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Rik Newman: The last great Hollywood press rep

Local man met the stars and promoted their shine

Rik Newman and a certain wookiee friend.

One of Newman’s PR stunts: A fab young thing drinks blood (er, cherry soda) as two Milwaukee Journal staffers and a theater owner look on before the Milwaukee premiere of “The Fearless Vampire Killers” in early 1968.

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Even before he was working for MGM, Newman (right) was a Hollywood promotions guy. Here he escorts actor Sterling Hayden on a tour through Ohio to promote the 1964 classic “Dr. Strangelove.”

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Rik Newman, who initially came to Springfield in the early 1970s to work for the Chakeres Theatres chain, was an MGM publicist for such classic films as “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Marshall Gorby Rik Newman, who initially came to Springfield in the early 1970s to work for the Chakeres Theatres chain, was an MGM publicist for such classic films as “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

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By Andrew McGinn, Staff Writer Updated 10:40 PM Thursday, December 17, 2009

SPRINGFIELD — Somewhere near the end of a marathon interview that started in his living room and proceeded to his computer room, bedroom, kitchen, basement, back to the computer room, back to the basement, out to the garage and back to the kitchen, Rik Newman summed up the past six hours with one sentence.

“Quite a life, huh?”

Quite.

The pictures alone — dozens of ’em — attest to the fact that Newman might have to one day be the first guy on his block to undergo a full elbow transplant.

After 76 years, his elbows have to be practically rubbed to the point of disintegration.

There he is with Jim Henson. Charlton Heston. David Carradine. Stephen King. Ron Howard. Gene Wilder.

Cheech and Chong.

Chewbacca.

Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter in full-blown Cornelius/Zira/“Planet of the Apes” makeup.

“I need to figure out a way to get my life together,” Newman complained as he rifled through photos, clippings, stills and God knows what else in his Springfield basement.

Out came a hand-written thank-you letter dated Aug. 26, 1968 — from Stanley Kubrick.

Out came Newman’s old business card.

“Sanford Newman, press representative, MGM.”

As in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Louie B.

The lion.

The stars.

“MGM,” Newman explained, sitting sidesaddle in a recliner, legs over the arm, “was the royalty of the motion picture business. You were above the A-list. You were in a world the likes of which you’ll never see again.”

Sanford “Rik” Newman — a Cleveland native who came to Springfield in the early 1970s as ad director of the locally based Chakeres Theatres chain — was part of a bygone era.

Granted, when he was based out of Chicago in the late ’60s as Metro’s Midwest publicist, that era was in its final throes.

MGM itself was in its twilight.

But the stories he can tell offer a stark contrast to today’s multimedia universe, where the people behind the scenes could just as easily be working for a bank.

A gimmick

Before he was promoting movies and movie stars, Newman was promoting strippers.

“I was promoting anything,” he joked.

He still has a few of their old 8-by-10s — another difference between then and now; strippers had their own glossies — tucked away in a photo album, including one from the “world’s tallest exotic.”

She stood 6 feet 8 inches.

“The movie industry at the time was all gimmick,” Newman said. “It wasn’t just a TV ad. It was showmanship.”

When he wasn’t escorting Telly Savalas around the Midwest to promote “The Dirty Dozen,” he was doing his best to get press, any way he could, for the studio’s latest picture.

For the Milwaukee opening of “The Fearless Vampire Killers,” Roman Polanski’s 1967 horror satire, Newman stuck Miss Wisconsin in a casket for a photo op.

The press bit.

In another photo, two staffers for the Milwaukee Journal look on, amused, as a young woman bearing plastic fangs casually drinks blood from an IV.

It was actually just cherry soda.

For the film’s Chicago opening, Newman placed a woman in a store window wearing Bela Lugosi’s cape from “Dracula” and, if you could make her laugh, you won two free tickets.

A young critic named Roger Ebert, new to the Chicago Sun-Times, gave the stunt a more positive review than he did the actual movie.

A different time

“We used to do all kind of stuff,” Newman said.

The reasoning was simple.

“To get people wanting to see films,” he said. “You don’t have people like me anymore.”

While working for Chakeres to promote the original 1974 version of “Gone in 60 Seconds,” Newman arranged to have director/actor Toby Halicki steal the Dayton police chief’s car.

He cleared it with the department’s public relations person, only that person apparently never informed the police.

Halicki was arrested.

The story ended up above the fold on Page 1 of the Dayton paper.

Direct hit.

“On the movie page, you’re fighting other people,” Newman said. “Off the movie page, I own it.”

’Twas indeed a different time.

“Movies were king,” he said. “TV was a dirty thing.”

But then movie publicity became increasingly geared toward the tube.

“We were a dying breed,” Newman said. “Our job was to get the film seen by people outside the movie pages. TV wasn’t the answer. If you had a horror film, would you promote it on ‘Beverly Hillbillies’?”

For a guy like Newman, a first-generation American Jew, the movies had been an escape from the slums — a shelter from insults during World War II.

“Louis B. Mayer had an idea of what America was,” Newman said, “but there was never a St. Louis like the one he created in ‘Meet Me in St. Louis.’ ”

As a Jew, he believed he only had three possible occupations to choose from — he could be a milkman like his father, he could run a clothing store or he could enter show business.

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