Tony Klinger

There are any number of celebrities who do things that make you wonder if they are terminally stupid, or extremely canny, which means clever with cunning attached. I have many examples of this, a couple of  which I want to share with you.

Madonna, my old favorite for being canny to the ultimate degree. The last few weeks have seen this old warhorse apparently setting out a boundaries agreement with her husband, Guy Ritchie, to save their marriage over the next year. This, and other recent announcements on her behalf, or inspired by her, or attributed to friends of hers, miraculously appears just as another tour is in the offing and a record in release. Perish the thought that this is anything other than a total coincidence!

Please believe me that no one stands in front of this writer in the line up of people who want Madonna’s marriage to survive and prosper, but there are simple ways of stopping the press writing about you when you don’t wish them to do so. You stay out of the public eye, you don’t go running in the park in your bloomers, and you don’t publicly adopt a lovely little African baby in full public view. Going back over her career Madonna never was very good at hiding her light under a bushel really, remember the book called “Sex” in which she posed and cavorted as provocatively as she could? Her breakthrough hit was called “Like A Virgin” and there were the videos of her posing with Jesus on the cross and…..well we could go on couldn’t we. Hardly the actions of a shrinking violet, and that’s fine, but understand this, the woman knows how the media works better than almost anyone with the possible exception of the late Princess Diana.

The Princess was well known in the media for telephoning her chosen media contacts to tell them where she was going to be if they wanted a good picture or story, all seemingly with her unaware of how they found her in those places at those times.

Of course there is an obvious corollary when you feed the press pack’s frenzy and thirst for new, more sensationalist stories. They will become hungrier for more, better and bigger sensations. It was that kind of game that led to the tragic death of Princess Diana and others.

I have witnessed this, to a degree, in my own life. Years ago I was working with my friend and then colleague, David Courtney, and he composed a track to celebrate Manchester United’s appearance in that year’s Cup Final. An agent, who shall remain nameless, but who still somehow manages to slime his way through life, purported to represent that club’s player pool. This meant that the club’s players would approve, or otherwise, any commercial transaction, collect their share of revenue and distribute it to the players. David composed a great tune for the players, and as a Manchester United fan I was especially thrilled with it and the excellent reaction we were fed by the agent.

We were told we had a deal, and were happy to lay out the costs for the recording on the basis of this. Imagine our total devastation when another tune was actually used and no one even bothered to tell us that the agent had broken the deal. We tried to talk with him but he wriggled like the snake he was. We discussed this with our lawyers, who looked at the paperwork and told us to sue based on it.

The name of a well known barrister, “with great media connections!” was given to us. We had a meeting and some phone calls and he told us it would cost us nothing for him to represent us. He could arrange to draw up the necessary writ which would be handed to the players as they came out to play the FA Cup Final. A national Redtop newspaper would have the exclusive rights to take the sensational pictures and we would be paid many thousands of pounds.

We couldn’t bring ourselves to sanction this action. Personally I am a Manchester United fan and I wouldn’t want to be involved in anything that lessened the chances of my team winning. Secondly we thought that the agent was to blame for what had happened, not the players or the club, so why should they suffer?

But this story demonstrates the symbiotic relationship between the media and the celebrities. Who is being used and who is the user?