Danger Man

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A real hero far more realistic than James Bond, Patrick McGoohan gave it a sinister edge, forty years later its still very cool
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The maestro Russell Birdwell

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Russell Birdwell the great movie PR man was reportedly responsible for some of the most influential cultural engineering of his time. Texas-born Birdwell was a newspaper reporter working the Hollywood beat before breaking into show business around 1925. He was a mighty myth maker and it was he who developed the story about the longest kiss in screen history, way back in 1941 between Regis Toomey and Jane Wyman in “You’re in the Army”. However, I have received an email today from a gentleman called Zeke Nathaniel who is an expert on early Hollywood movies who claims that a good…
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The tale of the rude jester.

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In this morning’s “Office Hours” section of The Guardian, is a huge picture of English Heritage’s pro jester Peet Cooper. My thoughts rolled back to an astonishing summer back in the 1980’s, when Borkowski was publicising Royal Britain, a visitor attraction in the heart of the Barbican. The owner, Lord Bradford employed a jester, one James Lovell to entertain the hoards waiting to get in to sample the delights of the show. My memory fails to recollect the content of the museum, but I think it evoked stirring imagery of the empire, complete with lashings of pomp and circumstance. To…
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More Rory Bremner fun and games..

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The furore over Rory Bremner’s spoof call to Margret Becket continues to generate newspaper and radio debate this morning,  24 hours after the story broke in full.  I continue to feel the back-draft issues from close quarters. Rory called me last night to say that he had decided, in consultation with his producer Geoff Atkinson, not to make the tape public. It’s a shame that some of the pressures he is under have forced the folk at Vera Productions, who make “Bremner, Bird and Fortune”, not to put the recording on the net. The counter spin is intense and at…
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