Report of Kidman’s Studio Arena crusade called fake
A widely circulated report that actress Nicole Kidman is coming to the aid of Studio Arena Theatre appears to have been fabricated.
The report, posted to the Web site PR-inside.com at 8:20 Saturday night, claims that Kidman told reporters during a rehearsal break in London that she “expressed hope that one or more ‘hugely charismatic New York City theater figures . . . pass the hat’ ” for Buffalo’s struggling playhouse. But the article also contains an alleged quote from Kidman that mirrors, verbatim, a comment made by the theater’s managing director, Iain Campbell, in July and printed in The Buffalo News.
Catherine Olim, Kidman’s publicist, told The News she found the story “highly suspect” and noted that Kidman did not arrive in London until Monday. That contradicts the claim that Kidman spoke to reporters in London on Saturday.
“We have no knowledge of this, and [Kidman] is filming out of the country. If we find out, we’ll let you know if it’s true or not,” Olim wrote in an e-mail.
Kathleen Gaffney, Studio Arena artistic director and CEO, told The News on Sunday: “We are so thrilled! This is for real.”
But she said Monday that she became aware of the dubious nature of the report and was investigating it with her staff.
“It came out of the blue,” Gaffney said Monday. “What I’m wondering is who would do this? Who would go to all of this trouble to do this to humiliate Studio Arena?”
Later, asked if the publicity would provide a boost for Studio Arena regardless of its truth, Gaffney said, “It did not come from us.”
In a word-for-word repetition of a statement from Campbell that ran in a News story last month, the online report quotes Kidman as saying, “I can’t imagine Chicago without the Goodman and I couldn’t imagine Houston without the Alley.”
The report, which circulated to several online gossip sites and was later picked up by local television stations and this newspaper, is attributed to an organization called Mirror Entertainment (America), the existence of which could not be verified through Web searches.
The contact information for the company at the end of the report lists a man named Adam Templeton and a phone number that, when dialed, led to a company called Great Places Publishing. Richard Thorne, the company’s owner, said no one named Adam Templeton worked there.
Another number listed in the report under the heading “author” provided a contact number that turned out to be a grocery store in Texas. “We don’t have anybody by that name here,” a store employee said.
The site, PR-inside.com, describes itself as a “website for the free submission of public relations distribution, news and press releases.” After signing up for the service, anyone with an e-mail address can submit and publish a news article or press release, which is posted to the site without apparent editorial oversight.
The story announces itself as a “Mirror Exclusive” and starts with the byline “Tom Robbins/ Entertainment Reporter.” Reports that the story originally appeared in London’s Mirror newspaper could not be confirmed, nor could any mention of the story on the Mirror’s Web site, and searches for a reporter named Tom Robbins at the newspaper came up blank.
There is a reporter named Tom Robbins who writes for the Village Voice in New York City, who said that he was not the author in question. “If it was me I must’ve gotten so hammered at the pubs I forgot the trip, and the interview,” Robbins said. “Hate it when that happens.”
When asked about the similarity between his July quote and Kidman’s alleged statement, Campbell said he was surprised.
“It raised my eyebrows too,” Campbell said. “I don’t know if it’s wrong. Yesterday, we had Channel 2 News come out to the Elmwood Arts Festival and ask us all these questions about it. How are we supposed to know? We are also working to corroborate the story.”
Campbell said that as far as he knew, no one representing Kidman has been in touch with the theater.
“As for whether it’s a hoax, I can’t comment on that. I can’t speculate,” Campbell said. “All I can say is something is finally diverting this community’s attention to a very just cause.”
