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From E!’s True Hollywood Story:
Starmaker Jay Bernstein stands out.
Jay: “I had a midas touch. If I told people, this one is going to be a star, they didn’t argue with me.”
He’s a gun toting, cane weidling publicist/manager, a self proclaimed star making machine. In the last 40 years, he’s masterminded the careers of Farrah Fawcett, Suzanne Somers, Stacy Keach, Linda Evans and Robert Conrad. To some he’s a tyranical Svengali, a blustering self promoter. To others, he’s a clear-sighted genius with a golden touch.
Natalie and Jerome Bernstein gave birth to Jay in Oklahoma City. Thanks to Jerome’s retail store, the family lived comfortably. It was safe, few people locked their doors and few mothers worked. Only one friend had a single parent.
Young Jay was wildly imaginative. He loved movies. He saw one every day. He had movie star posters in his room. He wanted to be a leading man but he lacked the right look. Jay did great Dean Martin imitations. He performed at school assemblies.
In the 1950s, he attended Pomono College where he majored in history. He graduated in 1960. He took a job in the mailroom at William Morris talent agency in Beverly Hills. He got fired for wrecking a car. Jay then cried his way into a job. TV producer Sheldon Leonard landed him a position at the big publicist Rogers & Cowan. Bernstein represented the Rat Pack of Sammy Davis Jr and Frank Sinatra.
Jay represented blonde bombshell Jayne Mansfield.
Jay: “The reason that I quit Rogers & Cowan is that I was raped by Jayne Mansfield. It was a friendly rape. I was living with an actress girlfriend who was very jealous. She said that if I handled Jayne Mansfield one more day, she’d leave. So I quit and then I opened my office in my girlfriend’s spare bedroom.”
The couple soon split. Sammy Davis Jr came with Jay and many more big stars such as Peter Fonda, Robert Conrad and Joan Collins. Sammy gave Jay his first cane.
Jay’s sister: “Jay loves to be seen.”
Jay: “I found the people around me were not as educated as I was on what makes a star.”
Bernstein worked day and night. His life became a nonstop series of parties. He took up big game hunting to please client William Holden. He added Shirley MacLaine, Ron Howard and Isaac Hayes.
In 1975, Jay burned out and decided to become a manager. He took on Lee Majors and his wife Farrah Fawcett.
Blonde, blue-eyed and beautiful, Farrah, 30, struggled for years to make it in Hollywood.
Jay: “She had a golden glow. I realized that she could be the biggest star in the world. I felt a legend was being born.”
Jay learned that Farrah had shot a TV pilot Charlie’s Angels.
Jay: “The poster [of Farrah] was not my idea. The promotion of the poster was my idea. I’d say that hundreds of thousands went through their first sexual experience with Farrah Fawcett. She just wasn’t there.”
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