{"id":23852,"date":"2012-08-13T14:44:46","date_gmt":"2012-08-13T11:44:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/?p=23852"},"modified":"2022-09-22T17:09:43","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T14:09:43","slug":"famous-hollywood-publicist-dale-olson-dies-at-78-23852","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/famous-hollywood-publicist-dale-olson-dies-at-78-23852\/","title":{"rendered":"Famous Hollywood Publicist Dale Olson, Dies at 78"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Veteran Hollywood publicist Dale Olson dies at 78 after long battle with cancer<\/h1>\n

Dale Olson, a top Hollywood publicist who protected the public images of a throng of stars, including Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, Shirley MacLaine, Gene Kelly and Joan Crawford, and who helped persuade Rock Hudson to announce that he had AIDS, died on Thursday in Burbank, Calif. He was 78.<\/p>\n

The cause was liver cancer, his spouse and only survivor, Eugene Harbin, said.<\/p>\n

In a four-decade career, Mr. Olson earned a reputation as an expert manager of Academy Award campaigns for clients, several of whom won, including Maggie Smith, for her performance in \u201cThe Prime of Miss Jean Brodie\u201d (1969); Robert Duvall, for \u201cTender Mercies\u201d (1983); and Ms. MacLaine, for \u201cTerms of Endearment\u201d (1983).<\/p>\n

Mr. Olson was considered old school in his courtliness, his knack for leaving no fingerprints when planting clients\u2019 names in boldface columns, and his unflappability in the face of the unexpected. In 1974 he faced a planeload of disgruntled entertainment writers who had been invited to the set of \u201cThe Klansman\u201d for interviews with the film\u2019s star, Richard Burton, and his wife, Elizabeth Taylor. Mr. Olson gave them the bad news first: Ms. Taylor had left the night before after quarreling with Mr. Burton. \u201cThe good news,\u201d he added, \u201cis that you will be the first to see Richard Burton after the split.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for volatility, nothing compared with the virtual media riot he faced in 1985 after Variety reported that Mr. Hudson was dying of AIDS. Mr. Olson initially issued denials, as Mr. Hudson had instructed, but eventually persuaded Mr. Hudson to help demystify the disease by announcing that he had contracted it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spoke to him and said: \u2018You have a terminal disease. This is going to affect a lot of people. And you can be the person who can make people aware of it,\u2019 \u201d Mr. Olson said in a 2001 radio interview with Larry King. Mr. Hudson\u2019s announcement was considered a turning point in public perceptions about AIDS, which until then had been largely dismissed as a disease contracted by people living at the margins.<\/p>\n

In 1980 Mr. Olson represented Steve McQueen when The National Enquirer broke the news that he had terminal cancer. He was Natalie Wood\u2019s publicist when she drowned in 1981 during a weekend boating trip. In a 2003 video interview, Mr. Olson said that in addition to the pain he felt over those deaths, they had unnerved him in another way. \u201cWith all these clients dying,\u201d he said, \u201cI sometimes worried about my business \u2014 that I\u2019d be known as, you know, the Kevorkian of publicists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dale C. Olson was born on Feb. 20, 1934, outside Fargo, N.D., and as a child moved with his family to Portland, Ore. He told interviewers that he had found his path in life at about 14, when he discovered he could get free tickets to movies and plays by writing short reviews for the local newspaper. After high school he worked as a reporter for two years before moving to Hollywood to write for Daily Variety and other entertainment publications. He later joined the publicity and marketing firm Rogers & Cowan, where he rose to lead the motion picture division. He left in 1985 to found his own firm.<\/p>\n

Mr. Olson, who was frequently interviewed about this work, contributed his impressions to dozens of books about Hollywood. Joan Crawford, he said, \u201cwas the ultimate movie star.\u201d Katharine Hepburn was grumpy, Gene Kelly never was. Judy Garland \u201cwas so terrified of being left alone, you couldn\u2019t leave until she passed out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mae West, he said, generously granted him his first interview when he arrived in Hollywood. In Charlotte Chandler\u2019s biography of Ms. West, he recounts that she returned the message he had left at her hotel.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow old are you?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cNineteen,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a very nice age,\u201d Ms. West said, and arranged for him to come by.<\/p>\n\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Veteran Hollywood publicist Dale Olson dies at 78 after long battle with cancer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":702,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,80,122,63,1,118,79,14],"tags":[31242,31236,31244,31246,31245,31243,31238,16458,31235,31234,31241,31240,31239],"class_list":["post-23852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america","category-breaking-news","category-cinema","category-daily","category-general","category-hot","category-magazine","category-world","tag-charlotte-chandlers-biography-of-ms-west","tag-dale-olson","tag-dale-olson-dies-cancer","tag-dale-olson-pendulum-charts","tag-dale-olson-publicist","tag-elizabet-taylor-dale-olson","tag-famous-dale-olson-dies","tag-hollywood","tag-hollywood-publicist-dale-olson","tag-hollywood-publicist-dies","tag-rock-hudson-dale-olson","tag-top-hollywood-publicist-dale-olson","tag-veteran-publicist-dale-olson-dies-78"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/702"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23852\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}