Phoenix- The sheer number of magazines and Hollywood TV shows reveals the public's fascination with the activities of celebrities. But beyond that is a morbid fascination with celebrities caught in scandals or, literally, with their pants down. It is that darker, sleazier place that provided an occupation for Phoenix publicist David Hans Schmidt.
Want to see topless photos of a woman who said she had an affair with President Bill Clinton? How about the prostitute who was picked up by actor Hugh Grant? Want to see the X-rated wedding-night video of Tonya Harding, the Olympic ice skater who had her rival clubbed? Or see the guy who played Screech in the TV show Saved by the Bell star in a pornographic movie? Schmidt figured you did. And over the course of his 15-year career as a merchant of sleaze, he delivered.
Schmidt carved out a unique career, riding media controversies from his office some 350 miles east of Hollywood. He boasted about living a high life from the deals that put second-rate stars into Playboy and Penthouse. He openly solicited photographs and videos of stars, hoping to cash in on their sale. He bragged to reporters about the restaurants he would dine in, the cars he would drive, the names he could drop.
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But in the end, Schmidt might have been his best client, hiding what his twin brother, Doug, described as a lifelong depression behind that air of bravado and opulence.
Schmidt was found dead in his townhouse Friday. The depression was something he hid behind a high-energy, take-no-prisoners public persona.
"It was all a big mess," Doug Schmidt said of his brother's personal life. "He'd go through severe bouts of depression and then major highs."
Indeed, Schmidt's personal life was rife with the same kinds of scandals that make the gossip sheets. He had been in and out of jail, was nearly $100,000 behind on child support and had filed bankruptcy. He also had a strained relationship with his family, salt-of-the-earth types from Minnesota who did not appreciate his line of work. His brother labeled him a con man.
Schmidt's last and latest deal involved wedding photos of Tom Cruise, without question the biggest name with which he had dealt. But it would prove to be his unraveling. At the time of his death, Schmidt was a few days away from entering a guilty plea on a federal charge of trying to extort Cruise by offering to sell the unauthorized photos back to him for upwards of $1 million.
The FBI arrested Schmidt in July. The case shattered his public persona, and most likely his method of making a living, and left his tattered personal life exposed.
Doug Schmidt said he spoke with his brother about two weeks ago, breaking a silence between the two that had lasted three years.
"He sounded like he was really at the end of his rope," Doug said.
"David, if you get through this, you've got to find a different career because this one's not working out for you," he said he told his twin.
Schmidt, who had faced five separate criminal cases since 1996, was under house arrest when he committed suicide. Phoenix police said they went to his house on Friday because a court-ordered monitoring bracelet hadn't moved for a while. Police said the death was an apparent suicide, but they did not release details.
Schmidt's brother said the death came by hanging. He did not know if a note was left.
A friend of Schmidt's, Eldon Diamond, said he had spoken with the 47-year-old the day before his death, but eventually Schmidt stopped answering the phone.
Schmidt called his father on Wednesday, the day of Fred and Darlene Schmidt's 48th wedding anniversary. Fred, in a phone interview from his home in Rochester, Minn., said the conversation was pleasant and brief.
Later that evening, Fred said he returned home from dinner to a solemn message from David. "It said I was a good role model and we were good parents," Fred said. "That was the extent of the message."
Earlier that week, a Phoenix magazine profile of Schmidt hit the newsstands. In the story, headlined "Peddler of Porn," Fred was quoted as saying he did not love his son.
"Absolutely not," the article quoted Fred. "How could you find love in your heart of someone who's caused you such pain for so many years? I recognize him as a son, but the further away I can get, the better off I am."
The author of the magazine story, David Leibowitz, a former Republic columnist, played a tape recording of the interview for a reporter Saturday to verify the quote.
Fred Schmidt said Saturday that he did not recall saying he didn't love his son. But he did say the relationship between the two was strained. "He's just mixed up," he said, adding that his son had expressed suicidal thoughts before. "I'm just sorry it couldn't have worked out better. He had so many opportunities, and it just never worked out."
Doug Schmidt said the family was tight-knit, except for David. "We're hard-working people, and David never really became part of our family because he's not like any of us," Doug said. "I'm a self-employed contractor for 28 years. My brother never had a real job for his whole life except trying to con people (and) do people bad."
Schmidt, in an autobiography online, was much more charitable about his work, calling it a "grand profession."
Schmidt wrote that he grew up in rural Olmstead County, Minn., but was misunderstood by his family and community.
He entered the Army and was a paratrooper before his honorable discharge in 1981, according to the bio on www.hansnews.com.
He graduated from Augsburg College, a Lutheran school in Minnesota, with degrees in philosophy and English, and spent some time in a master's program at Bowling Green University, the biography says.
Schmidt wrote that he had a falling out with his father while trying to enter the family business (grain farming operations and land development). He came to Phoenix in 1985. He worked briefly as a correspondent for the Arizona Business Gazette.
Schmidt also writes that he served as a press aide to Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham right before his impeachment. However, Republic clippings from the time do not back up that claim. Two Mecham aides and attorneys did become among the first clients of Schmidt's firm, DHS Public Relations, when he started it in 1987.
"His time with Governor Mecham taught him one important thing: that scandal and controversy are king in the news media," Schmidt wrote about himself.
He described a day in the early 1990s when he was buying groceries and saw a Star magazine that featured Gennifer Flowers, a TV news reporter, discussing her affair with Bill Clinton. Schmidt had a brainstorm. He figured he could start a bidding war between the leading men's magazines for nude photos of Flowers. According to his biography, he tracked Flowers down at a Dallas hotel and signed her to a deal. Other clients quickly followed, including Paula Jones, another Clinton scandal figure; Divine Brown, the prostitute who said she was hired by actor Hugh Grant; and Suzen Johnson, a flight attendant whose hotel-room liaisons with football analyst Frank Gifford were captured on tape.
Schmidt also brokered deals for celebrities who weren't caught in scandals but just wanted to show some flesh. Those included Olympian Katarina Witt and actress Shari Belafonte.
In 1998, Schmidt became embroiled in a bitter divorce. The child-custody issues would last until his death. He was jailed several times for violating court orders and failing to pay child support, most recently in November 2006. Schmidt emerged from jail with another mission. He would expose what he saw as a corrupt justice system.
He saw a chance with an inmate named Jefferson David McGee who was severely beaten in a Maricopa County jail. Schmidt, who was not an attorney, filed a $6.5 million notice of claim on McGee's behalf. The case was settled. It is unclear whether Schmidt received any of the proceeds.
For a time, Schmidt was also the publicist for accused serial shooter Dale Hausner, pleading his case on Geraldo Rivera's nationally televised show. That deal came about after Schmidt sent a letter to the suspect's jail cell, said Hausner's brother, Randy.
Schmidt stopped working for the Hausner family after Dale's public defenders advised against using Schmidt. Schmidt's own legal troubles also started to mount, Randy Hausner said.
"He seemed like a wild child, but he had a big heart," Hausner said, describing how Schmidt would drive him around in his Porsche and once offered him a $100 bottle of cologne to "help with the ladies."
But Schmidt stopped returning Hausner's calls after a while. And Schmidt's brother said that was a pattern.
"He never had many friends. He was always all about David," Doug said.
It is unclear where services will be. The body will probably be cremated, but his father didn't know whether there would be a memorial in Minnesota or whether the Schmidt family would travel to Phoenix to bid farewell.
Doug said his brother would have made it through his troubles had he counted on his family. "Family is pretty much everything in life, right?" he said. "You don't have a good family unit, you have a lonely life."
