Steve Hannagan
Random Notes – Special Issue #1
Random Notes: Here are several items that do not appear in the book but illustrate who Steve Hannagan was.
- Final Event of the 1939 Baseball Centennial
On June 12, 1939, Steve Hannagan brought together at Cooperstown the living members of the Baseball Hall Fame for a photograph. The Encyclopedia Britannia included the photograph in its Book of the Year. Present that day were:
Babe Ruth, Eddie Collins, Connie Mack, Cy Young, Honus Wagner, Grover Alexander, Tris Speaker, George Sisler and Walter Johnson.i
- Why Hannagan called himself a Press Agent and not a Public Relations Consultant
“A public relations consultant is a guy who uses six-syllable words to explain to his client why he can’t get two syllable words into the newspapers.” ii
“A good press agent is only a good newspaperman with some business judgement. “ iii
- What is good publicity?
“Publicity is using thought instead of money. Good publicity is only good news. Tell you story accurately, advantageously, interestingly, and entertainingly and be sure you have a story to tell. Now, I ask you, where the hell is there any magic in that?” iv
- What is not good publicity?
Once, a staff member of Steve’s explained a new publicity idea that he had. “Hannagan said, Sounds good. Is it true? Well-l-l-l. Steve’s voice resounded through his suite of offices. Don’t you ever do anything unethical.”v
- Steve the Cosmopolitan Uplands Hunter
Once Steve won the Coca-Cola account, a seasonal ritual, was a hunting trip on Robert Woodruff’s 47,000-acre plantation – Ichauway. vi The problem is that Hannagan had never hunted, did not know one end of a gun from another, and preferred his outdoors with a whiskey and good friends. To his chagrin, Hannagan took a lot of ribbing about his lack of hunting prowess. He took it all with good cheer knowing the value of the Coca-Cola contract to his firm.
- Hannagan Working for Albert Lasker of Lord & Thomas
“I loved Albert Laker before I worked for him, and I loved him after I worked for him, but I didn’t love him while I was working for him.”vii
- O.O. McIntyre, New York Columnist, Tells Readers about Hannagan
“Steve Hannagan, who for years press-agented Miami Beach and Indianapolis motor races, … [went to work] in the executive office of an advertising agency. But living by rote [was] way too much of a strain on his roaming Irishry, so he burst loose again recently as a professional ballyhooer on his own.”viiiix
- Steve and the Hannagan Beauties of Miami Beach
In the heyday of the Hannagan era at Miami Beach, more than 500 newspapers published his pictures and stories of beauties. Periodicals in England printed his pictures but complained that they weren’t getting enough leg art from him.x
The five major American newsreel companies – Hearst Metrotone, Fox, Pathe, Paramount, and Universal – filmed his Miami Beach women and sent them as part of their weekly newscasts to theaters across the country. These bits from Miami Beach were seen by sixty million movie goers each week.xi
- Hannagan’s Fourth Air Crash!
In 1935, Steve returned from Hollywood by. At 9,000 feet the engines shut down. The pilot successfully landed the plane 21 miles east of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Hannagan’s response to the crash was: Hell, I’ve been in better crashes since 1920. This one was the least spectacular of the four I’ve been in.”xii (When he flew with Eddie Rickenbacker to publicize his new airplane in 1920, they crashed three times after running out of fuel.)
- Sample of Hannagan and Hemingway Correspondence
“Dear Steve” Glad to hear from you kid…. have done sets of galleys, [Across the River and into the Trees] and now waiting for the page proofs. Have worked on it 18 months and gone over it about 200 times and I swear to Christ that when it is finished, I will not go around reading passages from it to my friends at the Stork. I will give Sherman (Billingsley) a copy and if I don’t get … [unreadable word] I [will] refund twice the price of the book….”xiii
- Hannagan Epigram on Value
A well-known news reporter told Hannagan’s Chief Assistant in Hollywood that he would work for free so that he could be with Steve Hannagan. “Hannagan wrote back. Don’t hire him. Anything for free is too expensive.” xiv
- Hannagan Legend vs Real Steve Hannagan
Robert Chernoff, who was hired by one of Hannagan’s Chief Associates, while Hannagan was away from New York.
“A few days later Chernoff was sitting in Smits’s [office] when in strode a ruddy-faced man with a camel’s hair coat and his hat cocked to the left side. Chernoff started to jump to his feet, but the man put his hand on Chernoff’s shoulder and said ‘Sit down …my name’s Steve Hannagan.’ Brought up on a diet of stories about Steve Hannagan, Chernoff hardly could believe his eyes. ‘I guess maybe I expected him to be eight feet tall,’ he said afterword’s. ‘But my first reaction was surprise at this short stature.’ Actually, Steve was of middling height, Chernoff found Hannagan short only by contrast with his image he had of Hannagan.” xv
-
Steve Hannagan Preferred Hoosiers As His Top Staffers
- Hannagan’s Executive Assistant, Margaret Ray, was from Paoli, Indiana.
- His telephone operator was from Indiana.
- Hannagan told Harry Geisler, an eminent attorney from California, that; “If I had my way about it, they’d [all] be from Indiana.”xvi
- Many of Hannagan’s employees thought “that the only way to get ahead in the Hannagan organization was to have been born in Steve’s home state.”xvii
i Ross, Edward Ellis; Unpublished notebook, source; New York University Archives; p. 4.
ii Ross, Edward Ellis; Unpublished notebook, source; New York University Archives; p. 6.
iii Ross, Edward Ellis; Unpublished notebook, source; New York University Archives; p. 6.
iv Ross, Edward Ellis; Unpublished notebook, source; New York University Archives; p. 7.
v Ross, Edward Ellis; Unpublished notebook, source; New York University Archives; p. 12.
vi Ross, Edward Ellis; Unpublished notebook, source; New York University Archives; p. 12
vii Ross, Edward Ellis; Unpublished notebook, source; New York University Archives; p. 149.
viii Ross, Edward Ellis; Unpublished notebook, source; New York University Archives; p. 152.
x Ross, Edward Ellis; Unpublished notebook, source; New York University Archives; p.84.
xi Ross, Edward Ellis; Unpublished notebook, source; New York University Archives; p.85.
xii Ross, Edward Ellis; Unpublished notebook, source; New York University Archives; p. 152.
xiii Ross, Edward Ellis; Unpublished notebook, source; New York University Archives; p. 179.
xiv Ross, Edward Ellis; Unpublished notebook, source; New York University Archives; p. 297.
xv Ross, Edward Ellis; Unpublished notebook, source; New York University Archives; p. 297.
xvi Ross, Edward Ellis; Unpublished notebook, source; New York University Archives; p. 298.
xvii Ross, Edward Ellis; Unpublished notebook, source; New York University Archives; p. 298.
