Charlie Drake made most of his money in the autumn of his career in seaside shows and pantomimes. His luck held until the Christmas of 1974, when he was starring in Jack and the Beanstalk at Bradford. As a publicity stunt, he auditioned local girls for one of the parts and Sue Moody, a 22-year-old…
Cultural engineering proved to be an exciting craft for the Hollywood studio publicists who created endless stories to promote actors and actresses alike. It was reported that Jayne Mansfield made everything in her house pink. She had a pink heart shaped bath installed in her bathroom, along with a pink outdoor pool. She had a…
Marty Weiser, the Hollywood publicist, was famous for his inspired premiere party for Mel Brooks’ cult film Blazing Saddles, which starred Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little. Mel Brooks took a risk when he allowed Weiser to stage this stupendous publicity stunt in a disused Drive In movie theatre. In keeping with the film, which was…
The affable and humorous Theo Cowan, was the UK first PR superstar. Before setting up his consultancy in the 1960’s he was head of Rank film publicity. The film company created the legendary Rank Charm School whose graduates included Diana Dors, Honor Blackman, Petula Clark Sylvia Syms and copied the modus operandi of the Hollywood…
The Ulster Linen Co., Inc. of New York was noted for being the most reliable source of Fine European Linens in the U.S. The company enlisted Jim Moran to publicise their linens further afield in the Mid and Western States of the U.S. In true Moran style, he organised the world’s biggest ever pillow fight,…
The old movie publicists like Nottage and Reichenbach were very clever in creating false back stories for their clients; exotic lifestyles, estranged family members, passions for couture were the foundations for many of these extravagant biographies. Perhaps the most amusing was when fiction became fact in the case of Clara Kimble Smith, whom Harry Reichenbach…
It would seem that the great Harry Reichenbach invested a great deal of time building up relationships with various novice firemen in the early part of his career in New York. He spent time with the reluctant heroes, coaxing some fantastic tales out of them by persuading them to recount their experiences. Harry quickly built…
Jim Moran was sought out once again for his skills in publicising the most extraordinary of things. The Gluewise Company PLC in Boston found themselves at the bottom of the glue league tables, amidst a wash of other adhesive companies that had flooded the market. Moran set to work immediately and decided to join forces…
I had a letter from a Mrs Alan Gilzean, I suspect no relation to the Tottenham and England footballer, who said that her uncle, back in 1949 staged the original dog wedding, (which we recently staged for Harrods) which caused outrage in his Parish Church, St Peter’s in London.
Destination Moon, directed by Irving Pichel was released in 1950. Its claim to fame was that it starred Grace Stafford who was better known as the voice of Woody Woodpecker. It was a low budget movie where you could see all the studio lights reflected in the visors of the actors helmets, but despite this,…