Veteran Hollywood publicist Dale Olson dies at 78 after long battle with cancer

Dale Olson, a top Hollywood publicist who protected the public images of a throng of stars, including Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, Shirley MacLaine, Gene Kelly and Joan Crawford, and who helped persuade Rock Hudson to announce that he had AIDS, died on Thursday in Burbank, Calif. He was 78.

The cause was liver cancer, his spouse and only survivor, Eugene Harbin, said.

In a four-decade career, Mr. Olson earned a reputation as an expert manager of Academy Award campaigns for clients, several of whom won, including Maggie Smith, for her performance in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” (1969); Robert Duvall, for “Tender Mercies” (1983); and Ms. MacLaine, for “Terms of Endearment” (1983).

Mr. Olson was considered old school in his courtliness, his knack for leaving no fingerprints when planting clients’ names in boldface columns, and his unflappability in the face of the unexpected. In 1974 he faced a planeload of disgruntled entertainment writers who had been invited to the set of “The Klansman” for interviews with the film’s star, Richard Burton, and his wife, Elizabeth Taylor. Mr. Olson gave them the bad news first: Ms. Taylor had left the night before after quarreling with Mr. Burton. “The good news,” he added, “is that you will be the first to see Richard Burton after the split.”

But for volatility, nothing compared with the virtual media riot he faced in 1985 after Variety reported that Mr. Hudson was dying of AIDS. Mr. Olson initially issued denials, as Mr. Hudson had instructed, but eventually persuaded Mr. Hudson to help demystify the disease by announcing that he had contracted it.

“I spoke to him and said: ‘You have a terminal disease. This is going to affect a lot of people. And you can be the person who can make people aware of it,’ ” Mr. Olson said in a 2001 radio interview with Larry King. Mr. Hudson’s announcement was considered a turning point in public perceptions about AIDS, which until then had been largely dismissed as a disease contracted by people living at the margins.

In 1980 Mr. Olson represented Steve McQueen when The National Enquirer broke the news that he had terminal cancer. He was Natalie Wood’s publicist when she drowned in 1981 during a weekend boating trip. In a 2003 video interview, Mr. Olson said that in addition to the pain he felt over those deaths, they had unnerved him in another way. “With all these clients dying,” he said, “I sometimes worried about my business — that I’d be known as, you know, the Kevorkian of publicists.”

Dale C. Olson was born on Feb. 20, 1934, outside Fargo, N.D., and as a child moved with his family to Portland, Ore. He told interviewers that he had found his path in life at about 14, when he discovered he could get free tickets to movies and plays by writing short reviews for the local newspaper. After high school he worked as a reporter for two years before moving to Hollywood to write for Daily Variety and other entertainment publications. He later joined the publicity and marketing firm Rogers & Cowan, where he rose to lead the motion picture division. He left in 1985 to found his own firm.

Mr. Olson, who was frequently interviewed about this work, contributed his impressions to dozens of books about Hollywood. Joan Crawford, he said, “was the ultimate movie star.” Katharine Hepburn was grumpy, Gene Kelly never was. Judy Garland “was so terrified of being left alone, you couldn’t leave until she passed out.”

Mae West, he said, generously granted him his first interview when he arrived in Hollywood. In Charlotte Chandler’s biography of Ms. West, he recounts that she returned the message he had left at her hotel.

“How old are you?” she asked.

“Nineteen,” he replied.

“That’s a very nice age,” Ms. West said, and arranged for him to come by.

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