Several years ago, I forget now, but when Barbara Streisand refused to give interviews or any type of promotion for her movie "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever", P.R. man Steve Yeager was concerned and had to come up with another angle in order to promote without her.

THE STUNT:

He called the AP gossip columnist jim Bacon and suggested he do a story on "Wong Keye, a mythical tone-deaf Chinese Piano Tuner", who was tuning all the pianos on the Streisand movie. Bacon agreed and according to him in his book, "Made in Hollywood": "The story was written with appropriate tongue-in-cheek. It told how Wong Keye had started out in life as a fortune-cookie stuffer in a Chinatown bakery, then sold exotic fish for a while until he found his niche tuning pianos. Since then he had been in great demand because he was such a superb piano tuner.

WHAT HAPPENED:

Well it worked. The story ran all over North America and was picked up by the London Daily Mirror, which even ran a photo (an actor hired to dress in Chinese costume). Bacon even got calls from piano owners asking how they could get in touch with Keye.

The best part? Streisand--who had refused to give interviews in the first place---complained to the producer because the piano tuner in the movie was getting more publicity than the star".

What does this have to do with the ROF? Not much but if you think about it....:)

Don