September
26
Pat Kingsley Steps Down from Running PMK/HBH
At age 75, Pat Kingsley is finally letting go of the chairman/CEO reins at PMK/HBH. Writes Variety's Michael Fleming:
Partners Cindi Berger and Simon Halls have been elevated to share the title of co-CEO, and Nate Schreiber will become president. He had been exec veep of Brands and Events.The troika will steer the agency with a trio of managing partners: HBH co-founders Stephen Huvane and Robin Baum, and PMK vet Jennifer Allen.
Kingsley was tired of the paperwork, basically. She was ready to step down a year ago, says the veteran press agent, who co-founded Pickwick Public Relations with Lois Smith some forty years ago, then merged with Maslansky-Koenigsberg in 1980 to form PMK, and then merged with Huvane Baum Halls under the ownership of the InterPublic Group in 2001. For years, Kingsley's most famous client was Tom Cruise, until Scientology got in the way.
The continuing corporate aspects of her role--budgets and financial projections- grated on her, finally. "It's a tough job," she says. Now Kinglsey will do what she wants to do--handle movie campaigns and such clients as James L. Brooks and Jodie Foster--and "concentrate on the fun stuff," she says.
Here's an excerpt from my Risky Business column on Cruise and Kingsley:
Anyone who has ever dealt with Kingsley knows that going up against her takes guts and the full backing of your organization. Because she would use her entire arsenal to protect her most powerful client. She'd withdraw the cooperation of her agency's other stars if necessary. She'd refuse to cooperate on other stories, or ban a publication from ever getting another Cruise interview. (It took Premiere Magazine several years to work itself back into her good graces after one tough "Mission Impossible" story.) Kingsley controlled the select magazine covers Cruise would do for each picture, the friendly interviewers he was comfortable with, the photographers who shot him to look his best. She controlled his image, knew that he didn't have much to say, preserved his mystique as a movie star. Her PR philosophy has always been, less is more. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Keep the fans guessing. Hold the star in abeyance. Keep everyone lining up clamoring for more.
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