MAX EXPOSURE
When celebrity publicist Max Markson tells me, "You'll love this", there's a strong chance I'll want to leave. The first time it happens, we're sharing lunch at China Doll restaurant in Woolloomooloo, Sydney, and Markson is reminiscing about his days at Carmel College, a Jewish boarding school near Newbury in the UK.
"Do you want to hear this?" he asks.
I nod and smile, because I'm still at that early, polite, feeling-each-other-out stage of our relationship. Then Markson begins to sing:
"Boy how it shows from the shape of your nose,
That you come from Golders Green."
Our relationship moves quickly to the next level. Don't sing to me, Max, I say. But he doesn't stop.
"If you don't ride in trains, and you've got varicose veins,
Then you come from Golders Green."
When Markson finishes the song, he asks, "Do you want another one?"
No. Please don't sing to me.
"Okay, I won't sing to you," says Markson.
It turns out to be a hollow promise.
max markson is famous for making other people more famous. He is an events organiser and talent manager, but he is best known as a publicist. Specifically, this year, he is best known as "the publicist who turned Australia against Lara Bingle", a remarkable feat since the model had the sympathy of the nation only one week before. It is unlikely, however, that Markson will ever be known as "the Singing Publicist".
Markson has worked with Corey Worthington, the Melbourne teenager whose 2008 house party was gatecrashed by 500 people, who then rampaged through the previously unheard-of streets of Narre Warren South while Worthington's mother and stepfather were on holiday. He handles Clare Werbeloff, the so-called Chk-Chk Boom Girl, the teenage waitress who claimed to have witnessed a shooting in Sydney's Kings Cross last year in which a "fatter wog" pulled a gun on a "skinnier wog" and fired "chk-chk boom". At the other end of the chk-chk boom scale, he manages Mick Gatto, the colourful Melbourne identity who in 2004 killed - in self-defence - Andrew "Benji" Veniamin, who was described in Gatto's memoir, I, Mick Gatto, as "Australia's busiest hitman".
Markson, 54, is good at what he does and it has made him rich, but he attracts contempt because he sells his clients' stories to the media. Reporters hate this, because it exposes journalism as an arm of the celebrity publicity machine, an accessory to cultural violence. There is also a feeling that Markson is not overly burdened by principles and qualms. He recently launched Pauline Hanson on a new career as a public speaker but on the day we have lunch, he has a meeting about organising an indigenous small-business awards night.
When later I tell him he cannot work for both Aboriginal people and Hanson, he turns up his palms and lifts his hands in the air (which is quite unnerving, since he is driving his car at the time).
"Pauline could be a guest speaker," he says. "She could present a prize." This is from the man who brought Nelson Mandela to Australia, and also organised tours for Bill Clinton, Al Gore and, less successfully, Tony Blair's wife, Cherie.
Markson is good company (when he doesn't sing). He has a rich voice, an easy laugh, and a mobile face that best expresses a friendly, slightly pained concern. He doesn't have a bad word for anyone. The flipside of this, I suspect, is he doesn't have much respect for anyone, either.
He was born in Birmingham, an unlovely city in the English Midlands, and sent off to Carmel College at 10 years of age. At the beginning of his first half-term holiday, he says, he took a bus back to Birmingham. "I got off at the other end, and a friend of my mother's, Joy Cohen, said, 'What are you doing, Max?' I said, 'I've come home for the half-term.' She said, 'Well, your parents have moved. They're in Bournemouth now.' "
In the southern seaside town of Bournemouth, Max's father ran the Leon Markson Aquashow. The young Max swam backstroke around the performers, lighting the production with a torch held in his mouth. When Max was 15 years old, his father died. "It was the worst thing that could happen," he says. He dropped out of Carmel College, enrolled in the local high school in Bournemouth and quickly lost whatever interest he'd had in continuing his education.
He became a promoter, running discos and booking DJs and pop-soul acts for clubs. He had an association with Hot Chocolate (which leads him to sing to me a few bars of his own - quintessentially white - version of You Sexy Thing at the China Doll). In 1977, Markson came to Sydney and managed the Zoo nightclub in Kings Cross, then found a job in publicity for radio station 2WS.
In 1982, Markson and his then wife, South African-born Rolene Sher, formed their own PR business, Markson Sparks!. The couple raised two daughters, Sharri (now 26, and chief of staff at the Sydney Sunday Telegraph) and Rikki (22, a student at Sydney University), and built an eclectic client base, including Advanced Hair Studio.
Over the years, Markson, like many of us, has suffered a depletion of his personal hair stock. Has he been tempted by the Advanced Hair Studio's baldness "cure" himself?
"Oh, I did once," he says. "They fitted me up with a head of hair, and I got home to Sydney that night, Ro and the kids were there, they saw me coming and it was like, 'Aaargh! Get rid of it.' So the next morning, I got rid of it."
What was "it"?
"At Advanced Hair Studio, we call it 'the unit'. "
It's a wig?
"No, it's definitely not a wig. I had the strand-by-strand program."
So where are the strands now?
"They took them all out. It wasn't plugs, it's more surgical. They sort of weave your hair in with sort of little ball-bearing things with the hair attached ... You had to be there."
I first saw Max Markson in 1995. He came to the Sydney offices of Woman's Day magazine, where I worked, dressed in a dark suit and white shirt, looking like a cross between a celebrity and his chauffeur. He was in the Kerry Packer-owned building to broker a deal that gave Australian Consolidated Press and Channel Nine exclusive access to the recently divorced former prime minister Bob Hawke and his lover Blanche D'Alpuget on holiday in Bali. Notoriously, both subjects were wearing bathrobes. Woman's Day and 60 Minutes were supposed to have paid $500,000, at that time the highest sum in the history of chequebook journalism in Australia.
What is often forgotten is that the alleged price included an interview with Bob's former wife, Hazel, in which she told her side of the story to The Australian Women's Weekly. Not for the last time, it looked as if Markson was playing both ends against the middle, but it turned out they were all on the same team. In a typical demonstration of the ambiguity at the heart of chequebook journalism, Bob approved Hazel's copy, and a single fee covered the whole package.
Markson met Hawke through charity fundraising, a kind of super-networking tool for prominent people in business, politics and entertainment. One of the many curious episodes that have coloured Markson's career was his period as a fundraiser for the ALP. He brought in about $4 million for the party over four years, from a series of events that began with a tribute dinner to Gough Whitlam in 1999, although the amounts declared by Markson Sparks! as being raised and the sums acknowledged by the ALP as received did not initially reconcile. Through Markson's company, donors were able to donate money to the ALP without their identities being declared.
"The Liberal Party got a bit pissed off and they tried to get at me in Parliament," says Markson. "They said, 'There's a Markson Sparks! loophole in the electoral donations law.'"
Markson insists, plausibly, that his relationship with the ALP was not ideologically based. "I'd have happily done it for the Liberal Party," he says. What about One Nation? "I don't know if I could've made money for their party at the time."
Further political confusion resulted when Markson organised a charity tour of Australia for Cherie Blair in 2005. "I got nailed on that one. The British press hated the fact she was earning money, getting paid to do charity events in Australia."
Does he think they had a point? "They definitely had a point in terms of she's getting paid money," says Markson, "because she did get paid money. The other side of it is the Children's Cancer Institute of Australia [CCIA] and a children's hospital in New Zealand finished up with over half a million dollars. Okay, I say, 'Leave her at home. Go and find half a million dollars in the street.' "
But one dinner with Blair at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre was thought to have raised about $190,000 and, after her payment and Markson's 20 per cent, the CCIA received only $16,000. This led Consumer Affairs Victoria to give the CCIA notice to explain why it shouldn't be deregistered as a charity.
Markson says he waived his fee as a result of the controversy. "I made a $100,000 donation to the CCIA," he says. "Move on."
Markson's random political interventions continued in July this year when, in one of the weirder moments of Mark Latham's tenure as an election reporter for 60 Minutes, the former Labor leader held a friendly interview with Pauline Hanson. Markson organised the appearance for Hanson, with whom he has been working for "the last couple of years". "She's a lovely lady," insists Markson.
In what sense? "To have dinner with," he says. "To have conversations with. I think she's badly maligned by people who misunderstood in terms of, er ... A lot of the policies that she first laid down in her maiden speech have now been adopted by both parties. I've got a great picture of me and Pauline and Mark Latham." And another of Markson and Kerry Packer and Nelson Mandela.
Markson says he can bring anyone to Australia, provided the fee is right. His big money came from hosting visits for politicians such as Mandela, Bill Clinton and Al Gore, and he claims to "love" Clinton. "He's very charismatic," he says. "He looks you straight in the eye. He cares about you. He's always telling jokes. We did karaoke until three in the morning. At the closing, Clinton and I sang, but I won't tell you what song."
Why?
"Because you don't want me to sing it to you."
Okay, tell me.
"There are places I have been to, in my-y life ..." begins Markson.
I've been suckered.
Reality TV has been a great multiplier for Markson. Before Big Brother, there was a finite number of celebrities on the face of the earth, but now this inequitable situation has come to an end. As a manager, Markson has come to specialise in people who have either appeared on reality TV and hope to extend their celebrity beyond that, or who have tasted celebrity and hope to prolong it by appearing on reality TV.
"I did a number of Tiger Woods's mistresses," says Markson. "I didn't do them in that way, but I arranged media deals for them globally."
He had the most success with Jaimee Grubbs, the woman who released Woods's texts and voice-mail recordings. "I tried to get a reality TV show up," says Markson. "It was a great idea, Maneaters. We'd put Jaimee and all her mates into a suite in Las Vegas, and they'd go and find guys. Like Sex and the City on steroids."
Doesn't Markson feel bad about messing with Tiger Woods's life? "I don't think I messed with it," he says. "I think he did it himself. I wasn't there."
Markson also tried to secure a TV role for Corey Worthington. He says Worthington earnt $100,000 in three months with Markson Sparks!, including payments from A Current Affair and Today Tonight. Viewers tired of him quickly, Markson admits, "but while he was hot, he was hot. Having said that, there's still a movie deal that might happen. A Hollywood movie, no less." Even Markson sounds astounded. "But it's only a bit part."
Markson became involved with Mick Gatto when he was asked to promote Gatto's friend boxer Jeff Fenech's unfortunate comeback fight against Azumah Nelson in 2008. Markson told Gatto he should do a reality TV show: "Like a cross between The Sopranos and Sex and the City." He pauses. "Maybe not Sex and the City. But The Sopranos. A real-life Sopranos."
As a manager, what kind of image does Markson hope to build for Gatto? "Mick is an absolute gentleman," he says. "He does a lot more for charity than bloody 99 per cent of the population."
But seriously?
"The morning we started the national publicity tour [for I, Mick Gatto]," says Markson, "he had to go on Sunrise [on Channel Seven], and he was there wearing a dark suit, a black shirt and a blackish Versace-style tie. I said, 'Really, I'd rather you wore a white shirt. I'll iron the shirt for you. Let's go.' He asked me, 'What tie shall I wear?' 'I'd choose a pink tie.' And that's what he wore. It made him look a warmer character." But it didn't last. "By the end of the week, he was back in his Ed Hardy T-shirts for the launch," Markson admits.
For Clare Werbeloff, who admits she never saw the Kings Cross shooting she memorably described, Markson actually found a TV spot in Nine's The Real Hustle, in which self-styled scammers tested their cons on the public.
For the moment, Markson is linked in the public mind with Lara Bingle, the luckless model who fronted the derided "Where the bloody hell are you?" ad campaign for Tourism Australia.
In March this year, Woman's Day printed a photo of Bingle nude in the shower. The picture had been taken by her former lover, AFL footballer Brendan Fevola, whom Bingle announced she would sue for defamation and breach of privacy. She then sold her story to Woman's Day for a reported $200,000. It appeared in the magazine the next week and Bingle lost several sponsors. The controversy it generated eventually contributed to her breakup with her fiancé, cricketer Michael Clarke.
"That was a good story, wasn't it?" reflects Markson. "It ran and ran and ran ... I'd been looking after Lara for about two weeks. When I started representing her, we were getting an enormously positive response. I could've made an absolute fortune for her. Then, when the bloody photograph appeared, the whole thing went sour."
Does he feel it was the wrong decision to sell the story? "Nah, everybody wanted the story. Take away the selling the story. She had to tell her story. She had to stand up and say something publicly. She knows she'll cop a lot of money - more than most people will earn in a year, or two years - for four hours' work, and she gets her story out there in eight pages, all approved by her."
But didn't it turn people against her?
"Yeah, eventually it did. Absolutely."
If they hadn't sold it ...
"Who knows?"
Markson says the media saw an easy target "and combined with me, an even easier target".
Later in the year, Markson appeared on the front page of both major Sydney newspapers when it emerged that the BMW he drives had been caught speeding at least 20 times in 20 months, but Markson had never lost a point from his licence or personally paid a fine as a result.
"I don't think people should speed," says Markson. "Definitely not. The law in NSW is, if the car is in your name and if you're driving, obviously if you speed they fine you. If you're not driving, you nominate a driver. If you fail to nominate, then you get fined. If the car's in a company name, as mine is, if the car's seen speeding, or running a red light, they write to the company and the company has to nominate the driver. If it fails to nominate the driver, then the company gets fined, and nobody loses points. So, I've got a staff of 10, and if a speeding fine comes in, if it's me I'll obviously pay. If it's not, I don't always know who's driving the car, so the company fails to nominate. The last thing I want to do is lie about something, and say I was driving when I wasn't driving."
Did Markson manage to spin the story? "I think so. When the papers rang up, the Telegraph wanted a picture. I was in my car going to Icebergs [club at Bondi], so they came and took a picture of me and my car at Icebergs, a front-page picture."
There is a satirical song that markson plays to me in his car, written to the tune of the Ghostbusters theme, in which the response to "Who you gonna call?" is "Max Markson", and the words "I ain't afraid of no ghosts" are replaced by "He ain't afraid of bad press".
And he clearly isn't. "[A Current Affair reporter] Ben Fordham fronted up to me in Mauritius," says Markson, "in the middle of the Lara Bingle thing, and he said to me, 'Is there any such thing as bad publicity?' And I said, 'All that people remember is your name at the end of it, so if you have some bad publicity - unless you've done something quite dreadful like murder someone - you'll find out all that will happen is they'll move on to the next story.' You can't dwell on it. You just have to keep going. Some stories'll be bad, some'll be good, some'll criticise you, some'll praise you. Welcome to life. This is what happens. You can't bear grudges. Don't burn bridges. Just keep going.
"I've always been quite mellow, go with the flow, and if someone's upset at me, I just apologise and move on. It comes back to my dad dying. I'd lost a father. That was a line in the sand for me. After that, what's the worst that can happen?"
Does he think he's honest and ethical? "Absolutely. You don't hear any stories about me not paying celebrities. I've been in the business for 28 years. If I'm not paying my bills, it'll get out. If I was burning journos left, right and centre, I wouldn't be able to place any stories in the paper. You know, I sell stories to magazines and TV, but I have long, ongoing relationships with people in business because I am ethical in that sense."
Markson says we get the media we deserve, and he doesn't seem to think we deserve much. He didn't create the celebrity-obsessed culture, but he is happy to create celebrities for it. He makes a joke of the idea that it is impossible to admire both Nelson Mandela and Pauline Hanson because, at some level, he genuinely doesn't think it is important. He doesn't care about anything beyond the deal. He wouldn't be the only one - who knows what Kerry Packer was thinking while he was being photographed with the leader of the ANC? - but he'd be the only one who'd admit it. In this way, Markson is more honest than most.
At Max Markson's home - a waterfront mansion with an infinity pool - in Sydney's Dover Heights, I meet Pauline Hanson's manager's partner, Chrislyn Williams, who turns out to be a tall, beautiful, Afro-American model. In Markson's home office is a pair of Corey Worthington's glasses, a Nike Tiger Woods golf cap signed by Jaimee Grubbs, and a pile of books by 19th-century showman and hoaxer P. T. Barnum. "I'd love to have met P. T. Barnum," says Markson. "He was ahead of the game, Barnum was."
Markson is a middleman, a cut-taker, a hustler, the longest distance between two points. But he belongs to another tradition, too. Like P. T. Barnum, he's a showie, a tub-thumper, a spruiker, banging his drum to rally the crowds to take a look inside his tent, where the walking wonders of the modern world are hidden behind canvas folds. Take a look at the amazing Corey Worthington, who has his house trashed by strangers but doesn't care! Here's the incredible Chk-Chk Boom Girl, who points her fingers and says, "Chk-Chk Boom." Or, at least, she did once. Meet the marvellous Mick Gatto, who killed Andrew Veniamin but won't kill you. Or, if he does, it will be purely in self-defence.
I ask Gatto about Markson. "He's got a really good energy," he says. "He's a very friendly guy. He's happy-go-lucky. He sings and dances and laughs and jokes all the time. People approach me and put deals to me, and I introduce them to him and he comes back with a lot better deal. He's certainly worth his weight in gold."
But does even Mick Gatto know a way to stop Markson from singing?
"Yeah," he says. "Tell him you won't pay him his percentage."