HOT NUMBERS AND COLD FILM CAREERS : Starring in a Scandal Does Not Necessarily Make a Show-Biz Success

Quick now, was it Fanne Foxe, Elizabeth Ray or Rita Jenrette who starred in “Out of Africa?”

Keep the answer in mind the next time you hear about the promising Hollywood career in store for Jessica Hahn, Donna Rice, Fawn Hall or whoever the next young lady may be whose exploits thrust them boldly into the headlines.

Hollywood loves a scandal--but for some reason prefers to export rather than import it. Though history is rich with fallen starlets, there are few success stories that would lend encouragement to those hoping to capitalize on notoriety achieved in other fields.

Not that they haven’t tried. Oh, Lordy, how they’ve tried.

Actually, if you answered Fanne Foxe to the above question, you probably just had “Out of Africa” confused with “Posse From Heaven,” Foxe’s one known starring vehicle in 1974 after the stripper was caught splashing in Washington’s Tidal Basin with Rep. Wilbur Mills (D-Ark.), then the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Foxe worked on the picture a whole nine days to get her starring billing but, even now, it’s hard to do justice to the ultimate result. There are some films that fade from memory after a decade, but “Posse” remains uniquely enduring for the handful of us who saw it.

Aside from her brief scenes, most of the footage from “Posse” had been salvaged from an unreleased picture called “Appletime,” which contained great stretches of Vietnam War action combined with scenes of cowboys in the Wild West, to what purpose one could not be quite sure.

“Appletime” also contained lots of shots of one particular horse, which became Foxe’s co-star. She, in turn, was filmed on a small set in one of the back-street Hollywood studios, sitting on a cotton cloud as a guardian angel. Looking down on the action--which had been enhanced with stock footage of ancient warring knights and a cavalry charge--she tried to take care of a cowboy, with the help of the horse.

Oh, I forgot--since Foxe had trouble with her limited lines, the producers dubbed in a voice for the horse to help carry the dialogue.

This left Foxe free to strip, dance and, ahem, sing.

As is evident, the film did not rank among the industry’s most expensive. But I finally caught up with co-producer Phillip Pine the other day and offered him a chance to make industry history by revealing his actual expenditures on the film.

Even now, a dozen years later, the answer caught in his throat.

But he finally fessed up: “The whole thing cost $17,000.”

When “Posse From Heaven” opened in Washington, Foxe herself appeared for the premiere. The film was pulled from the theater the next day. Undiscouraged, she appeared for the next premiere in Jacksonville, Fla., where she was met by 10 girls on horseback.

When no customers showed up, the film was pulled the next day from that theater, too.

Foxe stopped going to premieres.

But at least she got to be in a film. Elizabeth Ray never made it beyond the parting curtains at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Ray, you may recall, reached fame as the shapely congressional secretary who couldn’t type but earned $14,000 a year as the mistress of her boss, Rep. Wayne Hays (D-Ohio), in 1976. Upon discovery, she revealed her job secrets in a book, “The Washington Fringe Benefit,” then came West to star in the film of the same name.

Awaiting her debut, reporters gathered at the hotel where there actually was a golden curtain set up at one end of the banquet room.

As she stepped through the drapes, her producer bellowed, “Miss Ray, this is the press of Hollywood, Calif.”

Ray didn’t really need the introduction; by the questions, she would have known soon enough this was the press of Hollywood, Calif. Grilling intensely, they extracted the information that she was taking acting lessons and would appear nude in the film if “it can be done with taste.”

My favorite question, ranking right up there in the Non Sequitur Hall of Fame, came from a TV reporter: “If you never learned to type, how will you learn the talented art of becoming a movie star?”

I don’t remember the answer.

Nude or not, Ray’s film was never made and, at last report, she was still pursuing an acting career in New York City. A “so-far unsuccessful” acting career, the report noted.

The latest I heard, New York is also the home of Rita Jenrette, whose husband Rep. John W. Jenrette (D-S.C.) resigned after his 1980 conviction in the Abscam scandals.

But it was her revelations about love-making on the Capitol steps that stirred the nation’s imagination, along with a layout in Playboy.

I met Rita Jenrette early after her arrival in Hollywood and she always insisted she was trying to live down her past rather than exploit it. She also said she might do nudity in films--if it was tasteful.

Jenrette picked up a few jobs in TV, but her past more or less remained her career and one day she called to say goodby.

“I’ve had it with the phonies in this town,” she said. “They’re only interested in one thing. I want to be an actress.”

She said she had a part in Puerto Rico someplace and, sure enough, she did. “Zombie Island Massacre” turned out to be her big role in films before she retreated to Off-Broadway. So I guess she still qualifies as an actress, if not a star.

To be fair to all the ladies, any one of them may have appeared in works not widely noticed and noted here; try as we might, even the press of Hollywood, Calif., can’t catch every jungle and jail picture everywhere.

Careers aren’t always easy to update. I have four phone numbers for Fanne Foxe back East, but none of them seems current. Producer Pine says she used to check in occasionally to see if he was interested in a sequel, but he hasn’t heard from her in several years.

And he hasn’t called her. “She’s not the kind of talent you would pursue aggressively.”