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Those who know him best-his press agents -

tell what tlaey really think

ol Hugh O'Brian

If no man is a hero to his valet, no show-
business personality is a hero to his press
agent. One Hollywood publicity firm puts
it this way to a prospective client:
"So far as we are concerned, you are a cake of
soap, we are your advertising agency and your sales
department. If you have any other concept of
yourself, we're not the right press agents for you."
Hugh O'Brian, a 33-year-ol_d actor who came pretty
much out of nowhere to become Wyatt Earp, is a
man who has had four different independent press
agents in the past few years, is now with his fifth
and has also enjoyed the free services of both a
studio and a network publicity department. From all
this has emerged not so much a cake of soap as a
solidly contrived semi-fictional character known as
Wyatt Earp.
Out of it, too, -comes a rather fascinating picture
of a young man with a mission in life and no
particular qualms as to how he accomplishes it. While
the thumbnail sketches of O'Brian as presented
frankly (and anonymously) by his present and former
press agents range all the way from "I like him"
through "very stimulating" to "unpolished," all agreed
that (1) O'Brian is an eager beaver and (2) the
"tightest man with a dollar bill in town."
Yet he is amazingly generous with his time-which
is also money. One press agent has high praise
for Hugh's genuine devotion to children. "There has
been very little publicity-and Hugh insists that it be
that way-about his visits to hospitals. For instance,
he went up to Arizona recently on what was supposed
to be a very brief appearance. Instead, he spent the
whole day shaking hands with every kid he could find.
How do you figure a guy like that?" continued