After decades of working behind the scenes, personal publicists are suddenly being thrust into the spotlight.
ABC's "Jake in Progress" stars John Stamos as a personal publicist. MTV reality series "Power Girls" chronicles the inner workings of Lizzie Grubman's praisery. And Hilary de Vries' comic novel, "So Five Minutes Ago," centers on the world of PR.

Trouble is, this newfound media glare isn't the kind of attention publicists want -- the kind they can shape.

While personal publicists used to remain in the shadows of their high-profile clients, the Pat Kingsley-Leslee Dart battle at PMK-HBH and Bumble Ward's shuttering of her praisery got lots of attention in the mainstream press -- not for such clients as Quentin Tarantino and Tim Burton but for the publicists themselves.

So, praisers find themselves at a crossroads.

While the attention has made their work -- and presumably its value -- more transparent, veterans of the trade still have to suck it up, handholding clients (IDPR's Kelly Bush has been known to literally lead clients like Toby Maguire by the hand along the red carpet), running endless interference in a celeb-hungry media landscape and always craving what everyone in Hollywood wants: the big bucks and a little love.

And their power has been steadily eroding.

Since the 1980s and '90s, when publicists were arguably at the height of their power thanks to their control of access to clients, the proliferation of celeb-hungry media outlets has changed the ballgame.

Their role evolved from one of image control to image spin, working to rein in stories detrimental to their clients' interests. After a decade of dictating who would interview the star, who would photograph him and how the story will be angled, journalists have gotten fed up. Now, tabloids and paparazzi make it easy to circumvent the publicist.

To some, the Ward exit is a symbol: Personal publicists are at the crossroads.

"The first thing you learn about being a publicist is that you will be the first one blamed, the last one thanked."

Says one grizzled vet. "The other thing you learn quickly is that everybody thinks they can do publicity better than the publicist. Publicity results aren't as tangible as they are for an agent who negotiates a deal."

More galling to publicists is the fact that some clients announce they don't want to pay this month because the publicist didn't do anything. Or they request a lower monthly fee, because their name alone helps the agency attract other clients.

Publicists often feel underpaid. Compared to agents and managers, who get 5% to 10% of a client's salary, a PR maven can expect, at most, $60,000 a year from each client. Admittedly, with enough clients, that can turn into a six-figure income, but the real money these days is in corporate representation.

Major firms like PMK/HBH, Rogers & Cowan and Bragman Nyman Cafarelli have opted to grow the corporate sides of their businesses, because the retainers are much higher.

"The true money for a PR film won't ever be made on the red carpet with celebrities, or even by introducing those celebrities to companies," says Sean Cassidy, prexy of Dan Klores Communications.

Anyone who specializes in personal publicity these days is by definition keeping it small. "Celebrities are more of a one-off," says Cassidy, who estimates that of the agency's $17 million in annual billings, 7% is derived directly from celebrity clients.

Still, Simon Halls, a managing director at PMK/HBH, says the rewards outweigh the frustrations.

"You know the fee structure going in, and if anybody sits and compares themselves to others, they will spend a lot of time being frustrated," he says. "I don't think any of us feel like the red-headed stepchildren here. We do well financially, even junior publicists. This is not a bad job where people are clamoring to get out. We pay our mortgages and people build nice lives in personal publicity."

If a celeb's career isn't going well, it's usually the agent or manager who gets the blame. But publicists are held liable for other disappointments. Magazines' power lists are always ulcer-making; everyone wants to be higher than they are, even if they haven't had a hit film in years.

And when Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez got smacked with a wave of bad "Gigli" publicity, each hired new teams: He went to Ken Sunshine, she to Alan Nierob, and has since switched again.

But such switches are the exception to the rule. Most superstars stay loyal to their publicists for years, sometimes decades.

Among the many who've retained clients are Stan Rosenfield (George Clooney, Robert De Niro and Will Smith); Pat Kingsley (Michael Mann); Nierob (Denzel Washington, Mel Gibson); Brad Cafarelli (Cameron Diaz); Robin Baum (Russell Crowe); Cyndi Guagenti (Brad Pitt); Steven Huvane (Jennifer Aniston). Julie Andrews has been with Gene Schwam since "Mary Poppins" days.

When Hilary Swank accepted her best actress Oscar, she concluded her 2½-minute litany of thanks with a shout-out salute to "Troy Nankin, my best friend and publicist."

Among Nankin's accomplishments was a softball "60 Minutes" profile in which Mike Wallace gushed about Swank's unpretentious warmth, her volunteer work and her CPR attempts to save the life of a dying man -- a piece that aired when Oscar voters had ballots in hand.

No wonder Swank was grateful.

A rugby team promoting a boxing film?

It's got to be one of the stranger marketing efforts, but that's what you get when you mix Russell Crowe and his beloved but beleaguered South Sydney rugby club.

Crowe and BVI's Down Under topper Alan Finney have inked a deal for players to don jerseys sporting a "Cinderella Man" logo for eight weeks starting July.

The team's regular sponsor, Real Insurance, even agreed to transfer its logo to the backs of jerseys during the campaign.

"Cinderella Man" was pegged for release in Oz in June but was pushed back to October following the Oscar scoop by that other boxing pic, "Million Dollar Baby."

As a result, the jersey campaign will precede "Cinderella's" release by two months. It couldn't roll out any later because September is primetime for rugby finals.

Crowe has no formal relationship with South Sydney other than being a huge fan. The team -- part of the Rupert Murdoch-backed National Rugby League -- was dropped from the league during a consolidation in 1999, but a concerted campaign by supporters, including Crowe, got it reinstated in 2002.

For the last year, the studio has operated heel-to-the-steel, even as close competitors -- chiefly Miramax and MGM -- imploded, and massive restructuring at Paramount augured more direct competition with Fox's specialized division.

As a result, Searchlight has just enjoyed it's best year ever, releasing 11 pictures in the 2004 play period for a combined $173 million in box office, one third of that coming from screenplay Oscar winner "Sideways."

So, what's on tap for an encore?

Less.

"We made a strategic decision to make fewer movies," Peter Rice told Daily Variety, adding, "People in our marketing department, up until last week, have been working 16 hours a day, seven days a week. It's very hard to ask people to keep doing that. Having 12, 11 or even 10 movies a year really puts pressure on people that doesn't produce good results."

His rational approach may not sit well with a number of people, including numerous top independent film agents and even his own News Corp. bosses.

For starters, such thinking -- while perfectly logical, given the precision that specialized films need in execution, marketing and distribbing -- runs contrary to what News Corp. topper Rupert Murdoch has said he wants from Fox Filmed Entertainment.

At an October 2004 Goldman Sachs conference, Murdoch announced that News Corp.'s film unit will pursue an aggressive strategy in 2005, with 20th Century Fox releasing 20-25 major films, and Searchlight releasing "eight to 10 pics."

Right now, neither Fox nor Fox Searchlight will come anywhere near that grand total: Searchlight has plans to release only seven pictures, and TCF and Fox 2000 have slated only 13, one less than last year.

"We only have a certain amount of staff and overhead," Rice says. "There's not really a strategic change in what we're doing, it's just what's most effective for the movies."

The movies, by the way, remain eclectic as ever, but some agents grouse that increasingly they represent few actual creative or financial risks. Major directors are the rule on Searchlight productions, rather than the exception for 2005: Danny Boyle's new film, "Millions," for example, and Woody Allen's new picture "Melinda and Melinda," which unspools in a little over a week.

They're paired with lower-cost acquisitions, like Russian vampire pic "Night Watch," which was acquired as part of a larger strategy at TCF to remake the film as an English-lingo big-budget franchise. (Rice, upfront on the substantial risks in backing tyros, doesn't dispute this, explaining, "I do prefer our first-time director movies to be acquisitions.")

When it comes to riskier material, like "Kinsey" and "I Heart Huckabees," studio shared the risk with overseas partners.

Meanwhile, independent filmmaker agents find that as Searchlight gets more and more successful, it's becoming more cautious, and that has sent their frustration level through the roof.

"Are they good at what they do? Absolutely," says one indie agent at a major talent agency. "But they're also infuriating; even though they're not in the indie film business, they're changing the indie film business, and changing it for the worse."

Numerous agents interviewed complained, for example, that the Searchlight strategy has of late meant plowing $25 million or so into prints and advertising on a $5 million acquisition -- as was the case with both Zach Braff's "Garden State" and Jared Hess' "Napoleon Dynamite" -- to the exclusion of new indie directors.

"Their whole strategy is to price everyone out of the marketplace: Searchlight only wants to acquire a 'pop' indie move that's going to do $20 or $30 million of box office, to impress their corporate parent. The result is they make good, old-fashioned independent dramas look like they're not profitable anymore."

Meanwhile, Searchlight's success, whatever it's effect, is hard to argue with.

And as if to sum up the Searchlight style, Rice, noted two films that haven't been dated but that will nonetheless be released this year. One is "Separate Lives," Julian Fellowes' exploration of the mores and ethics of the upper classes, based on the Nigel Balchin novel. The other is "The Ringer," a Farrelly Bros.-produced comedy about an attempt to fix the Special Olympics, toplined by "Jackass" star, Johnny Knoxville.

Says Rice, diplomatically, "I love all my children equally."

By CLAUDE BRODESSER, Tue., Jan. 25, 2005, 10:00pm PT

PARK CITY -- After Fox Searchlight snapped up the indie breakouts "Garden State" and "Napoleon Dynamite" here last year, one question on every Sundancer's lips this time around is: Where in the world is Peter Rice?

The wunderkind Searchlight head -- with whom Harvey Weinstein wanted to work on "Garden's" release -- is in Oz to supervise "Eucalyptus" as it preps for an early February start.

"It's a big film, with big stars," said a Searchlight spokesman of "Eucalyptus," which stars Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe and Geoffrey Rush. She added that Rice's trip Down Under was expected and that the pic is a top priority.

Still, Sundance has attracted an inordinate number of the industry's high fliers this year, from Tom Freston to Gareth Wigan and Scott Stuber, and Rice's absence on the scene has been notable. After all, "Napoleon" and "State" have made companies rethink their business plans.

But Searchlight's structure is unique in the indie world in that it has a team of vets that can make big buys on the fly even without Rice around.

"We are fully capable of buying on our own (without Rice), if either of us is really passionate" about a film, said Searchlight distribution topper Stephen Gilula. Marketing head Nancy Utley "and I operate as a team. And we want to be in the $7 million or $8 million or $9 million bidding range."

Sans Rice, Searchlight still has 10 execs on hand here, including Fox senior veep of acquisitions Tony Safford and Searchlight exec veep Claudia Lewis, in addition to Utley.

But after last year, in which it was so active, Searchlight's name hasn't come up on too many rumored lists of bidders. Gilula explains that the company, which has "Sideways" vying for an Oscar as best pic, has the luxury of buying only when it wants to.

"A film really has to fit the particular profile and particular personality" of a company, he said. "There's no pressure or compulsion to buy something every year."

Searchlight execs did, however, say they had been interested in Pierce Brosnan starrer "The Matador," which sold to Miramax.

Searchlight was one of the fest's few distribs not to go get its wallet out after screening Craig Brewer's "Hustle & Flow." As the execs from rival studios huddled together with looks of anxiety, strategizing after the film unspooled, Gilula was seen casually walking out of the theater.

Though Searchlight has a very hot hand, its forte has not been in releasing such urban-skewed film fare when it's R-rated. The company's DMX starrer "Never Die Alone" was one of its few missteps.