Just a week ago, O.J. Simpson was one of the nation's true heroes, the beautiful and beloved football megastar, TV personality, actor and all-around nice guy. Fellow sportscaster Bob Costas described him as among "the most genuinely good-natured people I've ever met."
In a storybook career spanning almost three decades of worldwide celebrity, Simpson was the man who always scored the big touchdown at precisely the key moment, the man who could leap across suitcases in Hertz commercials without looking silly.
But this morning, the pedestal lies in ruin, shattered by a week that electrified the nation and reduced this once godlike figure to a weeping, suicidal jail inmate named Orenthal James Simpson, 46, aka "Juice," aka "O.J.," prisoner number 4013970.
He faces arraignment today for a pair of unimaginably savage and bloody crimes - the slashing deaths of his ex-wife and the young waiter who was at her condominium when their killer struck last Sunday night. His lawyer, Robert Shapiro, has advised the nation not to form a judgment.
The shock wave of that 180-degree turn in the life of this living legend has left people dazed and disoriented.
The crime was so heinous - Nicole Simpson's throat was cut and her face repeatedly slashed, splattering blood everywhere - that many of O.J. Simpson's most devoted followers became physically ill as developments raised the possibility he actually might have committed the act.
"I've been a fan of his for so long that . . . I keep wanting to cheer him on, but then I remember what he might have done, and it just messes me up," says Darrel LaCoyne, 47, who stood outside Simpson's mansion when Simpson was arrested Friday. "I can't stop shaking. This is changing my life."
Observed Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti, explaining the dismay that gripped millions of Americans like LaCoyne who watched the spectacle of the freeway pursuit that finally ended in Simpson's arrest: "We saw, perhaps, the falling of an American hero."
Making of a legend: O.J.'s roots
But how? How could this happen?
That's the question coming from incredulous Americans.
Simpson's troubled youth growing up in California public projects was a matter of record - he described himself to the Los Angeles Times as "somebody who didn't care about anything." He led a street gang called the Persian Warriors that committed a long list of burglaries, leading eventually to Simpson's arrest at age 16.
But all the trouble seemed to end after that weekend in jail. First came a visit from Willie Mays (arranged by social workers) who took Simpson on a drive that included a stop at the baseball great's home. The experience transformed Simpson, convincing him that a black man with athletic talent could conquer the world.
He was a star at every stop along the way, first at Galileo High School in San Francisco, then at San Francisco City College. In 1967, his junior year, he enrolled at the University of Southern California and recorded two of the most spectacular seasons in football history. He led his team to a national championship, won the Heisman Trophy, became the first collegian ever featured as Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year.
From there, it was on to the Buffalo Bills, where he entranced the nation with his deft, stutter-stepping style on the field - he was the first to run for more than 2,000 yards in a season - and charmed people off the field with his affable, clean-cut style and an infectious grin.
He wasn't as successful in his post-athletic career - he was judged no better than average as a sportscaster and actor - but his legend lived on, largely because of his personal qualities. People loved him. Everyone seems to have a nice-guy story about him.
There was the time he tossed out his cold drink in favor of a sun-warmed can of pop, because the latter was handed to him by a kid working his way through the crowd. And the time he jumped out of a parade car to help a woman who had fainted in the sun at the roadside. And the time he held up a team bus for 20 minutes while he gave a rookie reporter the interview of his life.
The reporter: Terry O'Neil, who wound up as executive producer of NBC Sports and hired O.J. "He was never above anyone else," O'Neil says. "He always included everyone and was one of the most giving men you could ever know."
Through his years in Buffalo, there was never a hint of a dark side. No drugs, no run-ins with police, no fights. Larry Felser, a sports columnist for The Buffalo News who has known Simpson for 25 years, says he only saw him lose his temper three times, all minor episodes.
Felser, who often jokes he's "covered sports since the Spanish-American War," says Simpson, "is the nicest guy I've ever known."
Rocky relationship, bitter breakup
That reputation may explain why so many people overlooked, or forgave, the one blemish that did appear on this otherwise flawless portrait - a documented pattern of violence against his wife.
Clearly, whatever the outcome of the case, Simpson's relationship with his second wife evoked a sinister streak. His first wife, Marguerite, though referring to him as a "very bad person" as a teen, never alleged abuse during their marriage or since their 1979 divorce. But with Nicole, it was different.
She was 18 when they met in 1977, a homecoming-princess beauty just graduated from Dana Hills High School in Orange County, and there were signs from the start that Simpson's feelings ranged into the obsessive. His wife described him to friends as dominating and jealous, that he demanded her constant attention and companionship, forcing her to drop out of school and give up any thought of a career.
Abuse apparently was steady throughout the seven-year marriage and went on after their 1992 divorce. Therapist Susan Forward, who met twice with Nicole Simpson, claims O.J. Simpson beat and stalked his wife.
"He said, 'If you ever try to leave me, I'll kill you.' He would follow her to restaurants and bars and make scenes and threaten to kill her," contends Forward, author of Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them.
Simpson, in his open letter Friday, countered that he felt as though he had been the victim of battery. And there have been reports of Nicole Simpson following her husband through Beverly Hills screaming obscenities his way until police had to be summoned.
In the last year, both spoke with friends about the possibility of a reconciliation. That ended three weeks ago, when they broke it off again. In his open letter, O.J. Simpson characterized the breakup decision as mutual, but his ex-wife told friends that he was taking it poorly and that she feared for her safety. And on the last day of her life, she and her ex-husband engaged in a bitter fight.
Most of the world knows what followed.
'He's no celebrity; he's just a killer'
Few allegations in history have been more difficult for the public to accept. All last week, people spun dozens of theories to explain this crime in a way that would exonerate their hero. It was the mob, they said. It was another lover, they said. It was some common street hood, they said.
When Simpson disappeared Friday from the San Fernando Valley home where he was supposed to surrender, denial gave way in some cases to anger. People gathered outside Nicole Simpson's home, feeling foolish and frustrated for supporting him, were shouting things like, "He's no celebrity; he's just a killer." Remarked 12-year-old Jubin Niamehr, who lives a few blocks from where the killings occurred: "He doesn't deserve all this attention."
Later, with Simpson leading police on a 75-minute drive along freeways, anger gave way to acceptance as people faced the full measure of O.J.'s fall from grace. But even then, thousands cheered him as he drove by, and someone hung a sign outside his home pledging their love.
