Even though City Council candidate Jerry Rubin says Martin Sheen has endorsed his campaign, the famous actor can’t remember if he did or not.
Rubin sent out a press release last week stating that Sheen, an activist, has endorsed his campaign.
But a spokesperson for the actor said Sheen could not say whether he personally knew Rubin or if he had extended his endorsement.
“But that doesn’t mean he didn’t do it,” said Glennis Liberty, a spokeswoman for Sheen’s activist activities. “It just means he’s unsure whether he did (it) or not.”
Rubin does not have a letter from Sheen endorsing his candidacy. He said he was told of Sheen’s endorsement by Valerie Sklarevsky, an activist who lives near Sheen’s Malibu home.
According to Rubin, Sklarevsky saw Sheen at a protest and asked him to endorse Rubin for city council, which Sheen agreed to do.
When Sklarevsky was asked to comment, she said she was only trying to help Rubin and didn’t mean for the endorsement to go this far.
“It was done months ago and it’s really not a big deal,” she said. “Martin is supportive of activists who are trying to make this a better world for the future and Jerry is one of those people.”
But Sklarevsky said she never thought Rubin would take the endorsement so seriously.
“If Jerry wants to write all that stuff in his press release, then that’s his own doing,” she said. “I didn’t know Jerry would make a big deal of it, that’s his problem.”
Rubin said he stands by Sheen’s endorsement.
“I’m sure he did it and the person that said he did it told me so, so you know I mean, I don’t know what to say,” Rubin said. “He said I could use his name, and I’m sure he said that.”
Rubin indicated that Los Angeles Times’ columnist Pat Morrison had run a story about Sheen’s endorsement of his campaign. A search of the newspaper’s Web site revealed a three sentence-long blurb taken from Rubin’s press release.
Sklarevsky said she knew Sheen from environmental protests in an effort to save the Ballona Creek wetlands in Playa Vista. She said Sheen authorized her to speak on his behalf.
“I feel bad for even being involved in this,” she said. “We live in Malibu anyway, so we won’t be voting in Santa Monica’s election anyway.”
Rubin’s press release says he has protested along with Sheen at “numerous peace, anti-nuclear, environmental, homeless rights and union-related rallies and protests during the past 20 years.”
The statement further explains, “Sheen also appears with Rubin in the award-winning documentary film ‘The Last Stand: The Struggle to Save Ballona Wetlands’ narrated by actor/activist Ed Asner and produced by filmmaker Sheila Laffey.” The program has periodically been aired on Los Angeles public broadcast television station KCET.
Rubin said he considers Sheen’s endorsement to be one of the best he could have hoped for.
“Can you think of anyone who has been more active than Martin Sheen, because I know I can’t,” he said. “Along with his acting, he has always been there to help out with whatever he can.”
Similarly, Rubin said he hoped the endorsement would set a positive tone for the entire city council campaign.
“My message is that I would like to see a positive campaign,” he said. “We can do it with out name-calling and personal attacks.
“There’s always a way to do it respectfully, without placing blame or pointing fingers,” he said.
Liberty said Sheen was busy preparing for the taping of a new season of “The West Wing,” in which Sheen plays the President of the United States.
He also is spending a lot of time campaigning for candidates he has endorsed throughout the country. Sheen has been in Florida frequently stumping for former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno in her run for the governor’s office of that state, Liberty said.
“He is a nationally known figure,” Liberty said. “So I don’t know how involved he’ll be in a Santa Monica election, but it probably won’t be a lot.”
Sklarevsky added that Sheen would not be taking an active role in Rubin’s campaign.
“Martin’s not going to hold a fundraiser or send out a press release or write a letter,” she said. “He’s way too busy for that.”
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Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 18, 2002. Read the original PDF.