Too little, too late.
Jason Alexander has just responded to his agent’s and publicist’s frantic texts with a tweeted apology for his disreputable and needless swipe at an out-of-work actress now plucking ukuleles for a living…and not even in Hawaii.
He feels officially awful, he says. Her inability to play scenes with him and the other cast members wasn’t really the reason she was killed off on the show. It was all Jason’s insecurity, he says. Everybody “really liked and like Heidi…she is a kind, lovely person” he says. In show business, screwing over people you like and humiliating lovely people who make about 1% of what you do is just what stars do…wait, no he didn’t exactly say that.
He also says this: “But in telling this story, it sounds like we are putting a heavy burden on Heidi. I, personally, am not.”
Hmmmm. Interesting “personally.” As in the comments to Stern, Alexander is again implying that it wasn’t his fault that the actress got dumped and sent to hula hell. But Jason: you told the story humiliating her on the air. You. Nobody else.
Finally, Alexander tries to shift blame to the news media:
“So, to all the press that is now running wild with this 15-year-old story, please don’t pervert it.“
“George,” you, not anyone else, you, told the 15 year-old story. The story now is what a jerk you were on Stern’s show. That story is new, and you just added to it, because this “apology” makes you seem like even more of a jerk. Yes, there’s a nice “I personally apologize” to Heidi. It doesn’t matter. The harm was done, and can’t be undone, and many of us, like me, have a hard time believing that this mea culpa is anything but PR repair work. For her career, dignity and reputation, no repair is possible.
You want to make amends? Have your agent find her an acting gig.
Ethics Alarms 
On the apology scale is a failed number 10 to harsh?
Too harsh. I give George a 6. An inept 6, but still a 6.
Is this the way STARS treat peons? If so, I am seriously happy to be a peon.
Thus seems a case of life imitating art.
It sure does!!! It also raises a disturbing possibility that playing unethical characters for too long and too well can rot your values. i don’t know about you, but I want no part of Anthony Hopkins…
I don’t know… there seems to be a mix in his film roles, although I’ve never seen most of the ones on his list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Hopkins_filmography
No, I was joking. He’s renowned as being a nice guy.
It occurs to me that you might be reversing the causal relationship. Being unethical might make just make you more comfortable playing unethical characters.
No, I’m certain that’s not true. Most of cinema’s greatest villains—Karloff, Rathbone, Vincent Price, Jack Palance, my great uncle, George Coulouris, Hopkins, Richard Widmark, James Gandolfini, Lon Chaney and his son, Margaret Hamilton, many more—were famous mensches.
Back in Hollywood’s golden years, the “professional heavies” were quite often this finest and most cultured people in the profession. Karloff, for instance, was an English gentleman of the highest repute. Vincent Price was a noted art connoisseur. Today, when its often hard to tell the good from the bad, I doubt that rule of thumb still exists.
Am I to understand that Alexander pulled this little backstab off FIFTEEN YEARS AGO and he’s just now saying “I’m sorry”? For a penance, he should have to carry Heidi Swedborg around to every studio chiefs’ office in town, confessing to each one about what an utter piece of pig’s offal he is, then bending over to let her give him a good, swift kick and then proceeding on to the next stop. He should be able to handle that. Unless she’s changed a lot, Heidi probably still weighs about 80 pounds soaking wet!