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Date Posted: 12:32:51 11/16/04 Tue
Author: Part two of article
Subject: Re: THE BEST KEPT PUBLICIST SECRET
In reply to: http://www.jewelshepard.com 's message, "THE BEST KEPT PUBLICIST SECRET" on 12:31:23 11/16/04 Tue

>THE BEST KEPT SECRET

>( continue to part 2 )

Next up is Danny DeVito, now flogging a different film. Once again, a publicist asks if he needs anything and, once again, the assemblage announces a critical need for muffins. I, however, am asked to step out of the room. Guess why.

“We seem to have a problem,?the publicist says quietly. Danny DeVito’s publicist has not approved of me being in the room and neither has Casey Affleck’s. “Destination Films does not have a problem with you being here,?she explains, but the publicists hired by The Talent do. She impresses on me that “it has nothing to do with The Talent.? In other words, it’s not that Danny DeVito doesn’t want me in the Round Table. It’s that mean ol?publicist of his who doesn’t want the reporter for the magazine with the largest circulation to hear comments that his client is making for publication.

Junkets are a “sensitive issue,?she explains, asking that I not print any “behind-the-scenes?information, as it may make things look “manipulative.? That’s her word, not mine. She then tells me to sit tight as she polls the other publicists. She takes each aside and explains the situation in a whisper. Neve Campbell’s publicist, Jill Fritzo, comes over to me, introduces herself and says, “Neve’s in.?

Ah, at last...a publicist who believes in publicity.

So I get kicked back in when Neve Campbell shows up, escorted by Jill -- not that anyone else notices, so fixated are they are on Neve. She explains that she has been acting since she was fifteen, which makes eleven years now. Her first career choice was to be a classical ballerina. The group, however, doesn’t care about that stuff. They want to know if she’s in a relationship.

Neve gives a little sigh that seems to say, “I don’t like this but I expected it.? With exquisite poise, she answers, “Relationship-wise, I’m trying to keep it out of the press, not to talk about it.?

The reporter who was asking her about her sex life says, “You realize I’m not asking about your sex life. I’m asking about how you keep it personal.?

Neve is beginning to look uncomfortable. “By trying not to talk about it…”

The group won’t let go. “Do you warn that person that this might happen?? Neve nods, looking more pained. Three more junkets and she’ll be yelling, “It’s none of your Goddamn business,?just like Holly Hunter.

“Do you approach this on the second or third date??

“Do they sign a waiver??

Neve finally laughs and explains that, when she was greener, she felt she had to be honest with everyone. And it’s not that she’s being dishonest now, but she really rather talk about Drowning Mona...which she can’t because she’s run down the clock, time’s up. She leaves and I get kicked out because Casey Affleck is next. (And still no muffins...)

Getting kicked out means I have time to wander the halls. I encounter an expensive-looking radio set-up and a techie who explains to me how the radio part of the junket works. They pick two or three stars, interview them for a minute or two apiece, then edit it down to fifteen, maybe twenty seconds of air time. I’m appalled: Fifteen seconds to sum up a ninety minute movie?

“You get more bang for your buck on radio,?he tells me. “Everybody hears radio spots.?

Casey Affleck leaves and I get to sit in on the Bill Fichtner Round Table. Fichtner explains that he’s new at “press stuff,?having only had a publicist for a year now. He feels he needs to remind people of who he is. He was one of the leads in Contact but not many in the industry connect his name with some of the characters he’s played. Someone asks, “Weren’t you on the cover of Vanity Fair with Gretchen Moll??

He nods to the woman who escorted him in. “It’s all because of this lady...I got the right publicist.?

One more actor, Marcus Thomas, follows him. Marcus doesn’t interest the reporters half as much as the fact that the muffins finally show.

As Mark and I leave the junket rooms, a publicist wants to know if he still wants a One-on-One with Danny DeVito. “Nah,?he says. “I’ve done him twice in two days. You can give him to someone else.? The publicist scurries off to find someone who might want a few minutes alone with Danny DeVito. The last thing a publicist wants to say to a star is, “No one wants to interview you right now.?

Mark doesn’t have time for Danny. He has to pack his signable souvenirs for the Reindeer Games junket, including his long-awaited One-on-One with John Frankenheimer.

Those of us who are unwelcome there return to our hotel to try and sort out what we’ve experienced. I decide to make a list...

1. Being in movies these days -- at least in the key roles of star or director -- means that the an artist has to intermittently stop being an artist and go out and be a salesperson. You see a little of this when they go on with Jay Leno to plug the new movie. At a junket -- or, I assume, if you were to follow one along on a press tour -- you see a lot of it.

2. I don’t see that most of them particularly enjoy this role. Albert Finney seemed as if he did, but I suspect he’s just a better actor than the rest of them.

3. On the other hand, if someone’s getting a few million per picture, it doesn’t seem unreasonable that they pitch in and help sell it. Whether we like it or not, movies are a commodity and, at some point, the hard-sell sets in. But since everyone likes to pretend a hit film becomes a hit on its merits, not its marketing, they don’t like the public to see that much of its marketing.

4. Also, no one wants to admit it but there’s at least a little quid pro quo at work here. If I were a film writer for the Picayune Post-Dispatch, I’d be afraid of not being invited to the junkets. Never mind the perks and autographs; how else am I ever going to get to interview Julia Roberts, even from afar?

5. In the process, film writers collect tons of juicy, derogatory stories and impressions of Hollywood’s beautiful people. They can’t share them with you so they share them with each other -- at every unoccupied moment.

6. Why don’t they share them with you? Because they want to be invited to the next press junket. And the next.

7. And I think what unnerved some of the publicists at this one was not that I hadn’t been signed-up in advance and cleared through channels. It’s that they had no “hold?on me. I wasn’t someone they knew wanted to be invited to the next one. I was liable to go off and write an article like...well, like this one.



Later that night, I find Mark admiring all his stuff. Frankenheimer has moved past “Saint?status for Mark and is verging on Godhood. “My esteem for him is unparalleled at this point,?Mark says. His first words were not what he’d rehearsed for days; he went with the moment and found himself saying, ?I dig you, man! I dig you, I dig your work, and I dig it a lot. I dig it the most!? He adds that Frankenheimer had no problem with signing the whole pile of posters, lobby cards and photos. “He was flattered even and he told me, ‘You know, more about my career than I do,?and I went nuts!?

Tomorrow, Mark will be on the plane back to Winston-Salem and weeks of watching movies in dark rooms and banging out pieces for the Journal. He certainly got enough material for a few dozen articles.

And he’ll be dreaming of the next junket. Maybe...just maybe, Gene Hackman will have a movie to promote.

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