Film publicity has transformed into an industry that lacks the personal relationships and honesty it once had, said Hollywood publicist Lois Smith.
On Feb. 5, Smith joined Boston Herald film critic James Verniere to speak at Boston University’s Cinematheque screening program, held in the College of Communication
Sponsored by the COM Film and Television Department, Cinematheque is a program that regularly holds free film showings for BU students and brings in important figures from the film and television industry to share their experiences with students.
Event coordinator Gerald Peary said he chose Lois Smith as this week’s speaker so she could tell her story to students interested in career in film.
“She is an amazing conversion that evokes both the film student and the public marketing system and provided an expert full perspective on the industry,” he said.
Smith, who has worked with highly-acclaimed celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Meryl Streep and Robert Redford and who has a career spanning 50 years in the film, theatre and television industry, talked about what makes a successful publicist to about 120 students.
“You had to be attracted to them [the actors] for the right reasons,” she said. “They had talent and you wanted to be associated with that talent and it had to be an honest relationship between yourself and your client. Today, that emphasis on honesty is missing.”
Her accomplishments range from being one of the first women to own a successful PR firm to winning the Publicists Guild lifetime achievement award in 2003.
Verniere attributed Smith’s success to her ability to tell clients exactly what she thought.
“She had this rare ability to tell you what to do without you even knowing that you were being told what to do,” he said. “If you were going to interview her clients you had to know what you were doing.”
As one of the first women to venture into the dog-eat-dog industry of public relations, Smith, along with two other women, started her own PR firm, PMK/HBH, in 1969.
“We did not want our names in the title so that people would not know it was owned by women,” she said. “Since then things have really changed.”
Technology and an increase in communication mediums have dramatically changed the industry from stressing personal relationships to allowing rumors and gossip to constantly be published in magazines, Smith said.
“There is so much space out there that needs to be filled,” she said. “Everyone is just an email away. I would be in so much trouble in today’s business because I am technologically challenged. I’m lucky if I can get an email through.”
Smith attributes the falls from grace of celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan to the fact that no one puts them in their place.
“[Lohan] is a talented actress who’s not handling herself well and no one is there to tell her,” she said.
Students said they enjoyed Smith’s lecture.
“It was really interesting,” said COM junior Samantha Amick. “She talked about the how the film industry was different from today and how it was based on creating a relationship with the press. It was kind of disheartening for those going into this industry, because it sounds like it was better in the old days.”
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
