Do you know what Kim Kardashian’s profession was when she met Paris? He commissioned wardrobes for celebrities,” Elliot Mintz – famous publicist and consultant to the stars Paris Hilton, Bob Dylanand John Lennon and Yoko Ono trust me with Italian food and chardonnay. “He was hired by someone to build a big closet for Paris.”

We’re in the dining room of his house on Mulholland Drive. Built in 1982, it features a tennis court on stilts (Mintz has used the property only four times since purchasing it in 1991) and high white walls covered in lithographs by his favorite artist, Tamara de Lempicka. Jack Nicholson lives in driveway 12 of the road. “He bought that house with his money” Easy Driving Money in the 60s,” he tells me.

Mintz, 79, and I have been chatting, gossiping, reminiscing for more than four hours. This is what he does best; First as a radio host in Los Angeles in the late ’60s, then as KABC’s entertainment reporter in the ’70s, he interviewed hundreds of prominent figures, from John Wayne to Groucho Marx to Jayne Mansfield to Salvador Dalí.

To millennials, he is probably best known for his later incarnation as Hilton’s publicist; Simple Life who initially dutifully followed the heiress to Hyde every night and arranged for her to be photographed with Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan. Mintz was in the backseat when three squabbling party monsters shared an SUV ride — an SUV ride dubbed “BIMBO SUMMIT.” New York Post.

“Let them in, if they are drunk or intoxicated, take them out with the utmost dignity,” Mintz explains of their mission. “Maybe a little smile for the guy across the street,” he adds, referring to Harvey Levin. TMZ At that time the offices were directly across from Hyde.

“Then we move on to after-work parties, which we do until 5 in the morning,” he continues. “I would make sure he came home, let him in the house, the locks were locked, the cat was there, and the daddies were just outside the garage but not inside the garage. When he was arrested, I drove him home from the Hollywood area. “Those were tiring times.”

Surprisingly, this is all just a minor deviation from the main topic of the conversation: Mintz’s new memoirs. We All Shine: John, Yoko and Me (Dutton).

The book traces the beginning of Mintz’s reinvention as a media consultant. It all started in 1971, when Yoko Ono, sensing that a radio interview with Mintz was going extremely well, began calling him regularly and engaging in hour-long conversations about whatever was occupying her eccentric mind at the time.

Before long, her husband, John Lennon, called to inquire about an injectable substance that Mintz had told Yoko about, which was said to melt away body fat. This was half a century before the Ozempic boom, and what Mintz was describing was hCG, a hormone derived from the urine of pregnant women. The effect was sketchy at best, but Lennon, preoccupied with his weight, didn’t seem to care. But the injections scared him away from treatment.

The couple then called Mintz daily — sometimes together, more often apart, often in the dead of night — and engaged him in free-associative, sometimes exploratory conversations. The phone was ringing so frequently that Mintz had to install a second private line to his small house in Laurel Canyon; A red light would come on every time John or Yoko called. Being John Fucking Lennon (and Yoko Ono), Mintz found he could never say no.

They met in person in Ojai in 1972. For the next eight years, Mintz became the couple’s best friend and most trusted confidant. She served as counselor and intermediary when the marriage became difficult. And when John was murdered outside the Dakota on December 8, 1980, Mintz stepped in to be Yoko’s rock star and father figure to the couple’s young son, Sean. Mintz was also enlisted in the days after the murder to inventory all of John’s belongings, including the former Beatle’s blood-splattered glasses. (She still represents the Lennon estate and remains extremely close to Sean, now 49, who encouraged her to write the book.)

“I fell in love with them,” Mintz explains. “I thought we were married. Not in a sexual way. But we shared everything with each other.

After Lennon, Mintz continued as a media consultant for other notable entertainment figures, including Diana Ross and Dylan; He says Lennon always held a petty grudge against them. “John was just jealous of Bob,” he explains. “Because the way Bob was perceived was the exact opposite of how John was perceived. Bob appeared out of nowhere and hitchhiked to New York with a guitar on his back. John became famous singing ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’. “They were thought of differently.”

Mintz says: “I live alone. I never have to tell them, ‘My wife is expecting.’ ‘No, I can’t be with you at the Oscars on Sunday; This is my child’s football tournament, my daughter’s ballet final.’ Or ‘No, I can’t talk to you at 5am; There’s someone lying next to me.’ I never said that. “I took everything very seriously.”

“It’s almost like you took a religious vow,” I noted.

“The oath was exactly like that,” he says. “It was a commitment. So the question arises: Was it all worth it?” He takes a sip of his Chardonnay. “But do I have an answer for that? I don’t.”

This story appeared in the October 23 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.