Selfman & Others Public Relations

How time flies! Hard to believe "Roads From the Ashes" came out 25 years ago! Congrats to @Megan Edwards and Mark Sedenquist. Megan and Mark's home was lost in the great Altadena fire of 1993. Instead of rebuilding, bought a motor home and set out, with their dog Marvin (wearing a special harness to keep him safe) for what they thought would be a 6-month trip around the country. It turned into several years. Megan convinced the editor of a local weekly that she would still be... able to file her columns no matter where they were. I had a lot of laughs at her trying to find a phone in some remote area where she could HOOK UP HER MODEM. I did their day-to-day tour PR and, pre-internet, had to hire two friends to stand over their fax machines pumping out press releases and interview pitches, staying one step ahead of the author! Now one click does it all -- provided you have the right media list. (I plan to post more PR stories on this page. Stay tuned.) And by the way, don't forget to get the book! It's a good read. Megan has written several others; check them out too! See more

I knew Jorge years ago when I actively did celebrity PR. Nice man. I believe he co-founded Nosotros with Ricardo Montalban. He was 84, had cancer for several years, per deadline obit.

I just found out that Dan Berkowitz died. Though we were not in regulars contact, I judged scripts a couple of times for ALAP, and met Dan when I did PR for a wonderful musical back in 2001 called "There's No Place Like Hollywood," which he co-wrote with the late Shirley Hillard, who also produced. I still have the CD. I was not the show's original publicist.Back then, I was often hired when the original publicist bailed as soon as opening weekend was over. But I became invol...ved with my shows and got all kinds of great coverage by remaining attached throughout the run. As the show's publicist, I was thrilled when I got the LA Times to review (by "threatening" Don Shirley via late-night message on his voicemail) after the show had been running for NINE weeks! And I got a huge photo to run on the cover of the Westside section of the Times (we had area sections then) AND a blurb that morning from George Pennacchio on Channel 7 -- ONE DAY BEFORE 9-11! What can you do? You can't very well tout a showbiz musical after 9-11. Tricia Fisher had just joined the cast as Dorothy and her mom Connie Stevens had promised to help promote. So Shirley scheduled one more performance and made it a benefit for the NY firefighters. With her own contribution, it came to $800. Loved that show. RIP, Dan.

TBT. I was in the green room at KHJ-TV with a client who was a guest on "Mid-Morning LA," a live show. Also on that day were actor Omar Sharif and talk show host Virginia Graham, one of the first female talk show hosts. She had big platinum hair and a personality to match. Omar Sharif was on, telling a story about him and his young adult son both dating the same woman, unbeknownst to him. He described his shock when the son and the woman came down to breakfast. "Aha, ménage... à corn flakes!" quipped Virginia Graham. I sent this to James Bacon, who printed it in his column in "Beverly Hills [213]," a prestigious weekly. He wrote, "Someone sent this to me but I don't know who," so I didn't get credit.

Before I went into PR, I worked for Dinah Shore, helping her sister Bessie answer fan mail (which later became a Viewer Relations and Audience Research department). For the first six months, we worked at Dinah's house in Beverly Hills (behind the BH Hotel). At holiday time, I got the job of wrapping all Dinah's Christmas gifts -- a gig I liked. I've always liked wrapping gifts. The items ranged from cans of huge pecan halves ordered from Georgia (this was WAY before amazon) t...o Dinah's fruitcakes, to irregularly shaped gift items. It was fun and a challenge. (Ok, the really good gifts were ordered directly from Giorgio's or Saks, etc., and were wrapped and delivered by the stores.) The second year, we worked at the studio (KTLA on Sunset, though the show was aired on NBC). But I was called to the house to again wrap Dinah's Christmas gifts. This year was a different story: she had ordered about 70 or 75 huge, hard cover, horizontal EDWARD HOPPER books from Hunter's in Beverly Hills! After the first half dozen or so, I grew bored with wrapping the same thing over and over again. The stack of books in front me seemed mountainous. By 75, I was a zombie. I could have wrapped Hopper books in my sleep -- as they say, with one hand tied behind my back.