Post Script

Warren Cowan was Hollywood's consummate publicist. From the time he and Henry Rogers founded Rogers & Cowan public relation in 1950 until Cowan passed away on May 14, he represented just about everyone who was anyone, including Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Cary Grant, Steve McQueen, Elizabeth Taylor and Elton John. When we asked him to write this column on May 13, we had no idea he had cancer. He accepted our assignment enthusiastically, immediately began dictating it to an assistant and, according to his assistant, finished it in about half an hour. It was his last day in the office--he was a professional until the very end.

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The people who have worked for me over the last six decades tell me they remember two of my rules above all others. I'd like to think they'd remember more than that, but I guess it's not a bad legacy.

One of my rules is always to have a pen and paper handy. This applies whether you're wearing a tux at a black-tie premiere, or you're a staffer being paged to "drop everything and see me," or you have a chance meeting with a client on a weekend.

I never wanted to miss anything and didn't want my staff to either. Writing everything down is the solution. I followed the rule myself, to the delight of dry cleaners around the world who were charged with cleaning my ink-stained clothes. As time went on, more staff members opted for thumbs on smart phones and PDAs instead of pen and paper. I still prefer writing, maybe because I never learned the fine art of speed thumb-typing.

My main rule, though, was to return every call. I moved through the evolution of message takers, from answering services to phone machines, voice mail, e-mails, text messages and now ring tones that demand, "Call me." No matter the source of the message, I always felt that unless there was direct communication, there was always a chance of missing something important or getting something wrong.

I admit that when my voice mail is full of strangers' messages asking for an address to send fan mail or proposing marriage to a client, I want to change my rule. No one wants to deal with those kinds of calls, but it's a must.

Before there was Google, I was impressed when a fan or someone with an idea could track me down to contact my client. If someone knew enough to contact the Screen Actors Guild or the Directors Guild, or if they were ingenious enough to look up the unit publicist they saw during movie credits, I felt they deserved a call back.