Background:
LOS ANGELES—It
takes hard work and networking to
get ahead in the motion picture industry,
says Rosalind Stevenson, president/CEO,
Roz Stevenson Public Relations in
Los Angeles. To ensure her success
in all her endeavors, she has also
faithfully followed her mother’s
mantra: “You do all you can
and God will do the rest.” And
it has paid off in an exciting career,
publicizing and promoting major motion
pictures to an African American audience.
Still,
Stevenson is quick to admit--though
she has worked hard for her success--she
has also been very lucky. “I
never considered publicity,”
she says of her more than 20-year
career as a publicist. “It just
fell into my lap.”
Today,
as head of her own public relations
firm, Stevenson is presently working
on six major projects, including the
upcoming film on the late Ray Charles,
“Ray,” starring Jamie
Foxx; “White Chicks,”
starring Shawn and Marlon Wayans;
and “Friday Night Lights.”
While her major client is Universal
Studios, Stevenson has promoted films
for Sony, DreamWorks, Screen Gems
and HBO, as well.
Stevenson is thrilled to be promoting
“Ray,” a film she is convinced
will rocket Jamie Foxx, who is portraying
Charles, “to the top of the
pile” among Hollywood stars.
“Jamie Foxx is going to be up
for an Oscar,” says Stevenson.
“And this performance is out
of this world. I guarantee that.”
Stevenson has plans for a major publicity
and promotions campaign for “Ray,”
supported by Universal and designed
to “position Jamie (Foxx) in
a prestigious manner,” most
especially before a black audience.
Upcoming promotional screenings--intended
to generate interest among blacks--will
be held at the National Black Arts
Festival in Atlanta this month and
for members of the National Association
of Black Journalists, Gospel Workshop
of America and The Congressional Black
Caucus.
“We know how to reach out to
black people,” says Stevenson.
“You have to find something
that will interest our community.”
When Stevenson founded her firm in
2000, with Universal as her sole client,
Hollywood was ignorant of the African
American press, and didn’t consider
a need to look at the black audience
as a “special market.”
“I always saw that the African
American press was not being serviced
by the studios,” says Stevenson.
“Their whole thing was that
mainstream publicity efforts would
reach the black community—which
is not so.
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