Peter Thompson, Stage Publicist Who Put Andrew Lloyd Webber, Cameron Mackintosh & Mega Musicals On The Theatrical Map, Dies Aged 81

Peter Thompson, who was the foremost West End stage publicist for four decades, and the man who orchestrated publicity for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, and his other hits, has died. He was 81. His husband Stephen Barton confirmed the news to Deadline.

Thompson also launched Cameron Mackintosh’s hit musicals Les Misérables and Miss Saigon. He was friendly with all the theatrical giants, from Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Vanessa Redgrave and Trevor Nunn. He worked with everyone until he closed his business about a decade ago following a botched spinal operation.  

When Judy Craymer put on the ABBA musical Mamma Mia!, she turned to Thompson, who helped create a campaign that went a long way to the show becoming a colossal hit. He looked after, by and large, every major musical and straight play that came to London, certainly between the late 1970s and 2010.

Barton, who partnered Thompson for 45 years – they married 22 years ago – said that Thompson died on Wednesday night. “He passed peacefully in his sleep,” Barton said.

It’s difficult to convey Thompson’s impact on London’s theatrical landscape. He was always more than just a PR. He was advisor, hand-holder, and occasionally show-doctor – a titan of the industry whose brutally honest assessments of productions sometimes angered creatives and producers, but they’d later thank him, often back-handedly, especially if his advice saved their show.

Thompson could stand at the back of a theater to watch a first preview and he would instantly know whether or not he had a hit on his hands. It could either be fixed or it couldn’t. “It hasn’t got a fucking chance,” he’d say of a show, or “this one’s special, it’ll be around for a while.”

When he took on Phantom of the Opera he came up with the idea of taking this reporter, along with Lloyd Webber, Mackintosh, Michael Crawford, Sarah Brightman, to do a world-exclusive photoshoot at the Paris Opera. He knew how to pull off a big idea in the years before social media. Great photographs were essential, he’d always say. Get them on page one or as a center spread in a national newspaper – or all of them at once – and the box-office tills would start ringing.

Peacemaker

He was also a peacemaker and would help lower the temperature when an angry star would fall out with a director or a producer. Often both at the same time.

“He made producers look great because he got it,” said Amanda Malpass, who was Thompson’s deputy for many years before setting up her own shop several years ago.

When producers Michael Medwin and Robert Fox decided to present Julian Mitchell’s play Another Country at the Queen’s Theatre in 1982 , transferring it from Greenwich Theatre worked and they hired Thompson.

The show had no stars, just a bunch of, then, very much unknown actors like Daniel Day-Lewis, Colin Firth, Kenneth Branagh, David Parfitt, and Rupert Everett, but Thompson came up with the idea of presenting them as a new class of thespians, the rest is history.

Their careers took off.

Branagh and Parfitt became firm friends and launched the Renaissance Theatre Company for which they asked Thompson to handle publicity. The troupe, which included Judi Dench and Emma Thompson, took off and soon the company was performing around the UK and in the West End. 

He also worked closely with the producer Thelma Holt and he publicized all of her shows, some of which starred Redgrave.

They were to become great friends, not least because both enjoyed a good smoke. Sometimes the actress and the publicist would talk well into the night, going through packets of cigarettes. Redgrave used to call him up for advice on how to spread the word about an upcoming protest march she was helping to organize or a special one-night show to raise funds for a favourite cause.

She rarely paid him but he was happy to help.

Peter Thompson studied psychology at Sussex University in the early 1960s when it was a radical outpost on the south-east coast. He thrived and was introduced to musicians who later introduced him to the likes of Peter Gabriel when he was frontman for Genesis. Thompson handled their early campaigns. It was Thompson who told Tammy Wynette to release D-I-V-O-R-C-E  as a single. 

He got his start though with the film and theater publicist Theo Cowan. Cowan would often send Thompson “because he was young and pretty,” Malpass explained, to meet Hollywood legends such as Judy Garland, Ginger Rodgers, Lana Turner at the airport or to Southampton docks to meet them if they were coming off one of the ocean-going liners from New York.

Later, Thompson set up shop for himself taking on most of the number-one shows that came into town.

He befriended Lloyd Webber early on in the composer’s career. One day, Lloyd Webber asked Thompson if he could recommend a young producer he could work with on a musical he was developing based on T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. Without hesitation, he suggested Cameron Mackintosh and facilitated their introduction.

Thompson often represented Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Barbra Streisand and Shirley MacLaine when they were doing shows and events in London. That degree in psychology came in handy when dealing with personalities in the entertainment industry. Often, he’d hand deliver or post letters to both parties in a dispute, telling them that a lunch had been organized for them to sit down, break bread and try and settle their differences. Throw in a bottle, or two, or three, of wine, and whatever the problem was it was soon forgotten in a smokey Soho joint.

Thompson was old school and came from an analog age. He didn’t type, he just dictated everything to an assistant. He’d rather chat on the telephone or go and meet clients and journalists for lunch, a drink or a bite to eat after a show.

For decades, he was the go-to West End publicist even though his direct manner sometimes rubbed people up the wrong way, particularly American producers, who didn’t know how to respond when they’d ask a question and he’d respond cheerfully: “Fuck knows.”

For all his success – once upon a time he owned properties in Mayfair, Notting Hill and Marylebone – when he could’ve swanned around in a limo, or taken taxis, he’d hop on a bus. “It’s f***ing faster, and cheaper,” he’d state.

On a Saturday morning, when he was king of the West End, he enjoyed nothing more than leaving his home to go and clean his office. “At least I’d know it was f***ing clean,” he’d reason.

Theater lights should be dimmed in his honor. He was that big.