connection is lost – not by accident but strategically. There is a disconnect between emotions that get activated physically – and conscious awareness. As a result, there is a problem for the child and then the adult, in knowing their authentic feeling self with all its desires, tastes, fears and quirks. They cannot know themselves, and so they cannot be fully known. In the place of this void, the persona goes on being constructed in its place. It becomes a kind of false self. In the place of connection, there is distance.

In the lives of Chaplin, Taylor and Jackson, performance was something nurtured from so early on by a parent, that it was impossible to find descriptions of a child in whom persona was not already being shaped. Because in the childhoods of all three vulnerability was at times terrifying, this persona would have perhaps become more and more useful for self-protection as time went on.

In the lives of Elvis, Brando, Lennon, Tupac, Monroe and Savile, there is more of a description of persona developing over time. The first thing that surprised me was that persona was developed before fame, and before money. For Elvis, Brando, Lennon and Tupac, it is clear that their peers at school or college found them to be very curious a long time before they had made a film or signed a record deal. Elvis had zero evidence that he would be famous, and there was no fame in his family. And yet he dressed in a way that drew ridicule.³ His sideburns were not cool, but he was disinterested in trying to be accepted on an everyday level – by those close by. Perhaps it would not be enough. Perhaps he could not accept himself. But like Brando, Lennon, Savile, Tupac and Brando, before fame, before talent, he was a social misfit.

Some have tracked Elvis’s persona back to his childhood love of Captain Marvel

A teacher at Liverpool College of Art, observed that the young John Lennon was

“a fish out of water and his way of coping was to be dismissive of the whole process – he needed a ‘front’ to achieve this”⁴.

Part of John’s persona required a working-class Liverpool accent which the world would soon accept as authentic.

The relevance of this to the map of narcissism, is that these people had something in common before they were a distinctive actor or singer: they needed to have a persona. For Tupac, persona did not exist because of his rapping. Becoming a rapper was an option alongside at least two others: actor and politician. What these three careers had in common was not rapping or poetry. It was persona. We think of their singing, rapping or acting as their way of finding a place in life. But before this, emotionally traumatised as they were, these individuals needed to have a persona. They found a strategy of being distanced from their peers, distinctive, mysterious, intimidating and admired.

The fame and the emptiness; the persona and the self

From the mainstream media, we get I think an impression that the person – charismatic and confident in their performances – came from a starting point of knowing who they were. We assume that strong performance reflects a strong person. They made it and they must have had what it takes to get there! So, are the great icons not just successful human beings who we should naturally follow and be influenced by? Are they just better than the rest? Or is their success a kind of mask? At a kids’ party, it might be that the winner of the best costume competition is the kid who felt like they weren’t really invited. It’s still the best costume, but it covers over something uncomfortable. This child’s smile, when accepting the prize, might be a complicated one. I think fame can be a lot like this. And Marlon Brando’s acceptance of his first Oscar would be a good example.

Brando accepted his first Oscar in a way that embraced Hollywood. But his feelings about it were complicated.

All of these nine developed a kind of archetypal image that was defined by its distinctiveness. Some biographers tracked the development of this image and the sources for the ideas that contributed. Elvis borrowed elements of his persona from comic book character Captain Marvel Junior, film star James Dean, and the charismatic revival preachers he grew up with since before he could speak. Of Marilyn, biographer Taraborrelli tracks the development like this:

“She began to see her stunning appearance as its own entity…It was a magnet that could draw people in…she kept adding to the presentation. Makeup, lipstick, tighter clothing…she began to create a character that people would adore.”⁵

Why, before they could call singing or acting a job, did these children start developing these personas? The impression I had of these icons growing up, was that they were confident people with a strong sense of who they were. But in the first press ‘interview’ with Elvis, there is not a single quote from Elvis². His eye contact was terrible². Most of his girlfriends were approached on his behalf by friends. He was a great judge of a good or a bad song, recording over 700 in his life. But he never wrote one himself. Not even a collaboration. Why not? Was this a man with a strong sense of who he was and how he felt? Or was there somewhere a void?

Charles Chaplin masterfully developed the character of The Tramp that became world famous. But one observer who got close to him said:

“He is first and last an actor. He lives only in a role, and without it he is lost. As he cannot find the inner Chaplin, there is nothing for him, at grievous moments, to retire into”.⁶

These observations do not fit with the success narrative of fame – that these are the confident people with a strong sense of who they are. They do fit with the idea that persona is developed most strongly where a connection to the true self has been experienced overwhelmingly as unsafe. Where being emotionally vulnerable is not an option. People who become very famous clearly know what they want. They are often driven to succeed. But narcissism theory says that knowing what you want is not always the same as knowing who you are. One effect of the persona, as it develops and becomes known, is to cover over in a dramatic and convincing way, that the person struggles to know who they are.

If we were to go back to 1955 and the week after Marlon Brando won his first Oscar, we might find him being interviewed in his home by TV host Edward Murrow, for Person to Person. Brando is asked to “describe yourself in 30 seconds”. This also happens to be a question in Psychologist Otto Kernberg’s clinical assessment interview for pathological narcissism. We are in perhaps the best week of Brando’s life. A time when we might think that he should have a confident sense of who he is. Brando refuses to answer the question. He then gives a rambling explanation that, linking to my own clinical experience, makes me quite sad. He gets a bit lost. Murrow interrupts and thanks him for his time.

Marlon Brando in The Wild One

Marilyn Monroe built one of the most iconic personas in cultural history. As an actress, her singing happy birthday to the most powerful man on the planet, JFK, was an honour. As a person, I think she knew even less at this point about who she was than at any other time. Actor Dean Martin was working with Marilyn Monroe on Something’s Got to Give. He was struck by something:

 “When you looked into her eyes there was nothing there. No warmth. No life. It was an illusion. She looked great on film yeah. But in person…she was a ghost”.⁵

Our press often portrays the falling from grace of a performer as a consequence of success and fame. But narcissism theory says that these strategies develop early in life. In the lives of perpetrator celebrities such as Jimmy Savile, we later find that exploitation of others had been occurring in parallel with their rise to stardom not as a consequence of it. They had always been both performer and exploiter.

We experience these icons as unique. But is this because we get to know the person, or because persona, by design, is distinctive? When there is a fall from grace, or a collapse in mental health it is rare to read of any comparison. For example, both Matthew Perry and Robin Williams were comic actors whose lives ended abruptly in tragedy. To find something in common beneath these distinct personas can be portrayed as disrespectful. We are guided instead to remember only their uniqueness. But does this stop us taking care of the next Matthew Perry a bit better?

When the artist succeeds despite the struggle, we should of course applaud them. Struggle and triumph over adversity is one of the most genuine causes for celebration. But I don’t think that means we have to preserve our naivety. Who gains most from keeping the struggles hidden? They often remain so only until the artist’s best work has been captured and sold. The last piece of work is to stage-manage a change in the public’s perception: from powerhouse performer to victim or from entertainer to felon – as if they could never have been two of these at once. Perhaps we the consumers also want to think of their demise as a one-off incident. An anomaly. And we wouldn’t want to think of the next bright star as someone who will one day reveal similar hidden struggles. Perhaps it would spoil the show. But as one-off anomalies, these kinds of news stories are appearing a lot.

Who do we follow and have as our cultural (or political) influencers? It might be that by the time we are given a set of options of performers to enjoy and follow, we are choosing from a set of people a bit like these nine. Their distinct personas are celebrated. But underneath there may be a common thorn in the sides of those who break through. Those who win a place on our screens and devices have competed with others and found an edge. Perhaps it is the non-traumatised who have long ago knelt down at the side of the racetrack. Our icons maybe cultural or political. But it may be that this symbol of success we call fame offered them a way to live in persona. And persona may be not so much an accessory to a chosen career. In the iconic, it may be something that began before their first performance; a precarious attempt at survival.

Disclaimer: All views expressed are my own unless otherwise stated, and do not necessarily reflect the views of any institution I have been employed by. The content here is for information and should not be interpreted as advice.

*Ryle did not apply this approach only to narcissism. If this mapping approach has been used in your own therapy, this does not mean that you have narcissistic difficulties.

1.     Ryle, A. & Kerr, I.B. (2002). Introducing Cognitive Analytic Therapy. Wiley.

2.     Lowen, A. (1985). Narcissism: The Denial of the True Self. Touchstone

3.     Guralnick, P. (1994) Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley. Abacus.

4.     Kenny, F. (2020). Understanding John Lennon. Shepheard-Walwyn.

5.     Taraborrelli, J.R. (2009). The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe. Pan.

6.     Ackroyd, P. (2014). Charlie Chaplin. Vintage books.