Allan Mayer

Described by the ABC-TV news magazine “20/20” as “the man to call if you’re a star facing scandal,” Mayer has personally provided crisis management counsel to such high-profile individuals as Halle Berry, Toni Braxton, Erin Brockovich, Johnny Depp, David Duchovny, Eminem, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, R. Kelly, Tommy Lee, Rush Limbaugh, Paula Poundstone, Steven Spielberg, Harvey Weinstein, and the cast of “The Simpsons.” He has also advised such institutional clients as Imagine Entertainment, Interscope Records, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Major League Baseball Players Association, MGM, Miramax Films, William Morris Agency, MTV Networks, New Line Cinema, the Recording Industry Association of America, Revolution Studios, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, VH1, and the Writers Guild of America.

Among other things, Mayer has become the “go-to” crisis strategist for both movie studios and filmmakers, helping them deal with the journalistic and political controversies surrounding a long list of major motion pictures (including “Erin Brockovich,” “Black Hawk Down,” “A Beautiful Mind,” Steven Spielberg’s “Munich,” and “The Da Vinci Code”). In addition, he has served as strategic consultant to a number of successful Academy Awards campaigns (including those for “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” and Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist”).

Mayer also has extensive experience in non-entertainment-related crisis work, including advising the City of Riverside, California, in the aftermath of the 1998 Tyisha Miller shooting; helping both Yahoo! Inc. and RealNetworks Inc. deal with online-privacy issues; counseling a number of Coca-Cola subsidiaries on labor issues; helping the University of Southern California deal with academic integrity issues regarding student athletes; and supervising media strategy for the unfairly accused – and ultimately vindicated – nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee.

A graduate of Cornell University, Mayer has been a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal; a writer, foreign correspondent, and senior editor of Newsweek; and the founding editor (and later publisher) of Buzz magazine. He has also served as editorial director of Arbor House Publishing Co. and senior editor of Simon & Schuster. The author of two books – Madam Prime Minister: Margaret Thatcher and Her Rise to Power (Newsweek Books, 1980) and Gaston’s War (Presidio Press, 1987) – he is also co-author, with Michael S. Sitrick, of Spin: How To Turn The Power of the Press to Your Advantage (Regnery, 1998). In addition, he has written for a wide variety of national publications, ranging from The New York Times Magazine to Vogue.

A recipient of numerous professional honors, including the National Magazine Award, the Overseas Press Club Citation of Excellence, and six William Allen White Awards, Mayer serves on the Board of Directors of Film Independent (FIND) and lectures regularly on crisis management and communications at UCLA’s Anderson School of Business and USC’s Annenberg School of Communication.