FLASHBACK: Soap Opera Mall Tours 1991

For publicity, deck the malls with bows of soap-opera stars

By Rob Hiaasen
Cox News Service
May 31, 1991

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - For $60,000, Bob Hope would probably come to a shopping center and sign autographs.

For $25,000, Corbin Bernsen of L.A. LAW showed his face for five hours at a West Palm Beach factory outlet last year.

For way under $1,000, Tiny Tim warbled Tiptoe Through the Tulips at the Cross Country Mall in March.

"Anybody can be bought," says Beth Fisher, director of a Pennsylvania marketing firm that booked Bernsen at the Palm Beach Square Factory Outlet Center.

For actors, personal appearances can include going on THE TONIGHT SHOW, attending charity balls or celebrity golf tournaments. But do successful actors stoop to working malls? They do as fast as you can say "check payable to . . . "

With malls competing against each other, some pay $25,000 or more for celebrities to drop by, kiss a few babies, sign posters and snare shoppers.

"The best thing to say about it is it's something free for the fans," says Jim Warren, a California-based special-events promoter.

Soap stars first started working malls in the 1970s, says Joyce Becker of Soap Opera Festivals in New Jersey. Malls, like car shows, became yet another promotion. An actor could make $250 signing autographs if he was in a popular soap opera.

Continue reading...

Booking agencies in California and New York say Bill Cosby and Tom Selleck might work a mall for $75,000. The price doesn't include first-class air fare, hotel and limo costs.

The ubiquitous Bob Hope is also availble.

"If you leased some land, Bob Hope would stand on that mound of dirt for you," says Warren. "It's not the event, it's the money."

Money is the obvious reason to work malls, considering soap stars don't make the salaries their nighttime colleagues do. Soap stars are mall regulars. Kale Browne and Hilary Edson of ANOTHER WORLD signed autographs early last month at the reopening of Westward Plaza in West Palm Beach.

Nighttime stars make anywhere from $10,000 to $75,000 for an appearance; daytime actors earn between $3,000 and $10,000 for mall appearances.

If you ask actors why they work malls, they probably will say they love to meet their fans. Of course, they are not grabbing red-eye Friday flights to spend two hours on Saturday at a mall's grand opening in Out Of The Way, U.S.A. for nothing.

But Becker says the money is secondary. Soap stars spend their weeks working in four-walled studios with no studio audiences. They never hear the applause.

"Actors do malls for the adulation. They are there for the applause. It's pressing the flesh," Becker says.

She's been in this business for 15 years and books stars in about 175 malls a year. Becker got Larry Hagman at a mall the week before the world found out "Who Killed J.R.?" She's also got Bernsen to do a home-and-beauty show in Cleveland this year.

Bernsen makes $1 million a year on L.A. LAW.

Malls want male soap stars involved in a hot story line. High fees aside, movie stars aren't in demand. Billy Warlock, who plays Frankie on DAYS OF OUR LIVES, would pack a mall, but Robert De Niro might not.

"Soap stars are the ones people have a passion to see," Warren says.

Major movie stars don't need the money or exposure from mall appearances. No Oscar-winning actor will spend his Saturday off smiling for three hours at a strip shopping center that just opened in Greenacres. And no agent would ask him.

"I was with Sophia Loren last night and I think she would be insulted if I asked her to do a mall," says Barry Greenberg of Celebrity Connection in California.

Malls want soap hunks. Hunks bring in the women, and women do the shopping, and shoppers go to malls. Actresses are booked at malls but they are usually teamed with male stars. There are exceptions. Susan Lucci of ALL MY CHILDREN and Morgan Fairchild, who signed autographs at Macy's opening in the Boynton Beach Mall in 1989, have worked solo at malls.

Bob Hope will not return a mall's call. So, a mall will pay someone like Warren, Becker or Fisher to get a star. A mall will pay these booking agencies $5,000, for example, to deliver a soap star to their airport. The booking agency will take their cut of the $5,000, giving the rest to the star.

Typically, the actor gets half the money up front and the other half at the mall. The money doesn't stop with the talent fee. Fisher says she spent $30,000 on advertising Bernsen's visit. Eight security officers were hired to cover Bernsen, who stayed at The Breakers.

Teen singer Tiffany helped launch her career by playing malls, but malls aren't considered power career moves.

"It's not a step up I would say," says Gary Burkhart of Silver Starr Entertainment, which once bid $75,000 for Michael J. Fox to appear at a mall. Fox declined.

Ross Simmons, of Florida Events in North Palm Beach, has booked acts at shopping centers for 25 years. Simmons, who brought Tiny Tim to town, says people don't realize how big mall entertainment is.

In 1989, Simmons staged an Elvis Look-A-Like Lip-Synch contest at the Cross Country Mall in West Palm Beach. The crowd rocked. The look-alike winner signed autographs for more than 40 minutes. He was more popular at the mall than most stars have been, Simmons said.

"And he wasn't even Elvis."