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| The National Enquirer Tabloid Bribes Staff Writer to Risk Life and Limb for $100,000...Again!
The GoNz Wears 100,000 Buzzing Bees
These photos are hard evidence that proves the National Enquirer set out to kill the Gonz by assigning the writer to wear a live buzzing beard of 100,000 frenzying bees on her face, under the pretense of a writing assignment. The tabloid was banking on a stinging frenzy! Former Enquirer writer working on book about experiences BY STEVE GIBBS
Free Press Staff
PLANTATION KEY -- She was assigned by her boss at the National Enquirer to
sit and be photographed as 100,000 bees were released and drawn to her neck,
chin and shoulders.
The assignment, she is convinced, was set up for a spectacular photo of a
pretty girl being stung when the stunt went wrong.
Islamorada's Sammie Mays, 48, says she was told that the bees could sense
fear and when one stung the rest would follow suit. With this in mind, Mays
tried to put herself in a trance-like state of mind so she could ignore the
thousands of crawling insects that felt like fire on her skin. The promise
of $50,000 was her motivation.
"I was strong-headed. My nickname as a child was 'mule,'" says Mays, who was
born and raised in Pass Christian, Miss. "I came from a background of saloon
owners, politicians and the Dixie mafia from New Orleans.
"I had myself psyched up and the beekeeper was about to release the bees
when a man handed me a telephone. It was Joe Mullins, the friggin' Brit who
had made the assignment. 'If anything happens to you we cannot be
responsible,' he told me. I exploded. They were setting me up to be stung,
but I got back into the trance and we finished the photo shoot without
incident.
"I was scared to breathe but couldn't pass up the money."
Mays' unabashed ambition and willingness to do just about any assignment for
big bucks had landed her work with the National Enquirer, the British-run
tabloid newspaper that, in its own words, "fills the needy psyche of an
American society caught in a love affair with celebrity."
She has interviewed Jane Fonda, Paul Newman and former President George H.W.
Bush, but her most memorable -- and unquestionably briefest -- interview was
with All-Star Cincinnati Reds infielder Pete Rose, who was banned from
baseball for life for betting.
Mays says her photograph of the disgraced Rose who was serving time in
federal prison for filing false income tax returns, led to a stint as a
staff writer for the Enquirer, a job that led her into some outrageous
adventures.
Mays' love-hate relationship with the tabloid's management, people she
admires for their genius but hates for their unscrupulousness, has inspired
the Upper Keys resident to parlay her experiences into a book she is writing
and plans to title, "The Diary of a National Enquirer Reporter: Days of Our
Lies."
By the time her interviews with big-name celebrities were published in the
Enquirer, she understood that sleaze was part of the tabloid business. She
says the small fraternity of British editors operate a closed organization.
There is no phone listing or any contact information in the Enquirer, the
Star, the Globe or Country Weekly, all operated out of the same offices in
Lantana, Fla.
"They call you. You don't call them," she says.
She was freelancing and in need of money in 1990 when she asked Mullins for
an assignment that paid the most.
What made her 20-second Rose interview and subsequent photo memorable was
the fact that the Big Red Machine's best-known hitter was in a maximum
security prison in Illinois.
"No one could get a photo of Pete in prison, and Mullins said he would pay
me $100,000," she said. "That's all I needed. Mississippi breeds tough men
and women, and I got my partner, my significant other, a crazy songwriter
named 'Cujo," and we headed north to the Marion, Ill., prison where Rose was
being held."
The story of how she got the photo, which is featured in "The National
Enquirer: Thirty Years of Unforgettable Images" pictorial, is more exciting
than the photo itself.
She and Cujo, who were musicians, arranged to play a concert for the
prison's inmates. But that was merely a ruse so she could snap a picture of
Rose.
Mays says she regrets her actions cost the warden his job -- "John Clark was
a handsome man," she said.
"Once inside, the warden took me to his office. I could see he was flirting
with me so I flirted back. He gave me the tour," she says. "We walked into
the infirmary and there was a photo of Rose hanging on the wall. I found out
that he had requested knee surgery while in prison. That was so he wouldn't
have to play on the prison baseball team. He coached a team instead.
"I got a call on my cell phone from the Enquirer. Mullins told me the
[tabloid's] lawyers insisted that I announce to the inmates that the photo
would be published before taking the shot. He told me it was so those in the
Witness Protection Program would not be exposed. I couldn't believe it.
"I told him, 'You mean I will have to announce that I am about to take a
photo that would land me in jail?' I was incredulous. ..."
"The warden asked me how much time we'd need to set up for the concert, and
I told him 'hours,' when it really only took 15 minutes. The concert was to
take place next to the recreation room, but I still had no idea how I would
get a photo of Rose and get the film out of the prison. ...
"Time was getting close and we could hear the inmates begin to chant,
'Music, music.' I decided to take a chance," Mays says.
So she asked an inmate to help her. He pointed out Rose, who was sitting in
a nearby recreation room watching the World Series on TV. Mays says she knew
it was time to act.
"My heart was pounding when I walked into the room. It was dark and I knew
the flash would illuminate the windows all around and guards would be after
me," she says. "I walked up to Pete and said, 'I'm here to take your
picture. Anyone who doesn't want his face published in a national magazine
better move.
"Men flew away like someone had fired a shot. Pete laughed and said, 'I
don't want to see this in some cheap-ass magazine.' I know he meant a
magazine like the Enquirer.
"He had his leg up and I got the photo. ... We were going to leave all the
equipment there. Then I stopped and thought about it."
Mays and her partner decided to perform for the inmates. She says with every
song they felt more confident that they would get away with the photo.
"When we finished the concert we packed everything away and headed out. We
didn't stop until we ran out of gas in Paducah, Ky," she says.
She and Cujo drove the film to the Enquirer's headquarters in Lantana, where
the TV newsmagazine show, 60 Minutes, was about to do an expose on the
tabloid.
She handed the film over to Mullins. He said he wanted us to be happy, so he
bumped us up to $117,000. Then, when 60 Minutes came in for the interview,
he waited for the big question: 'Isn't it true that the Enquirer fabricates
these stories?'
"Mullins smiled and called us in. 'Why would we send journalists inside a
maximum security prison for a photograph if we were not legitimate?' he
asked, showing the Rose photo. That stopped their expos
story in its tracks," she says. "The Enquirer has used that photo as an
example of their legitimacy ever since."
The photo also was named one of the top sports photos of 1990 by Sports
Illustrated.
"That photo bailed me out of financial trouble," she says. "It made my
career. I was one of the first women to become a staff writer for the
Enquirer. I did the first 'tell-all' interview with Marla Maples and her
involvement with The Donald [Trump] and his breakup with Ivanna.
"I was also an attendant at [Wheel of Fortune's] Vanna White's wedding. The
Enquirer bought the exclusive rights to her wedding in Aspen. They didn't
want ordinary photos so I shook up the champagne before they opened it for
their wedding toast," she says.
For many years Mays would come to the Keys to play. She finally settled here
with her husband, First State Bank's Harry Teaford and her 11-year-old
daughter, Evangeline.
While her life is no longer lived on the edge now that she is working as a
real estate agent in the Upper Keys, that spark of enthusiasm for living and
her powerful personality have not abated.
And it appears her tabloid days may not be behind her just yet. Mays
promises that her book will be a tell-all expose about the Enquirer, and
that there is plenty more to tell.
sgibbs@keysnews.com
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