The life of a publicity agent is a curious one. The hours are irregular, the clients other-worldly and the activities outlandish. One afternoon, for example, I bundled the CEO of a major credit card company into the frigid stairwell of a midtown Manhattan skyscraper to avoid a crowd of reporters assembled in the lobby. I then waltzed into said lobby and blithely announced, “Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, you’ve just missed [NAME], but I’ll be glad to take your questions”. When at last Mr Big got safely to his limo, his C-suite teeth were chattering. On another occasion, I toiled like a galley slave on a speech for the president of GE Capital. Upon reading the first sentence, he dumped the entire 40-page document in the wastebasket and said, “OK, write this down”. At a posh society event, the wife of Seagram’s owner, Edgar Bronfman, Georgiana, summoned me to the cabin of her corporate jet and shouted, “Why I’m here?” Perhaps my strangest task was reading movie scripts.
© 2024 John Oliver
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