Last week the Guardian asked me to write a feature on Jay Bernstein. It appeared this morning in the Media Section under the banner “End of a great Hollywood era”. Jay Bernstein’s death a week ago at the age of 69 means entertainment publicity will never be quite the same again. He was a one-off…
Reading the transcript of the Jay Bernstein interview I found this moving moment when the legend contemplates his professional and personal loneliness. “I had a conversation with Michael Moore a while back. I said to him you are like me. We run on compliments. We fill our tank with compliments from people. We have what…
The Church and various religious groups have always created brilliant copy, and the film and theatre business have benefitted from outraged clerics who find inoffensive theatre shows too sexually explicit for words. This is not a modern phenomenon. The first Church offensive against the fun brigade was in the 1920’s. Clerics in the U.S. were…
I received a call late last night from Steve Jaffe in LA who told me that Jay Bernstein, the legendary publicist, died on Sunday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles, after a massive stroke. He was 69. Jay Bernstein was the flamboyant Hollywood personal manager, best known as the “star maker” who launched Farrah…
In the late 1920’s an organisation for the Preservation of American Musicians was set up to protect the ‘live’ performance, due to burgeoning fears that the rise of the radio and record industries would put thousands of musicians out of work. Apparently, musicians felt under such a threat that the organisation employed Larry Neive, a…
When the Wall Street Crash struck, Variety came up with a publicity wheeze and ran free classified ads for show people. At one point there were over 25,000 actors idle, all placing ads in the trade paper. One of the biggest PR clangers came from the usually savvy Hearst, who started a breadline on Broadway….
Great press agents have all been touched by madness. This letter by Richard Maney, one of the great Broadway publicists, was sent to George Bernard Shaw has a resonance in the 21st century. “There are over sixty theatrical press agents in New York, most of the fine sober and reliable as so many Congressmen. This,…
Legend has it that the doyen of studio publicity, Russell Birdwell, came up with the bright idea to use the film trades to sell celebrity real estate. Errol Flynn in 1954, used Variety and advertised his hilltop, ten acre estate, complete with caretaker, tennis court, “gorgeous pool,” projection room and pony ring. This was the…
Without great PR advice, history teaches us that there are many ways to destroy a successful career in the film biz. The most common is shooting inappropriate remarks from the hip. The mighty Tom Mix was a top cowboy of American silent films, known for his daring stunts, and equally famous for his elaborate cowboy…
Day 11 When war was declared in 1915 the American nation looked to the entertainment industry to set an example. Unfortunately Broadway became a hideaway for draft dodgers. The Government sent in agents to hound out the slackers. One act that sort PR advice on what should be done to generate popular appeal during this…