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Vale: Suzie Howie

Entertainment publicist Suzie Howie, who worked in theatre and screen industries, has died following a battle with cancer.

Entertainment publicist Suzie Howie, who worked in theatre and screen industries, has died following a battle with cancer, aged 63.

Howie was arguably Melbourne’s leading showbiz publicist, as PR for all the major players in theatre including Cameron Mackintosh, Andrew Lloyd Webber, John Frost, and musicals such as Annie, Cats, Les Miserables and The Phantom of the Opera, Mamma Mia!, Jersey Boys, Wicked and Mary Poppins.

Over 30+ years she publicised more than 600 shows: drama, opera, ballet and circuses and the visits of scores of international celebrities including Sammy Davis, Cher, Kirk Douglas, Paul Hogan, Barry Humphries, Rudolph Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn and even Pope John Paul II.

She represented the films The Man From Snowy River, Crocodile Dundee, Robbery Under Arms, Quigley, and the tv series ANZACs and Winners.

But Howie was also instrumental during the early years of the Australian Children’s Television Foundation.

ACTF CEO Jenny Buckland told TV Tonight, “Suzie was bubbly, effervescent, witty, smart, strategic and a genuinely caring, thoughtful person. As publicist for the ACTF over more than two decades she played a key role in building the organisation’s profile and position. She promoted lots of ACTF TV shows, of course, and came up with all sorts of whacky ideas for launches, in the days when people did that kind of thing: she put David Hill, Hazel Hawke, Janet Holmes a Court and Patricia Edgar on toilet seats for the launch of Round The Twist. But she did much more than that.

“Her first job for the ACTF was promoting a supporters conference back in 1981 before the ACTF was even incorporated, and when the ACTF held the World Summit on Television and Children in Melbourne in 1995 she made sure the Summit was in all the mainstream papers, current affairs shows and talked about on radio all through the week. Suzie is a major player in ACTF history and we are deeply saddened by her passing.”

She once got me to don a Depression costume for the opening night of Annie, milling outside Her Majesty’s Theatre alongside searchlights and vintage cars and welcoming guests.

Working right up until her final project, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, which opens in Melbourne tomorrow night, she even penned her farewell:

“I have had a terrific life and am so grateful for the fun, the excitement and the wonderful people who have been part of it,” she wrote in part.

“Please note – that after 30 years of media calls, press conferences, before and after drinks and all those opening night parties — enough is enough. There will be NO funeral, and certainly no memorial. I am very happy to just float away when called.

“Thank you everyone – and enjoy life. I have.”

Source: The Age, Herald Sun,

2 Responses

  1. Very, very sad to hear this – Suzie was an amazing person, full of passion, eccentricity and energy. I was lucky enough to work with her on several theatre shows, and she was great fun to work and play with. Vale Suzie – hope you’re having a champers somewhere, will be raising a glass to you!

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