Aussie Svengali pulls strings in Bingle tale

Max Markson's clients range from Lara Bingle to gangland figure Mick Gatto. Photo / Herald on Sunday

At the height of the Lara Bingle affair, the tabloid Daily Telegraph ran a cartoon featuring the Sydney model with a vulture on her shoulder.

The vulture had the features of Max Markson, Bingle's PR agent. The caption read: "Things weren't so bad for Lara ... she still had her pet canary looking out for her."

The affair, as most people with a heartbeat are aware, involved the cricketer Michael Clarke, the AFL player Brendan Fevola, a topless photograph, a woman's magazine and a diamond engagement ring.

It prompted a lawsuit, a $200,000 interview and acres of newsprint, and it culminated a week ago in a terse statement that Bingle and Clarke, Australia's answer to Posh and Becks, were no longer an item.

The statement was delivered by Markson, Australia's most flamboyant publicist, himself a leading player in recent events.

This week, as Clarke and Bingle surveyed the car crash of their relationship - Clarke from Wellington, back with the Australian cricket team preparing for the first Test against the Black Caps - attention turned to Markson, and his part in turning Bingle "from victim to vixen", as one commentator put it.

English-born Markson is used to the spotlight and used to criticism of his tactics - he relishes it, some believe. But even those familiar with his modus operandi - his clever courting of the media, his shameless publicity stunts - believe he may have shot himself in the foot this time, not only turning public sentiment against 22-year-old Bingle but undermining himself professionally.

Two of his clients quit his agency this week. One, Tony Ferguson Weight Loss Centres, said the timing was coincidental; the other, Lemon Detox (manufacturers of a diet drink), said it was not.

"When there's scrutiny of the person looking after our products, it's not good for our image or our business," said a Lemon Detox spokesman. "This whole fiasco convinced us it's time to move on."

Markson, 53, can afford to shrug, perhaps: these were not his most glamorous clients, and he still has a large and eclectic stable, which includes Pauline Hanson, the former long-distance swimmer Susie Maroney and Corey Worthington, the teenager who staged a house-smashing party.

Then again, being dropped at a time like this doesn't look good. As David Penberthy, a former Daily Telegraph editor, wrote, the Bingle scandal demonstrated that "if you really want to damage your reputation, you should hire Max Markson to defend it".

Penberthy described Markson as "Australia's pre-eminent spiv" and "the moral equivalent of a hedge-fund trader", observing: "It doesn't matter whether a celebrity's stocks are going up or down, just as long as he's in on the deal."

Others were equally scathing. Jacqueline Maley, in the Sydney Morning Herald, called him "one of the most notorious Svengalis in showbiz" and "a man so commercially minded he makes Donald Trump seem like a socialist".

Markson claims to be immune to such barbs. "I've been in the business for 28 years and it doesn't worry me whatsoever," he told the New Zealand Herald this week before jetting off to Mauritius for a family friend's wedding.

"I get up in the morning, I look myself in the mirror, I'm very comfortable with what I see. All I would say to you are four words: 'Don't shoot the messenger'."

He is unapologetic, too, about his handling of the two-week media frenzy sparked by the appearance of Bingle's photo in Woman's Day and Clarke's decision to abandon the tour in New Zealand for several days in order to resolve his domestic situation.

The picture of Bingle emerging from the shower was allegedly snapped by the married Fevola in 2006, when the pair were having an affair. A week after it was published, the model - who before becoming Clarke's girlfriend was known mainly as the face of Tourism Australia's infamous $200 million "Where the bloody hell are you?" campaign - gave an interview to the same magazine, revealing that she felt "violated".

Markson said: "I think I've worked very diligently, very professionally, and to the best of my ability. There's a lot of sour grapes from media organisations that couldn't get Lara's story themselves."

His rivals are not so sure. But that's not surprising: most of the PR world disapproves of the fast-talking Markson, with his flair for self-promotion, his publicity stunts and the "Max Max" display on the dashboard of his BMW 325i.

"He's loud, he's brash and he gives the whole business a bad name," says one agent.

Yet they also warn against apportioning too much blame to Markson. "You just don't know what advice was given and what advice was taken," says Peter Wilkinson, a former 60 Minutes producer who runs a corporate communications agency.

"It's a bit like a marriage: there's a lot goes on that's completely invisible. I've been criticised for things I didn't do and praised for things I didn't do. I'm sure Max is the same."

Spruiking is in Markson's blood. His father, Leon, ran an aqua show in England, featuring synchronised swimmers. Max learnt the business, and began promoting pop groups and disc jockeys in his teens.

He emigrated to Australia as a young man and signed his first client, the former Test cricketer Greg Matthews, in 1988.

Over the years, he has staged events for visiting luminaries such as Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela and Cherie Blair. However, most of his client list is not exactly heavyweight.

It includes Natasha Ryan, the Queensland teenager who hid for five years in a cupboard in her boyfriend's house; Candice Falzon, the former ironwoman photographed in a drunken tryst in a pub toilet with the former NRL star Sonny Boy Williams; Mick Gatto, the Melbourne gangland figure; and Clare Werbeloff, the so-called "Chk Chk Boom" girl, who shot to fame after giving police a colourful account of a shooting outside a Sydney nightclub.

One Sydney journalist says: "Max is a showman. He works to a different set of rules."

A PR agent says: "He calls himself a celebrity agent, but he's a publicist. People go to him for publicity, not for career advice."

Peter Wilkinson says of the recent scandal: "The focus should have been kept on whoever did the wrong thing by releasing the photo. Lara should have done no media whatsoever. Her support staff should have been completely invisible. And no money should have changed hands."

(Bingle reportedly received $200,000 for the Woman's Day interview.) Instead, Wilkinson says, "the media went feral and Bingle's people lost control of the story".

Even off the record, though, no one has a bad word for Markson personally.

"He's funny, he's entertaining, he's got great energy. He hasn't got a malicious bone in his body," says one publicist. Clients speak of his unwavering loyalty, and everyone praises his charity work.

Markson, who has two daughters, one a journalist, with his former wife, says he has given more than $40 million to charity.

Inevitably, comparisons are made with the other Max: Max Clifford, Britain's best known publicist. Clifford, too, courts controversy: he represents convicted and alleged criminals, sells celebrity kiss-and-tell interviews and invented the infamous "Freddie Starr ate my hamster" story.

But he appears altogether more Machiavellian than Markson. He worked to bring Labour to power in 1997 and has allegedly played a role in a number of political resignations. As an operator, he is far slicker and more polished than Markson.

Markson insists Bingle will not be dishing the dirt on herself and Clarke, and nor will her family - contrary to media reports that her mother and elder brother, represented by a supposed family friend, Pat Shiels, have offered the story to the highest bidder.

"That's entirely false," Markson said. "Lara doesn't know anyone called Pat Shiels, nobody knows him." Also untrue, he says, is the story that Bingle flushed her engagement ring down the toilet - "a made-up sham by some plumbers", according to Markson.

Whether Bingle's career will crash or flourish as a result of recent events remains to be seen. Most people in the business expect the former. Markson is optimistic. "I don't wish to herald our future plans for Lara Bingle in the Herald," he says.

"But I think she's got a fantastic future ahead of her. She's one of the hottest stars in the region. She's got a tremendous profile. She's very talented, very beautiful, very intelligent.

"She's also a very brave girl, standing up for her rights and taking on Fevola. I think she should be respected and admired for that. I look forward to bringing her to New Zealand."

Jim McNamara, professor of public communication at the University of Technology Sydney, says of the affair:

"We can't just blame the publicist; it's part of our whole obsession with celebrity. The public has an enormous appetite for celebrity gossip and stories, and that leads to the desire for publicity and to the stories that appear in these magazines. We are all complicit in the culture of celebrity."