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Funny, Pat was just talking to a friend of mine about how tired of the whole PR scene she was. “She’s worn down. The travelling. The handholding. The awards season. [Tom] Cruise recently called her to apologize for the comment he made about her,” said my pal. And that’s exactly what she told PMK/HBH when she came to the people who now run her flackery at the end of last year and asked for a buy-out. She told them she was winding it down. That she just didn’t want to come into the office anymore. That she’s just done. So, after stepping down as chairman and CEO and becoming a consultant for PMK/HBH, Pat took the money for the two years left on her contract and will run. Insiders at PMK/HBH sound laid back about which clients she might take with her and which may stick around. “It’s Pat. We’re not going to fight with her about anything. She started the company.” Still, I hear PMK/HBH will be hanging on to Jody Foster, Sally Field and Candace Bergen as well as to Will Smith and his production company Overbrook Entertainment. Kingsley isn’t leaving the biz altogether: she wants to get involved in what she calls “social work” which to her means repping clients on charities and causes.
Who can blame Kingsley for wanting to exit at the end of the month? Once upon a time, all she had to worry about was having her clients outed by the National Enquirer and which glossy deserved her clients to grace its cover. But Pat more and more complained about the “totally different landscape” of today’s PR when she lost control of managing the news about her stars to the hundreds of celebrity-centric blogs which exist just to skewer them. ”But make no mistake: she was navigating the landscape as well as any of PMK/HBH’s young hip publicists. Not a single thing gets past her. Not a thing,” one of the PR firm’s insiders praised her to me tonight. She was tough. She was controlling. But she always was exceedingly polite and respectful to me.
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Wow… that is definitely the end of an era. Kingsley has been working in Hollywood a long, long time. I mean, it’s her initiaqls in the company name – hopefully they’re not going to change that.
learn your pr history, masters. those weren’t her initials.
pmk stands for pickwick/maslansky/koenigsberg.
I only met her once, when she was ushering a very popular client of hers many years ago through a rather crazy event.
You could tell immediately that she was in control. Not to the point of being obtrusive or mean or anything like that. She was just the person captaining the ship expertly.
I remember thinking, after they left, not about the celebrity who had people pawing him for autographs and interviews, but about how wonderfully she handled the entire appearance. I honestly felt she was the island of calm and control in what was a decidedly turbulent ocean of craziness. Honestly, I doubt there are too many others like her around.
Cruise self-destructed after he dumped Pat. She was able to keep his lunacy under wraps. As soon as he dumped her for his idiot sister he went nuts on Oprah and everywhere else. Pat never would have allowed him to jump up and down on a couch and do all the other stupid bullshit he’s done since he left her. He would’ve been afraid to do that shit if she had still been handling him. So Pat should really be laughing at how stupid Tom has been these last few years. He needed her to keep his craziness bottled-up and without her he’s shown his true insanity to the whole world. Good going Tom. You fired the only person who was ever able to keep you normal.
I have known Pat professionally for over 20 years and she was always a class act. Tough but fair. She never wanted to do your job. She was honest or at least as honest as a personal publicist to the biggest names in Hollywood can be. You sometimes didn’t get the answer you wanted but I never felt that she was acting out of anger or fear or stupidity. She has earned her retirement.
The PR biz is very different now, if you want to be in it…you really do have to play ball with people like Perez Hilton, TMZ, and LaineyGossip. They get stories up fast and spare no one, no matter how powerful the publicist is.
As a nobody interviewer. She kindly responded to my requests to interview Tom. Class act all the way.
Good luck and remember the sun never sets it just keeps going around us.
I recall working on a little indie with a fairly controversial (to this day) actor who got into some trouble and we needed it smoothed over as a rag got it and was going to run it. A call to Pat who also did crisis management for non-clients at the time, stopped it cold. She could block stories like a linebacker and that was my first contact with her. Over the years I have worked with her clients and always knew where the line was with her. I agree that Cruise went over the edge as soon as he left her, I doubt that she takes pleasure in it, I would, but I think she sees him as the one she couldn’t save. She saved so many.
I hate dealing with pmk actually, so many of their pubs just suck and do nothing but say *no* but the few great ones who *get it* J Allen, M Kates, make it bearable.
I think the days of big, star heavy pr companies are gone, you can’t handle 25 clients in this day with the internet and all. Used to be able to handle your 3-5 A listers and pass the rest to your assistant. No longer. The small, boutiquey places are the way to go now.
pat was amazing. she helped to create an entire industry. but her legacy will live on. also, another blemish on pmk’s once impenetrable stranglehold on p-r.
Looks like no one will be left to threaten magazines that they’ll never get a story any of her clievts anymore unless they play ball & write only the approved version!
Pat treated junket journalists atrociously. She snarled, puffed up and spat at us. She ruled through terrorism and had severe trust issues.