Fame for 15
The Naked Truth
John Wayne Bobbitt and Robert Opel
“Fame for 15” is the fifth episode of TNN’s The Naked Truth, a Gay Rosenthal Productions series examining public figures whose brush with celebrity had already faded into memory. This installment, which aired November 26, 2001, paired two very different cases of fleeting fame: John Wayne Bobbitt and Robert Opel. The Opel segment was told in two halves across two coasts — Jack Fritscher’s portion covered Opel’s final chapter in San Francisco, where he ran Fey-Way Studios before his 1979 murder, while journalist and longtime Advocate senior editor Mark Thompson covered Opel’s earlier life and activism in Los Angeles, drawing on the same research he would later donate to UCLA’s archive of LGBTQ+ history. Together, the two segments reconstructed a single life split across two very different cities and eras of gay political and cultural history.
Season 1, Episode 5
Aired November 26, 2001
Gay Rosenthal Productions