Warren Cowan, at 87; wrote the book on promoting stars
NEW YORK - Warren Cowan, one of Hollywood's most powerful and innovative publicists and the representative of generations of celebrities - from Doris Day to Bette Midler, Frank Sinatra to Elton John, Ronald Reagan to Arnold Schwarzenegger - died Wednesday of cancer in Los Angeles. He was 87 and lived in Los Angeles.
A gregarious, even blustery man with the energy and spirit of a Barnum, Mr. Cowan entered the publicity business in the era of gossip lords like Walter Winchell and Louella Parsons, when the profession was slightly unsavory and the (mostly) men in it were called press agents. He lived to see it become not only a respectable business, its tenets taught in schools, but also a familiar and indispensable field attracting legions of young, ambitious men and women to its ranks. Indeed, he trained many of them; Pat Kingsley, the current doyenne of Hollywood public relations, was once his secretary. And as often as not, the tricks of the trade they learned were his own.
It was in 1950, in the name of a movie director client, that he created the Frank Borzage Invitational Motion Picture Golf Tournament, which attracted Mickey Rooney and Fred Astaire as players and benefited the Motion Picture Fund for retired actors. It was one of the first charity sports events.
In 1976, representing the movie "Murder by Death," he placed a huge advertisement for the film on the roof of a building that stood below a flight path into Los Angeles International Airport, where thousands of downward-looking passengers a week would see it.
In 1982, on behalf of Lincoln Continental, he lent a dozen new Lincolns to prominent Hollywood figures like Sylvester Stallone, Charlton Heston, and the Variety columnist Army Archerd, who were then photographed in the cars at premieres and other events, an early instance of product placement.
Through the 1970s and early 1980s, he made up dozens of Top 10 lists - "The 10 Most Watchable Men," "The 10 Most Beautiful Pairs of Eyes," and the like - placing his clients on them and saying they were the creations of publicity-seeking trade organizations or other groups that may or may not have existed. Then he sent the lists to newspapers across the country, which often printed them.
"If we did an eyes list, Sophia Loren," a client, "was always on it," said Linda Dozoretz, who worked with Mr. Cowan from 1976 to 1986. "If we did an influential women list, Nancy Reagan was always on it, even though she wasn't a client, because you couldn't have an influential woman list without her. I used to tell him all the time, 'We're going to jail for this.' "
Even an abbreviated list of his celebrity clients over the years is eye-popping. It includes Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor, Judy Garland, Tony Curtis, Shirley MacLaine, Gene Kelly, Lucille Ball, Jennifer Jones, Steve McQueen, Jack Lemmon, Danny Kaye, Natalie Wood, Merv Griffin, Clint Eastwood, Audrey Hepburn, Danielle Steele, Peter Ustinov, Michael Jackson, and the Doors.
Mr. Cowan was well aware of the peculiar nature of the fame business and relished his role in it. One story he liked to tell was about trying to explain to his father what he did for a living. He said he had a list of clients, and he tried to make sure their names got in the paper.
"And he said, 'Why on earth would anyone want his name in the paper?' " 