THE GLOBE STORY/19

The two forces, in the early days such close collaborators, grew more at odds with one another as their goals changed, never more so than in the 80s and 90s.

As magazines went from puff pieces to exposes, so did the Hollywood press agent change his stripes from pussicat to tiger.

Over the years, the publicity men hired to spread the word went from being “flacks”, those good ol’boys whose primary objective was to publicize their product and who could be counted upon to come up with wonderfully out-rageous gimmicks to “get space”, to publicists to PRs – public relations representatives ( in HUSH, HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE, Bette Davis speaks a memorable line: “Public relations? Sounds dirty to me!”) – to Communication Counselors.

Today some refer to themselves – with a straight face – as “Exposure Maintainance Experts” who strive and sometimes succeed to control every photograph as well as every word that appears on their clients.