I owe Theo Cowan a job I never got…
I owe Theo Cowan a job I never got.
At twenty, I tried to persuade him to employ me. Instead, he gently redirected me to Stratford East, deciding my maverick instincts would be better deployed somewhere noisier and less upholstered. He was right. He usually was.
Theo Cowan affable, amused, instinctively civil was Britain’s first proper PR superstar. Before launching his consultancy in the 1960s, he ran publicity at Rank Films, home of the legendary Rank Charm School. Its graduates included Diana Dors, Honor Blackman and Sylvia Syms. Rank borrowed shamelessly from Hollywood: recruit the young, the pretty (and occasionally the talent-optional), then teach them how to walk, talk, behave and, most importantly, how not to frighten journalists.
Cowan understood something we now appear determined to forget: charm isn’t decorative. It’s load-bearing.
His power wasn’t bullying, nor the modern preference for “owning the narrative” by setting fire to it. He persuaded. He listened. He seduced headlines rather than waterboarding them. “It’s not enough to conquer,” Voltaire said. “One must learn to seduce.” Cowan took notes.
Fast-forward to now, where scorched-earth communication is mistaken for strength, and decency is treated as a suspicious affectation. Charm has been replaced by volume. Listening by podcasting. Politeness by a thread.
Which is why, on Wednesday night at Night Manager 2 premiere, something genuinely unexpected occurred.
Before stepping onto the photocall, Tom Hiddleston walked over to the photographers that familiar human hedgerow of people normally addressed only by barking publicists and shook every single one of their hands. Thanked them. Made eye contact. Took his time.
It cost nothing. It bought everything.
This wasn’t PR judo. Just someone who understands that fame is a collaborative enterprise, not a solo act with supporting furniture.
Hiddleston gets it.
He understands that charm doesn’t mean deceit or manipulation. It means grasping that power, reputation and attention operate within an ecosystem. Ignore it, bully it, or treat it with contempt, and it will eventually eat you — preferably on camera.
He also understands that reputation isn’t built from the red carpet outward but sideways: in how you treat people when there’s nothing obvious to gain. Politeness, deployed confidently, is authority with manners. Generosity is leverage that doesn’t leave fingerprints.
I’ve seen this behaviour before from Roger Moore, a man who could dominate a room without dominating the people in it. Coincidentally Moore was shaped by Cowan’s thinking.
In a brutal age of open opinion, algorithmic outrage and professional offence-taking, charm remains a survival skill. The extra mile still matters. Politeness is not retro. Generosity is not weakness.
Tom Hiddleston didn’t just turn up to a premiere this week. He quietly reminded everyone how grown-ups used to behave and why, inconveniently, it still works.
Theo would have approved.