News & Events
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Media and Celebrity with Max Clifford The Publicist talks to our students |
Max Clifford was the first speaker in The Centre for Excellence's media master classes with his 'Media and Celebrity' lecture on 24th of November 2006.
Max Clifford is the UK's best-known publicist and a consummate media manipulator. He is a known for being ruthless in his pursuit of gaining publicity for his clients or subverting damaging stories about them, and acting as an agent for "kiss-and-tell" stories. But whilst serious journalists sometimes dismiss Max as simply a purveyor of sleaze, they still named him PR Personality of the Year in a survey carried out by The Drum Magazine.
Max Clifford left school at fifteen as a streetwise master in communication, but with no formal qualifications. After a self confessed false start in the job market he found himself in Journalism, but was seduced by the glitz of the pop world, and soon joined EMI as a press and publicity man. Here he worked with massive stars like The Beatles, Jimmi Hendrix and The Bee Gees before he started out on his own in 1970.
"The main difference between then and now is that for the first 20 to 30 years it was basically promotion," Clifford said to a theatre packed with PR and other media school students. "Obviously protection played a part in it from the start, but as time went on the media got more and more savage, and every year protection gets more and more important."
Broadening his horizons, Max soon started to represent celebrities of any description including Frank Sinatra, Mohammed Ali, David Copperfield, Marlon Brando and infamously OJ Simpson. "With regard to celebrities and the media it's simple," said Clifford. "they both need each other. Celebrities feed off the media and the media feed off celebrities. Where I fit in is to stage manage and control. It's a game."
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"Increasingly in all areas people need to get academic qualifications and experience. It's important that you get the qualification because in most areas that's what gives you the chance" |
At 63 Max has no plans to give up the game he plays so well, and insists he loves his job. "You have the most wonderful opportunity," he said addressing Bournemouth's PR population. "When anyone asks me ‘If you weren't in PR what would you do?,' I can't think of an answer. It's the most wonderful thing: to be able to make a fortune your own way without anyone telling you what to do."
Max Clifford has been described as a man of great contrast, ruthless when gaining his client publicity yet devoted in his assistance to charities, and he came to the university hoarse after speaking at a charity lunch for disabled children in Bournemouth. It's an issue close to his heart as Clifford's daughter Louise is also disabled having suffered from rheumatoid arthritis since childhood.
Louise has been lucky enough to be employed by her dad, but not before getting a degree at Bournemouth. "She loved it here," Max told me after the lecture. "It was great for her and obviously she found the course extremely useful. There's no substitute for practice but it's a great introduction and a great academic guide. What she learnt here has helped her considerably."
Max says he was lucky to get into the industry when he did, as he doesn't feel he would have had the academic ability or the discipline to do what Louise has achieved, but says everyone who works for him now has a degree.
"Increasingly in all areas people need to get academic qualifications and experience. It's important that you get the qualification because in most areas that's what gives you the chance, and if you don't have it, you don't get the chance."
Story by Crystal Wilde
BA (Hons) Multi-Media Journalism - 3rd Year Student
