Electioneers, take note. Hillary Clinton has some seriously imaginative help on her ad campaign.
The brains behind it belong to Jimmy Siegel, a former creative director at one of New York's leading agencies, who is also a successful thriller writer.
Siegel's election films, which have so far included Hillary and Bill as the Sopranos, are apparently designed to show that Hillary has a sense of humour, especially about herself.
Siegel was head-hunted after helping the Democrat Eliot Spitzer become governor of New York last year. One ad that caused a sense of humour failure (and was never used) featured Spitzer, who is known for being hot-headed, yelling at his daughter for not doing her homework. She retorted: "You know, Dad, the Republicans are right - you do have a temper."
Siegel has recently set up the first political ad-production company, A-Political. Could he be of help over here? I can think of at least one preeminent grumpy British politician who, come the election, might be able to use his services.
Advertisement
- The British Film Institute says it needs a huge injection of cash to look after its film archive. However, it is keeping quiet about problems with its paper archive. Over time, British directors have left it reams of working scripts and correspondence. "It's not a question of are they going to have to do something with it, it's a question of what are they going to do with it," says my mole. Let us hope there are some cabinet film fans to step in and help.
- Bonhams in LA has been auctioning cache after cache of "lost" Marilyn Monroe material. Auction houses are quite keen on describing anything that has been out of view for 10 minutes as "recently discovered", but this lot really is, and comes mostly from an unidentified, close business associate of Monroe. Particularly rare is a love letter from her exhusband, the late playwright Arthur Miller. He was criticised in later years for heartless portrayals of Monroe. The letter, written in 1958, two years after they got married, tells a different story: "I am so lonesome for you that nothing seems properly marked out, neither nights nor days, mornings or afternoons. .. The bed seems a mile wide, empty as a field."
- His last film subject was Andy Warhol, but his next is, er, Bin Laden - quite a change of tone. Factory Girl director George Hickenlooper is writing a script, with Sean Penn in mind, about a disenchanted CIA agent fighting global terrorism.
- The London-based South African artist Steven Gregory kept a diplomatic silence over his pal Damien Hirst's diamond-encrusted skull. Hirst bought pieces by Gregory three years ago - they consisted of human skulls covered with jewels, albeit not from a Bond Street jeweller. Human remains are Gregory's thing (carefully acquired, not just dug up). He has a solo show later this year that will include furniture, for instance, a love seat made entirely from bones. If, next up, the art world marvels at Hirst's shark sofa or a beanbag made out of a dead sheep, you heard it here first, and Gregory should get a lawyer.
Richard Brooks is away