Posts Tagged ‘celebrity’

Sophie Dahl had the commentariat in a flap yesterday following her request on the Today programme for half a million quid to refurbish and move her much beloved Grandad’s near-collapsing old writing shed to a new home. Seems a lot for one old prefab, especially since mine was only valued at about £100. Clearly some people need to get their priorities straight.
Allow me to explain. When I was a kid promoting Danny the Champion of the World, I got the chance to go and meet Mr Dahl in his legendary writing space. It was indeed pretty magical; here was a guy dreaming up some of the most enduring flights of fancy of the last century, all thanks to his splendid isolationism in his own little brick and polystyrene kingdom. Apparently he liked an early evening G&T or two to be brought to him there, too. In short, it was an admirable way of living.

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It’s an unimaginable horror to be in the middle of an awful tabloid scandal, your human frailty laid bare. Yes dear reader – I’ve been there when it’s happened. It’s a dark, sad, dank and lonely space. Watching and being with the subject is not the most edifying part of my job, witnessing a tsunami of emotions hitting from all directions as the story is outed.

The humiliation, the public outrage, everyone diving in to offer an opinion. The sniggers the jokes, then the realisation that ‘I’ve lost everyone. Will my sponsors disappear? What an end to my career! Please make the professional humiliation go away. How will my family cope? Will it ever be the same again?’ This rush of emotions concludes with: ‘how could I have been so stupid?’. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the last goddesses from the pantheon of great Hollywood stars has died. Let’s give thanks for the life of true movie icon Elizabeth Taylor.

As a fledgling publicist I met her retinue at a film shoot at a long forgotten theatre, axed by funding cuts in another age. The encounter left an indelible mark on my psyche. Not then versed in the ways of celebrity, and unable to comprehend its hierarchy and protocol, I was transfixed by the legend that was Elizabeth Taylor, and the encounter with this uber-sleb ignited an innate curiosity in the ways of Hollywood

That day, Taylor arrived to shoot the movie she was filming in a yellow Rolls Royce. I’m fairly convinced it was the car from the movie of the same name. The stage had been set. Various members of the papparazzi had been tipped off, a curious crowd gathered, waiting for her entrance – delayed, naturally, as Taylor’s make up was touched up in the car by two handmaidens.

She exited the car regally, looking more beautiful than any other mortal. She had journeyed from Olympus and her radiance lit the drab Autumnal gloom of London’s grimy East End.

The moment she stepped into the real world, a flurry of court helpers surrounded her in a circle. The symmetry was perfect, the aura hypnotic. Any questions thrown her way were fielded and analyzed by a series of filters, before the closest aide whispered a definition in her perfect ear. They moved in strange, bureaucratic ballet, a protective guard shielding Taylor from the sins of the world. Read the rest of this entry »

This is an age of brand truth, an age of transparency. An era when all the nasty little secrets start to bustle about just below the surface in the hope of being exposed.

Take Charlie Sheen, for example. He’s been a chaotic hellraiser for years, but only now is the extent of his hedonism and mania coming out, in a giddy rush. Or take the arrogance of Prince Andrew, which is coming out now and souring many of the deals he was hired to make, trading on hs royal status.

It’s not just toxic celebrity that is being outed; the tobacco industry is also having to cope with the effects of transparency, notably the latest victory for the Smoking Kills lobby. First they got the truth put on cigarette packaging and now the packs will no longer be on display in shops, having also had their attractive design peacockery removed.

But the tobacco industry is far more powerful than any celebrity. Their PR has the biggest budget and the subtlest minds it can find who are prepared to sell death in a tube of paper. Read the rest of this entry »

The recent story in the papers about Geoff Baker, the former gatekeeper for Sir Paul McCartney who now dresses as a dustman to give tours of his home-town, should act as a salutary lesson for all entertainment publicists.

I first met Geoff at the height of his journalistic powers, as a showbiz reporter for the Star. This was well before the modern British publicity industry started to emulate Hollywood in the late 20th century, taking control of every aspect of their client and shutting out the media if they wouldn’t play ball; before the idea that stars were brands really set in.

Geoff’s big legacy as a journalist is the Princess Margaret awards, now called the Shaftas (shame the title is so crude). In the days when the geriatric Royal PR spin machine shut up shop at 5pm and the old duffers wouldn’t dignify anything with an answer out of working hours, Geoff announced – at five past five – that Princess Margaret was to make a guest appearance on Crossroads. The story was beautifully absurd. Absurd enough to have everyone gleefully report it long before the Palace could step in and correct the story, allowing it to become one of those ‘true at the time’ stories. Out of this came the Princess Margaret awards, celebrating the liberties taken by showbiz journalists. Read the rest of this entry »

A couple of first nights have grabbed my attention in the last few days, and both of them have presented interesting conundrums to consider.

The first is the production of Yes, Prime Minister that has just transferred to the West End. It’s a great show; very funny, very well acted and rather more radical than one would have expected from a comedy institution that makes it to the stage 20-odd years after its heyday. Buy a seat now! Read the rest of this entry »

Before the Papal three-ring-circus moved into town, I was asked by a number of media outlets what I thought of the Pope’s PR apparatus. At the time, I commented that it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that this anachronistic throwback was not fit for modern media purpose. Lacking charisma (in stark contrast with his predecessor, John Paul II), I suggested that Benedict would find it difficult to counter the unease at his tour of Britain. I suggested he was not “God’s Showman” – not instinctively sharp, witty or insightful and with a poor history in delivering the one-liners and sound bites that are the foundation of being a 21st century media success. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been travelling around California for the last 10 days, taking in the sights and sounds and meeting people on a research trip for a book on the ways that sexuality has been used to create fame. Hollywood is a spawning ground for media whores, after all. I thought I’d be taking time out of blogging, but there are three celebrity stories subsuming the news in the USA at the moment and I could not let them pass as, even by my own standards of morbid interest, the American news coverage of Lindsay Lohan, Mel Gibson and Rachel Uchitel’s latest shenanigans is overkill.

Mel Gibson’s everywhere, in stories relating to the tapes that are allegedly of him violently, angrily haranguing the mother of his youngest child, Oksana Grigorieva, in racist, sexist and vulgar terms. It smacks of a put-up job to me, but it’s a story that will run and run.

Lindsay Lohan, in case you missed it, is also in trouble, serving ninety days in jail for drink-driving offences. If you were judging by the amount of comment and analysis the story’s getting, you’d expect her to have been found guilty of triggering an unprovoked nuclear attack on the Falkland Islands or something similar. Not that Lohan will serve her time – the latest reports suggest that she could serve as little as nine days “because of overcrowding”. Read the rest of this entry »

I took part in the Cambridge Union debate last night, arguing for the proposition ‘This House Believes that Reality TV Represents Everything Wretched about Britain Today’. I underestimated the space, at how steeped in grandeur it is, and found myself more than a little nervous.

The debate was well attended; over two thirds full. Joining me to argue for the proposition were Max Clifford and the retiring Union president, Jonathan Laurence. Opposing the motion were Times journalist Hugo Rifkind, showbiz writer Zoe Griffin and James McQuillan, who appeared on The Apprentice.

The other speakers last night went for a comic interpretation of the motion. My technique was more serious-minded, more Old Testament – Quentin Tarantino fans might have deduced I was trying to mimic Samuel L Jackson’s famous biblical Pulp Fiction speech. Read the rest of this entry »

I took part in a debate at the University of Westminster last night alongside that wily old fox Max Clifford (the second time I’ve shared a stage with him – it always makes for an interesting experience) and others, discussing Celebrity Brands: Desire, Dollars and Danger?

It was a rather curious and disappointing night; most of the questions from the floor were from people seeking insight via anecdote and I found myself missing the grillings I got from wannabe journalists 15 years ago about the nature of PR. The media has changed, without doubt – celebrity has come to be a sop they use to send us to sleep easily at night, a sort of weak-horlicks fairytale with all the calories and morals removed. Read the rest of this entry »