He once described himself as the ‘image maker and image breaker of the 21st century’ but Max Clifford suffered a spectacular fall from grace which earned the sort of front-page publicity he toiled to earn – and avoid – for his celebrity clients.
Rarely pictured without a high-profile associate on his arm, the shamed publicity puppet master built an empire which made him one of the most influential and prominent figures in the UK media.
From promiscuous stars to beleaguered politicians, Clifford could command hundreds of thousands of pounds for his services at the height of his career.
But in the years prior to his death at the age of 74, allegations began to emerge that would later dismantle his multi-million pound brand.
At the height of his career, Max Clifford (pictured in 2003) built an empire which made him one of the most influential and prominent figures in the UK media
Clifford represented Rebecca Loos (pictured together in 2004), who was on his books since her alleged affair with David Beckham in 2004
The PR guru also represented Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty (pictured together in 2009) – thought they later parted ways
At his peak, Clifford was raking in £2.5million a year – buying two large homes in Surrey, one of which was valued at £3.5 million.
He also owned a £1.5million house at an exclusive golf development in Spain and bought a new £200,000 Bentley every two years.
The PR-guru crafted a reputation for garnering maximum exposure for the fame-hungry wannabes in his charge, while maximising his extensive Fleet Street contacts to help keep other clients off the front pages when needed.
His CV – much of which he regaled in subsequent court cases as well as his autobiography Read All About It – boasted an impressive roster of one-time clients.
He sent press releases about the Beatles’ debut single Love Me Do to record company bosses.
He counted Muhammad Ali, Frank Sinatra and Chelsea Football Club as clients at the height of his career.
And his work was immortalised when a tabloid newspaper published the front page headline Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster – a story the publicist later admitted was a complete fallacy.
But when the tables turned, with Clifford becoming the story, he found himself on the receiving end of untruths – about the size of his penis (descriptions in court varying from ‘tiny’ to ‘enormous’, but being settled by a doctor as ‘average’).
Clifford was one of the most infamous publicists in the game – counting O.J. Simpson (pictured in 1996), among his clients
Louis Theroux with Clifford in 2002. Clifford once said: ‘I was always instinctively good at lying,’ Clifford would later reveal, adding with characteristic self-justification: ‘As long as your distortion of the truth isn’t harming anyone, it’s fine.’
Ted Francis and Max Clifford (pictured in November 1999) arriving at Talk Radio to talk about Jeffrey Archer
There was further irony that, having spent decades exposing the intimate parts of other people’s lives, one of Clifford’s most personal details – his manhood – attracted considerable tabloid attention during his 2014 trial. He would eventually be convicted of eight counts.
Born on April 6 1943 in Surrey, the youngest of four children, Clifford said he grew up in relative poverty, his father being a milkman and a gambler, while his mother took in lodgers for extra cash.
He left school at 15 with no qualifications and trained as a journalist after he was sacked from his first job as a shop assistant in a department store.
He went on to work for EMI in 1962 before branching out on his own and setting up Max Clifford Associates in 1970.
Clifford’s extensive contacts in Fleet Street – he described himself as ‘often poacher and gamekeeper at the same time’ – meant he was increasingly turned to as a commentator on matters involving the media.
When aged celebrities began being arrested on suspicion of sex crimes, Clifford took to the radio claiming that former household names were ‘frightened to death’ of falling under suspicion.
Former secretary at the Football Asociation, Faria Alam with Clifford outside his offices in New Bond Street in August 2004
Former American football player O.J. Simpson arriving in the UK with Clifford
The shamed publicist with Valerie Campbell – the mother of supermodel Naomi Campbell
Operation Yewtree was launched in October 2012 by Scotland Yard after Jimmy Savile was finally exposed as a prolific paedophile in an ITV documentary.
Days after the inquiry started, Clifford appeared on LBC and said in the 1960s and 1970s some stars ‘never asked for anybody’s birth certificate’.
He would have a child of his own, Louise, who suffered severe physical difficulties from birth which meant Clifford – who was teetotal because he ‘didn’t like the taste of it’ – would wake several times in the night to tend to her. She was a regular visitor in the public gallery during Clifford’s court cases, supporting her father.
Clifford’s first wife, Liz, died in 2003, having been cheated on repeatedly during their near-40 years of matrimony.
Clifford, a self-confessed ‘ringmaster’ at sex parties he organised, would re-marry in 2010, tying the knot with his former PA Jo Westwood.
By the time he appeared in court to successfully defend a historic accusation of indecent assault on a teenage girl in 2016, Clifford had swapped rubbing shoulders with A-list clients and reality TV stars for fellow inmates at the Category C Littlehey prison in Cambridgeshire.
Clifford, 74, died in hospital on December 10 after collapsing at Littlehey Prison in Cambridgeshire
He vowed to clear his name – claiming he was wrongfully convicted in 2014 – and said he was ‘an easy target’ for financially motivated fantasists.
And while his defence that he was wrongly convicted of all allegations remained as vehement as ever, his resistance to the ageing process did not have the same stoicism.
Face drawn and body withered – Clifford told jurors he had lost two stone in weight since being jailed – the only colour left in his face was the final dark hues from his once bushy, jet black eye brows.
The deep tan was gone, replaced with a skin tone more befitting someone whose freedom was restricted to, he said, 30 minutes outside of a cell per day at times.
Defence counsel Sarah Forshaw QC warned jurors of Clifford’s short attention span, and of likely memory lapses owing to her client’s age and the time which had elapsed between alleged incident and the court appearance.
His power of recall showed little signs of wear, however, when it came to name-dropping famous former clients.
His breathless evidence was punctuated by celebs until he was asked, almost wearily, to desist by his own defence counsel.
And he could not resist the opportunity to spin his moment in the witness box into a publicity push, telling jurors his time in prison was partly spent writing a new book.
Even then, a septuagenarian and a quarter of the way through a lengthy jail term, Clifford remained unrepentant, unrelenting, and unable to let a PR opportunity pass.
Clifford, 74, died in hospital on December 10 after collapsing at Littlehey Prison in Cambridgeshire.