Famous Till the Next One

By Rick Horowitz

Quickly now, and no peeking: What was the name of the guy from Heaven's Gate?

You remember Heaven's Gate, don't you? It was all over the news just three, four months ago. You couldn't turn on a TV without hearing about Heaven's Gate, couldn't pick up a magazine without seeing this guy's face on the cover. A scary face, especially around the eyes. There was definitely something weird about the eyes.

And his name? What was his name?

Anyway.

So they finally caught up with Andrew Cunanan the other night -- or rather, Andrew Cunanan caught up with himself, decided he'd taken his murderous little spree about as far as he could take it -- no way out, no way back.

At least we think that's what he decided. Of course, we're not likely to know what he decided unless he was kind enough to leave his memoirs behind. Otherwise, we'll just have to rely on the imagination of screenwriters.

And there will be screenwriters. There are always screenwriters. Nothing of any significance happens anymore without screenwriters. Under the whir of the helicopters circling the houseboat the other night, you could already hear the TV-movie industry cranking up. November sweeps? If not sooner. Feature films? A little chancier. (Can Gary Oldman carry a movie all by himself?)

In front of the houseboat the other night, before things were clear, the TV reporter was telling us how the police were "hoping" the body they'd just discovered inside was Cunanan's. "Hoping," it says here, wasn't quite the word he was after. Did the police want Cunanan stopped? Absolutely -- and by any means necessary. Still, don't you think they'd have preferred Cunanan in cuffs to Cunanan in a box?

Cunanan in cuffs might have had a story to tell, a motive, some little something to make the whole thing almost (almost) comprehensible. Cunanan in a box is gratifying in its own way, but not quite satisfying. Besides, if somebody did have to take him down -- well, you know the police would rather have done the honors themselves. Cunanan had made that decision for too many other people, or so all the evidence suggests. If we have to, the cops surely were thinking, we'll make the decision for him.

It didn't happen that way -- at least that's not the way it's being reported: Cunanan apparently pulled the trigger on himself. The conspiracy types will no doubt be asking questions; they'll wonder how the police could have searched the houseboat twice and come up empty, then searched it a third time and found the body. (Tear-gas clouds, the police say.) But the conspiracy types will always ask questions. They'll always find something to wonder about.

"Most likely to be remembered" -- isn't that what Cunanan's classmates once voted him? Not a bad guess, for the moment. For the moment, his picture is on everyone's screen, his name is on everyone's lips. Of course, when it came time to speak his name, to announce his death, the police chief mispronounced it. Twice.

Even in Miami Beach, it seems, even after all the hoopla, Andrew Cunanan wasn't as famous as all that -- and this may be as good as it gets. There'll be something else along any time now.

Marshall Applewhite. The Heaven's Gate guy -- his name was Marshall Applewhite.

I had to look it up.

7/25/97