There is never a dull moment in business scandal world, and the journos and bloggers are being kept very busy by this Mark Hurd story. But let's get down to the most important questions: 1) Did they have sex and 2) Was she ever a porn star?
I'm speaking of Jodie Fisher, the Hewlett-Packard contractor and "actress" which led to the demise of Mark Hurd, who resigned as the company's CEO on Friday following his having falsified expense reports that involve her.
First question: Did they have sex. Oddly, all of the news reports say no. Okay, but I'm real skeptical. It's hard for me to imagine this being a full-blown "scandal" without there being a little more than some aggressive courtship and falsified expense records.
Next questions: Who is she? Did she do porn?
The Wall Street Journal calls her a "50-year-old sometimes actress," whatever that is. Here's their description:
"Jodie Fisher, the woman linked to former Hewlett-Packard Co. Chief Executive Mark Hurd, has a resumé that spans movies, a commercial real estate company and a stint working for a committee of the House of Representatives, her lawyer said Sunday."
I found it strange the Telegraph, a British newspaper one of my English friends once referred to as "slightly to the right of Attila the Hun," called her a "former porn actress and reality TV contestant." This was the only news organization actually calling her a "former porn actress." Was she? I read the fine print:
"Ms Fisher acted in such R-rated films as Intimate Obsession, Body of Influence 2 and Sheer Passion and appeared on the 2007 NBC reality show Age of Love, which paired older women with a younger man"
Oh, c'mon now Telegraph. Now, I have not seen "Body of Influence 2," but that does not qualify in my book as porn, based on the IMDB entry. Soft-core at best. It's rated R.
I watched the trailer for Body of Influence 2. The most interesting thing about it is the eerily foreshadowing of the voice over:
"What if she really is a danger and there is something I can do about it?... Now his fantasies are becoming a reality... and they all involve her. Body of Influence 2... just try to resist."
Some conclusions I have reached:
- Jodie Fisher, was not, in fact, a porn actress. She was just a really bad actress that happened to do some cheesy softcore in an attempt to advance her career.
- Body of Evidence 2 is most likely a terrrible movie, but not porn.
- Mark Hurd certainly wasn't thinking this through very well.
- I really cannot reconcile who this woman was, based on the fact that references include her being a softcore actress, a holder of a degree in political science, on the committee of Narcotics Abuse and Control for the government, VP of a commercial company, and an actress on the reality show, "Age of Love."
Keywords: Hewlet-Packard, H-P, Mark Hurd, Jodie Fisher, Scandals
