Starmaker: Life as a Hollywood Publicist with Farrah, The Rat Pack, and 600 More Stars Who Fired Me
by Jay Bernstein as told to Larry Cortez Hamm with David Rubini
ECW Press
He made people stars — even if it meant lying, cheating and paying people off to throw panties on stage.
Hollywood publicist Jay Bernstein molded Tom Jones into a sex symbol by hiring women to throw hotel keys and underwear at him and bribed a boxer to club Sammy Davis Jr. in the face to toughen up his image. He told the press that he took out a $2 million insurance policy on TV show host Mary Hart’s legs, but never did. All in the name of show business.
Bernstein, who carried jeweled canes and .38 caliber guns, was as known for making the careers of sex symbols Farrah Fawcett and Suzanne Somers as he was for driving them crazy. By the end of his career, Bernstein was blacklisted by the industry and fired by 600 of his clients.
Bernstein passed away in 2006 from a stroke at 68, but his stories live on in his pull-no-punches memoir, released posthumously this month by friends. The result is a dishy tell-all from the grave, including:
JUDY GARLAND
“She would call me at 3 in the morning and slur her way through hours of babble. I was the only person who would talk to her. She was 39, but her movie career was virtually over.”
FRANK SINATRA
Aboard his private plane after being serviced in public by a chorus girl, Sinatra called out for a hard-boiled egg. Frank cracked one hard on the top of his diamond ring. The egg was raw.
“Frank exploded with the lightning flash of an atom bomb. He leaped out of his seat like a jack-in-the box, spun [the man who gave him the egg] 180 degrees, wrapped his arms around the man’s shoulders and started shoving him down the aisle, screaming obscenities. “You’re out of here! Somebody open the f—in’ door.”
He was seriously threatening to throw the man out of the plane.
Suddenly Dean Martin, the voice of reason, was in the aisle and blocked Frank’s path. “You’re not throwing anybody out, Frank,” Dean said.
SAMMY DAVIS JR.
Bernstein drummed up interest in the Rat Pack member by inviting press to see Sammy Davis Jr shoot scenes as a boxer on “The Dick Powell Show.”
Before the taping, he called over the stunt man. “How much would it cost for you to accidentally hit Sammy in his bad eye at the climax of the scene?”
“Three-hundred bucks,” the guy offered, after he made sure Bernstein wasn’t joking.
They agreed on $250.
“The story went out within an hour with a photograph taken almost at the instant Sammy was a hit. It was a p.r. man’s dream. “Davis in a Fighting Accident!”
SHARON STONE
Sharon Stone was a struggling actress with savvy. She knew how to go after a part and wanted badly to be cast in one of the new Mike Hammer episodes.
“ ‘Your thighs are too big,’ I told her.
My criticism didn’t faze her. The word no didn’t exist in Sharon’s vocabulary.”
Years later they would meet again after she had become famous for the movie “Basic Instinct.”
When he tried to make small talk with her, she arched her brow.
“I remember what you once said to me.”
“What was that?”
“You said my thighs were too big!”
JAYNE MANSFIELD
Mansfield had a serious thing for Bernstein. She would repeat the same come-on every time Bernstein, who had a girlfriend, turned her down: “Every soldier, every sailor, and every Marine has my picture hanging over his bed, and you say you don’t want me?”
But one night, she finally got her way with him.
“She chased me. I ran around in circles, staking a path around the couch. It was like an old silent-movie routine, but a farce that turned out to be real. Rounding the couch, I tripped on a footstool and fell. Jayne leaped on top of me. She was a predator, holding her martini glass in one hand and clawing me with the other. She tore my trousers, not in the crotch, but down the seam of my left leg. I realized I had a choice to make — either f— or fight. Later I told myself it was ‘consensual’ rape.”
NANCY SINATRA
“She sang it all night long, one time after another. I was antsy, but I was afraid to say anything. By 3 in the morning, I was pissed — and Nancy was still singing the same song. Frank Sinatra she was not. She was terrible. She couldn’t sing. She was an amateur. If she ever got the song down, how was I going to promote it? She wasn’t even a chip off the old block. She couldn’t even carry a tune.”
The recording was “These Boots are Made for Walkin’.”
TOM JONES
“I chose the ones who seemed extroverted and hungry for a laugh. I offered one of two deals. I would give $25 if she would throw a room key on the stage while Tom was performing or $50 if she would throw a pair of panties. Tom was in the dark; he knew nothing about my gambit.”
But Jones liked the attention. “It was like shots of electricity suddenly bolting through the room. Tom really began to sing and move, convinced that he was motivating the women by virtue of his sexuality.”
FARRAH FAWCETT
“She showed me a new pinup poster of herself. I was bowled over. It was tasteful, yet the sexiest picture I had seen since I was a kid. I instantly perceived an angle for a campaign — nipples. No mainstream celebrity had ever been so exposed.”
It would become the biggest seller in history with 12 million copies sold.
SUZANNE SOMERS
“She gave me a gift box. I opened it. Inside was a silver medallion with the inscription, ‘Mr. Mean, I love you . . . Suzanne.’ ”
She told him, “If you ever think I’m going to fire you, just rub the medallion. I’m not like Farrah, Jay. I’ll never fire you.”
Sure enough, soon after, she fired him.
ANGIE
DICKINSON
“My billing department sent a statement to Angie ‘Dickenson’ instead of ‘Dickinson.’ She promptly posted a letter: ‘If my publicist doesn’t know how to spell my name, then he’s not really interested in me. You’re fired.’ ”
MARY HART
Inspired by the outrage that “Entertainment Tonight” viewers expressed over a new desk design that obscured host Mary Hart’s legs, Bernstein decided to take out an insurance policy.
“I announced that I was going to insure her legs for $2 million with Lloyds of London. The idea took off like a rocket. If Mary had been popular before, now she became iconic.”
But he had no intentions of buying anything more than a one-day policy — and even that was too expensive.
“When a representative from Planet Hollywood in Beverly Hills asked if he could hang the policy on the restaurant’s wall, I told him I would have to find it first and never called back.”
Excerpted from the book STARMAKER: Life As a Hollywood Publicist with Farrah, The Rat Pack and 600 More Stars Who Fired Me by Jay Bernstein as told to Larry Cortez Hamm with David Rubini. Copyright © Larry Cortez Hamm, 2011. Published by ECW Press. Used with permission.