Gene Schwam, the Hollywood publicist who spent decades shaping the public image of stars including Elvis Presley, Judy Garland and Julie Andrews, has died at 96.
Schwam died Friday in Los Angeles after a brief illness, according to Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. His agency, Hanson & Schwam Public Relations, outlasted most of the studios-era publicity shops that surrounded its founding in 1955.
The firm began after Schwam, then earning $35 a week working for publicist Stanley Cowan, decided to go out on his own. He teamed with Adeline Hanson, a part-time disc jockey and publicist, and Variety reported that she settled the question of whose name came first with two words: ladies first. Their earliest clients were restaurants and musicians, among them Smith Bros. Fish Shanty, before the roster widened to Nancy Wilson, Lou Rawls and the Cocoanut Grove nightclub.
Schwam’s best-known work involved Andrews and Barbara Eden, whom the agency represented for decades, along with Presley, Garland, Lenny Bruce, Cyd Charisse and Gene Barry. Variety noted that his handling of Presley’s reputation in 1957 was colorful and, by design, misleading to the press.
His friendship with director Blake Edwards ran deeper than the client relationship. Edwards modeled the neurotic publicist in his 1981 film “S.O.B.” on Schwam, according to both trades. Vernon Scott, the longtime United Press International entertainment correspondent, once called him the best idea man in Hollywood, Variety reported.
In an April 2021 conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, Schwam described the business as one built on reputation rather than rolodexes. The Hollywood Reporter quoted him as saying that people mistakenly think it is about who you know in Hollywood, when it is about who knows you.
He is survived by his wife, Myrna Schwam; his daughter, Stephanie Schwam Adams; his stepchildren, Adam, Greg and Linda London; and his grandchildren, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
