You’re nobody ’til (every)body loves you

Frank Bruni, whom it has been said is impossible to please, wrote the following about actress Laura Linney in a recent New York Times Magazine cover story:

PEOPLE WHO HAVE WORKED with Linney constantly remark
on the earnestness of her enthusiasm, usually just before or after they
gush about what a humble, decent person she is. The anecdotal evidence
piles up high. There is the story of the time on the set of the TV
miniseries “Tales of the City” when she washed and massaged the feet of
its director, Alastair Reid, out of concern for his bunions. There is
the story of the time on the set of the movie “Kinsey” when she rushed
to the rescue of a crew member whose fingertip had been severed by a
fan, helped staunch the flow of blood and applied cold compresses to
his fevered brow.

To write about her is to succumb gradually to desperation and
hopelessness — there just doesn’t seem to be any route around the
fluffiest of the puffiest of articles — and to grovel for even a grain
of dirt. Is it possible she doesn’t recycle? Files her taxes late?
Chews her cuticles?

Linney herself isn’t any help. During one conversation I brought up Alicia Silverstone,
one of her co-stars in “Time Stands Still,” figuring that a possible
faintness of praise might establish a limit to her generosity of
spirit. Linney, after all, came up through Juilliard, Silverstone
through Aerosmith videos. “Oh, I love her,” Linney said, “I love her.
Because she’s engaged in her life. She’s engaged in her life in a way
that’s so admirable.” Then she added, unprompted: “And she’s a great
actress. Being onstage with her — she’s a really great actress who’s
not been respected.” I scoured those sentences for sarcasm. None
present.

My friend Nadia recently suggested I read publicist/author Sloane Crosley’s new book, an e mail prompt that, in turn, led me down an internet rabbit hole to this article in the New York Observer entitled “The Most Popular Publicist in New York”. After recovering from the shock that I myself was not the most popular publicist in New York, I read the profile.

As well
groomed as she is well read–the first time we met she wore jeans and a
delicate red shirt with frilly lace at the front not unlike what you
might see on a very elegant pirate–Ms. Crosley is the most popular
publicist in town, and as such, she is more universally admired than
anyone who’s been working, dating and going to parties in this city for
longer than a few months has any right to be. Against all odds, just
about every book editor, magazine writer and media blogger in New York
seems to think the world of Ms. Crosley–not an easy feat considering
how much most of these people tend to snipe at each other.

…Indeed, whether you’re talking to the effete musician Moby–who went on
a couple of dates with Ms. Crosley some time ago and remains her
friend–or the unequivocally manly Maxim editor (and former
Page Six reporter) Chris Wilson–whom she counts, along with (current
Page Six-er) Paula Froelich, among her inner circle–Ms. Crosley seems
to inspire the same sort of tenderness and praise. Even Joan Didion
confirms, “She is a very sweet girl.”

To be a publicist, you have to be concerned–nay, borderline obsessed–with people not simply liking you, but more complexly, liking the things you like. Earlier in the summer, I couldn’t contain my annoyance when a friend didn’t love Pomodoro Rosso, my favorite Italian restaurant in the city. He liked it fine enough, but when I realized it wasn’t going to become his favorite Italian restaurant in the city, I was actually upset. Perhaps a personality trait I could/should work on, but it brings me to a subject I’ve been recently mulling over: is it a publicist’s job to convince people to like their clients?

This was less of an issue five years ago, but today, the lines of media and professional colleagues are blurred beyond recognition. Nadia Sirota, who I mentioned above, is a violist, teaches a class at the Manhattan School of Music, and is a host on WQXR’s new music Internet station, Q2. Hundreds of artists have well-read Twitter feeds, blogs and Facebook pages. You’re currently reading a blog by a publicist. Previously, an artist only had to be “on,” likeable, in front of a designated member of the press: they could wear nicer clothes, be more articulate, be more charismatic, then they might, say, in a rehearsal. Today, though, the orchestra concertmistress has a blog – you were late to that rehearsal! The intern who picked you up from the airport has a Twitter feed – you snapped at him to turn off the radio! The presenter PR department asked for a YouTube interview – you just weren’t in the mood that day! I, your average ticket-buyer-publicist, was in the audience when Patti LuPone stopped her second-to-last Gypsy performance. Sure, I’m not Ben Brantley and this isn’t the New York Times, but into the internet ether the tale of her breakdown went. When everyone in the industry is potentially press, is the fact that some artists are better liked than others a publicity problem?

Let’s, for argument sake, say that making sure your artists are well-liked by press, public and peers equally is a publicist’s problem. I wonder, then, if likability can even be faked. Is it possible that Laura Linney and Sloane Crosley are simply acting that nice all the time? Or, to use an example from our own industry, could Frederica von Stade (“Flicka”)  have faked a career of kindness and integrity for PR purposes? (I bring her up having met her once–she was lovely as everyone said she would be–and having attended her farewell concert at Carnegie Hall last season, at which there was not a hint of negativity toward her in a sold-out house.) And if they fake it, are the results (more) disastrous if the artist is inevitably caught in an off moment?

No one who is liked normally, generally, comes up in discussions like this, though. If you’re very much liked or very much not-liked, it’s an issue, but as with most things, the middle seems to be a safe zone. Maybe that’s the answer, then: unless an artist being personally liked is damaging their career, don’t try to to make them Flicka, because it most likely is not a thing that can be crafted.