Though he is famous as a gangster, his social star is rising, and he tries to control his image as carefully as any studio publicist could.

The junketeers deliver these squibs, which seldom appear in actual reviews, to the studio publicists.

"You can tell the latest fad," one studio publicist said.

A bodyguard hovered nearby, and there was a studio publicist to keep her moving, but she had no personal publicist.

She sat in the lobby of the theater, drinking soda from a plastic cup and chatting with studio publicists, and was gone once the film was over.

In Mr. Tarantino's case, however, scarcity has made studio publicists' work easier.

In its inception, FAMAS had movie writers, columnists and studio publicists as its voting members.

Lee Tracy plays the bane of her existence, Space Hanlon, the studio publicist, who will do anything to get Lola's name into the papers.

But I make this very clear to studio publicists: If I dont like a movie, Im not going to say something nice about it.

Jack Carson, a studio publicist, hates Norman Maine, and you can see why he gives in to the temptation to destroy him.