The New Divas

A dissection of what makes a Diva, how they get there, why we love/hate/love them, and who's making that star turn today.

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Has everyone noticed how utterly hip it's become to be a diva? Even back when it was reserved for the opera world's most flamboyant, grandiose prima donnas, the term "diva" carried with it a note of awed, thrilled disapproval--at the spectacle of a talented, charismatic, successful star elevating herself to extra-human heights of willfulness, selfishness, vanity and imperiousness. But now, flashy starlets everywhere are begging to be called divas, and audiences seem eager to be captivated by any large-living showgirl willing and able to carry on shamelessly at nosebleed altitudes. Figure it out: chart-toppers En Vogue titled their second album "Funky Divas"--and it went triple platinum.

Fame, wealth and privilege have nearly always been lusted after, and, once achieved, have always produced bad behavior. The '90s diva, being even more obscenely well paid than her predecessors, does not merely indulge in one pair of Manolo Blahniks after another, she has a closet built to house her collection. She drops a cool $10,000 on a jewel-studded case for her $1,700 Motorola StarTAC flip phone. She sports an entourage roughly the size of the population of her former hometown. She never leaves the house unready for her close-up. She plays the media like a kid doing Nintendo. She makes powerful men suffer. She gets her agent to hold the studios hostage on her behalf, then personally demands additional bowing and scraping.

Why, exactly, is it now so de rigueur for an actress to be not merely a star--an over-rewarded, professional narcissist--but also a diva? One clue is provided by a glance back at the last generation of divas who paraded by on the floats of their own grandiosity. In the 70s, when fame was emerging as the universal religion of Western civilization, such names as Cher, Jane, Diana, Barbra, Donna and Faye struck terror in Hollywood hearts from the executive suite to the makeup trailer. Cher perfected the gaudy, Southern California Bob Mackie version; Jane the constantly self-inventing corporate model; Diana the up-from-the-ghetto huntress; Donna the disco-dancing queen; Barbra the diva-in-perfectionist's-clothes; Faye--well, one battle-scarred veteran publicist insists she's "the diva who put the 'd' in 'diva.'" These intrepid explorers of the outer reaches of self-involvement and exhibitionism proved the huge attraction that lies in being fabulously bigger-than-life, able to get away with stuff the rest of us only dream of doing. Divadom demands an honesty that's intoxicating--as in, "Let's be honest here. I'm fantastic!" And let us be honest--we love divas. We love them because they act out for us the deep, dark wishes we all have to Be Big.

Coexisting cheek by jowl alongside the diva phenomenon of the '70s was the evolution of that Brando-invented ethos, I'm-not-a-star-I'm-an-artist. Brazen chutzpah and spotlight-drawing glamour hardly jibed with precious notions of Serious Artistry, so when the star-as-artist pose flourished, Donna, Diana, Faye, Jane, Cher and Bob Mackie languished; Streisand sublimated her divadom into diva-directordom. But how could such a ruse persist, when the lust for fame spirals ever upwards? How long could actresses with talent and star wattage be expected to cloak naked ambition as the desire to pursue their art? How long could the whole deceitful charade go on before somebody shouted, "Stop! I want to be a big, fucking movie star! I want the money, the men, the Manolos!"

The first trumpet blast to herald a new era of divadom was sounded right at the beginning of the decade by the original New Diva, Sharon Stone. Even before Basic Instinct_rocked audiences around the world, Hollywood insiders touted Stone for her clever wit and feared her for her bravura nerve. ("If I get with someone who is bullshitting me," she once explained, "I grind 'em right into the dirt.") With _Basic Instinct, Stone gained the credentials for true divadom: she was celebrated and imitated, and she rose magnificently to the occasion. She now lives in a $4.5 million chateau with a custom-designed Ralph Lauren screening room; she manages to bring public places to a standstill with her entrances (which include a sizeable entourage); she insists on keeping the wardrobes from her films; and she vacations in sultan style--she took not just the most luxurious suite at Maui's Grand Wailea Resort, but the owner's penthouse, and she occupies the $5,066-per-night Coco Chanel Suite at the Ritz in Paris.

Nicknamed "Sharon Stones" ("I have the biggest balls in Hollywood," she's claimed), she has raised high the ceiling for diva behavior, while giving it both a veneer of clever humor ("I find since becoming famous I get to torture a higher class of men than I used to") and a self-aware, postmodern spin ("My life is actually quite like Valley of the Dolls, except that I have better clothes and hairdos"). Stone may be equaled or surpassed by others for sheer excess and cultural influence--witness Madonna, whom the word "diva" does not adequately describe--but not for style. Every new look she devises is widely imitated (which is good, since she, unlike most other divas, has taste). When she sported that black Gap turtle-neck to the Oscars in 1996, the store restocked its chain of stores with the item and quickly sold out of it.

It should surprise no one that Sharon Stone inspires many of today's emerging "baby divas." For example, she clearly serves as a beacon to diva-ascendant Jennifer Lopez. Asked recently by this magazine to name the movie star that she thought had genuine style, Lopez showed both her diva-in-her-own-mind leanings and her tutelage at the school of Stone: "Me! I have great style," she replied. "So does Sharon Stone--she has my kind of style."

Lopez, who first came to the public eye as a Fly Girl on In Living Color, seemed from first glance to be all lit up and ready to become a diva-for-life. Vintage Hollywood photographer George Hurrell once said that the quality which made such divas as Joan Crawford and Jean Harlow so glamorous was "a hunger that showed in the eyes." Lopez shows the hunger. She seems bolder, pushier, more exciting and more glamorous than many of her peers. And she's tough as nails, a diva requisite. She recently told a journalist how she toyed with Jack Nicholson while costarring with him in Blood and Wine: "He was all into, you know, was I too young for him. I was, like, 'No! You can get a chick my age, just not me.'" Having auditioned for the title role in Evita, she vowed, "If Madonna does a good job, I'll be the first one to say, 'Fucking Madonna rocks.' But if she doesn't, I'll be the first one to say, 'She sucks.'" Obviously, Lopez is about as awed by living legends as she was by the fake boa constrictor she took on in Anaconda.

Cojones and showy good looks aside, the Bronx-born Lopez has just the sort of nose for publicity that marks a true, self-promoting showstopper. Who else but a diva-in-waiting would invite a journalist and photographers to her precipitous wedding to the gorgeous young guy she met when he was waiting tables in Miami? For that matter, who but a diva would schedule her wedding to coincide with the premiere three weeks later of Selena, her first stab at the truly Big Time. Lopez has media-spin instincts that outstrip those of most stars a decade older than she. Rumor has it that the reason she wasn't visible at the Oscar pre-show last spring was that she deliberately came late so she'd be the last in the door and draw the final blast of paparazzi attention.

Stone's femme fatale act on-screen has not been lost on Lopez either. She's followed up My Family/Mi Familia, Money Train, Jack, Selena, Anaconda and Blood and Wine by making U-Turn for Oliver Stone. If her lead role as the man-eater in that film does for her anything like what Sharon Stone's turn in Basic Instinct did for her, Lopez will grab the clout to stage a full-court press on divadom. And if she ignites with George Clooney in their upcoming thriller, Out of Sight, she could establish her diva supremacy as a sassy, fun-loving, egocentric of the sort we most enjoy--from the safe distance of a theater seat, anyway.

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