Veteran publicist Frank Liberman was born in Manhattan on May 29th 1917, and educated at Cheshire Academy in Cheshire, Conneticut. He graduated from Lafayette College in Easton, PA, in 1938 with a BA degree. His career in public relations began at Warner Bros’ home office in New York City, following a year’s service on the New York Daily News as a copy boy. He was transferred to Warners’ Chicago office as a field exploitation publicist. He enlisted in the U.S. Signal Corps an d, after graduating from Officer Candidate School, served as a public relations officer with the Army Pictorial…

The more I research the life of the actress Tallulah Bankhead, the more I realise she must have been the nemesis of every Hollywood publicist in the 1930’s. Bankhead started her career on the stage and had a publicist, Jimmy Julian, by the time she was 16. He was the publicist responsible for launching her career which he did by submitting numerous press releases to the NY press and finally got her picture in the paper.

Reasons why, over the ages, people have employed publicists, include some poignant moments in the history of Hollywood. At the time when Zsa Zsa Gabor was married to George Sanders, a momentary event put the “writing on the wall” for their marriage when the couple were taking a walk in Hollywood. A group of teenagers noticed them, recognised Zsa Zsa, ran up to her begging her for an autograph.

I have had a bag full of emails from publicists all over the place with their views on the history of PR. Reflecting a piece in today’s Express on “friendly bacteria” I was interested to find a stunt by a German publicist named Wolfgang Zeilman. Zeilman was responsible for hyping the talents of a German gynaecologist called Zikel, by creating a moniker “the Zikel System”. In the 1920’s this referred to a system that allegedly represented an epoch making innovation in the area of rejuvenation therapy. Alongside the direct injecting of patients with the glandular secretions of living animals, Dr…

A boring and monotonous modern day PR gimmick used by the many stalwart agencies around London these days is the peddling of research results. Occasionally, these do have an impact and a point, but the more credentials PR presentations I see, make me realise this is the only way people know how to generate a tiny two word plug for their client. The history of publicity shows that this research tool has often been used to generate column inches, but if you look back at Paul Macnamara’s career, one could see that it was integrated to create a 360 degree…

The front page of this morning’s Daily Mirror has the harrowing headline “Girl, 6, Killed In Fire-Eater Horror”. A six year old girl died from burns when she was showered with flames while watching a fire eater in Turkey. Apparently the little girl was the victim of a stunt spectacle going horribly wrong, when a fire-eater’s petrol bottle exploded and the subsequent blast set fire to the auditorium in which they were seated.

I have noticed down the years that publicists can often get over-excited about what looks, on paper, to be a very interesting job proposal. But sometimes, by the time you’re only half way through, the job has exposed hidden depths. I have been reading about some of the shenanigans of Paul Macnamara, who entered the film industry in 1945 as the director of advertising and publicity for the David O. Selznick organisation. The Selznick Releasing Organization was making a picture from author, Eric Hodgins’ bestseller, Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House. The deal was struck by Dore Schary, who was…

So here I am again staring at another blank piece of paper. Struggling to drive my grey matter to execute some intellectual gymnastics. I examine my scrawled notes balancing a reference book on my knee. As I begin to type and the juices start to flow, a bloody email pings up in the corner of my screen. I am immediately distracted, not least because it has been sent from a highly entertaining old mate with a wicked sense of fun. Phil spends too much time contemplating the modern and confusing public relations hemisphere. It’s a breathless email: “Shit Borkie take…