Max Clifford

Maxwell Frank Clifford (6 April 1943 – 10 December 2017) was an English publicist who was particularly associated with promoting " kiss and tell" stories in tabloid newspapers.

In December 2012, as part of Operation Yewtree, Clifford was arrested on suspicion of sexual offences. He was sentenced to eight years in prison in May 2014 after being found guilty of eight counts of indecent assault on four girls and women aged between 15 and 19. He died in December 2017 after suffering a heart attack in HM Prison Littlehey.

Early life

Maxwell Frank Clifford was born in Kingston upon ThamesMax Clifford and Angela Levin ''Max Clifford: Read All About it!'' Virgin Books, 2005, () on 6 April 1943, the son of Lilian (''née'' Boffee) and electrician Frank Clifford.Anon (2017) He was the youngest of four children, with one sister and two brothers. The family survived their father's regular bouts of unemployment, gambling, and alcoholism with the help and support of their grandmother and Clifford's sister, who was employed as a PA to the London Vice-President of Morgan Guarantee Trust Bank. Clifford left school at 15 with no qualifications, and he was sacked within four months of his first job at Ely's department store in Wimbledon. His brother Bernard used his print union connections to secure Clifford a job as editorial assistant on the ''Eagle''. When the publication moved premises, Clifford decided to take redundancy, buying his first house and finding work with the ''South London Press'' to train as a journalist.

Career

Early work as a publicist

After working in newspapers for a few years, writing an occasional record/music column and running a disco, Clifford replied to an advertisement and joined as the second member of the EMI press office in 1962, under Chief Press Officer Syd Gillingham. As the youngest and the only trained journalist in a team of four, Clifford claimed he was given the job of promoting the then relatively unknown Beatles, including during their first tour of the United States.

After Gillingham left EMI, he asked Clifford to join him at Chris Hutchins's PR agency. Among the artists they represented were Paul and Barry Ryan, who introduced Clifford to their stepfather, impresario Harold Davidson, who handled the UK affairs of Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland.

In 1970, aged 27, and after Gillingham retired, Clifford left Hutchins and started his own agency, Max Clifford Associates. Based in the offices of Joe Cocker's manager, he started off by representing Sinatra, Cocker, Paul and Barry Ryan, Don Partridge, and Marvin Gaye. He later also represented Muhammad Ali and Marlon Brando.

Pamella Bordes

Clifford was approached by a brothel madame, who had provided one of Clifford's clients with various services, worried about publicity from an investigative reporter from the ''News of the World''. Clifford asked the madame to reveal details of her girls and clients, and found that one prostitute, Pamella Bordes, was simultaneously dating Andrew Neil (then editor of ''The Sunday Times''), Donald Trelford (then editor of ''The Observer''), Conservative minister for sport Colin Moynihan, and billionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. Clifford rang ''News of the World'' editor Patsy Chapman and drip-fed her the story of Bordes through the investigative reporter she was using on the madam. The story was published in March 1989 under the headline "Call Girl Works in Commons", since it was discovered she had a House of Commons security pass arranged by MPs David Shaw and Henry Bellingham. Clifford claimed Bordes was never his client, and that he earned his fee for "writing" the story, which ultimately served the purpose of saving the madame from any adverse publicity or court case.

Clients

Clifford came to public attention after creating the infamous "Freddie Starr ate my hamster" headline for '' The Sun'' in an effort to draw attention to his client, Freddie Starr. In May 2006 the BBC
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