McSherry’s Musings: Prima Donnas

An incident occurred last week that got me thinking about prima donnas. I’ll not say what it was just yet, but I soon came up with other examples. Now read on…

A prima donna is, of course, someone with an over-inflated ego. They tend to stand out in company and think of themselves as being special, often with very good reason, since they are usually extremely talented. With so much self-regard, however, they can find it difficult not to look down on other people.

The phrase prima donna is Italian, meaning ‘first lady’. Originally it referred to the top female singer in an Italian opera. Traditionally, such star performers were demanding. They wanted the biggest dressing room, furnished with flowers, champagne, caviar – and Lord knows what else.

Hollywood had similar problems. Film producers had a saying after they had signed a big star to appear in a film and settled on a fee, “Add ten per cent for the sh*t.” The said ‘sh*t’ referred to the entourage a big star always brought with them. There might be someone special to do their hair and make-up. They would also have a guru, someone to keep them in optimum emotional and psychological health for the duration of the shoot, and these all had to go on the payroll. Initially, prima donnas were all women but over time the phrase was applied to men as well.

The late great Freddie Mercury, iconic lead singer of Queen, was often described as a prima donna. The story of the band is told in the film Bohemian Rhapsody (2018). Mercury is actually the last man to join the group but once he’s in, things are never the same again. When he performs, all eyes are on him. It’s obvious that there is something very special about this man. The way he moves and commands the stage, the way he dresses and above all, the way he sings.

The other band members seem like decent down to earth guys. They turn up on time for meetings with staff at the record company, but Freddie is always late, as indeed he is for recording sessions in the studio. Prima donnas are not good when it comes to following timetables.

Mercury was an innovator too. In his epic composition ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ there is an operatic interlude, which is appropriate as the song appears on an album called ‘A Night at the Opera’. As if that were not enough, later in his career, Freddie would perform with an actual prima donna from Barcelona named Montserrat Caballe. She would later sing at his funeral.

Sometimes success can go to the head of a prima donna.

They become separated from friends and lose touch with reality, so they need to be humbled and brought back down to Earth. This is what happens to Mercury during the course of the film, when he decides that he no longer needs his band mates and tries to go solo.

He suggests to the band members that without him, they would still be in their dead-end menial jobs.

The solo career does not work out and soon Mercury wants back in the band. But now the tables are turned. It is Freddie who is on time for the meeting, while the rest of the band arrives late. He has been humbled, but the film then moves towards Queen’s triumphant appearance at Wembley stadium during the Live Aid concert in July 1985.

Another powerful example, albeit fiction, comes from the movie ‘Groundhog Day’. Phil Connors (played by Bill Murray) is a weatherman with a small TV station, but he’s not happy with his lot in life. He wants to rise in his career in television and is contemptuous of those around him. He particularly resents having to visit the hick town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, for the fourth year in a row to report on the Groundhog Day festivities, which feature a small rodent predicting the weather.

His companions are Rita (Andie MacDowell), his producer, and a camera man/driver named Larry. Minutes after arriving at their destination, Phil starts to complain, whereupon Larry quietly describes him as a prima donna.

The film is a sort of modern parable. As long as Phil remains ego-driven and selfish, he will stay stuck in February 2, Groundhog Day, condemned to repeat it over and over again.

In many ways it is a conversion story, like Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, with the Scrooge-like Phil slowly coming to see that other people actually matter.

The film was released in May 1993, and it was like an antidote to the ‘Greed is good’ philosophy presented by films like Wall Street in the 1980s. In Groundhog Day kindness is good. It is a love story, too, but the circle of love does not just include Rita and Phil, since he ends up showing love and respect to the town and its people that he had so disdained at the beginning of the film.

So, what prompted these Musings about prima donnas? Well, it was the behaviour of one Cristiano Ronaldo when he was taken off during the Portugal-South Korea game. The 37-year-old superstar did not behave well.

I didn’t want to write another column on the World Cup, but I thought, “Prima donnas… You really need to leave planet Ronaldo and come back down to Earth.”