Miller's tale: you got a story to sell, get an agent

THERE were 250 people at the launch of Harry M. Miller's autobiography and every one of them had a tale to tell.

THERE were 250 people at the launch of Harry M. Miller's autobiography and every one of them had a tale to tell.

It's a story you'd have to pay to hear, of course. Miller is a celebrity agent and, if you doubt his ability to drag every cent from a yarn, consider this: he's published his second autobiography.

The guest list at last night's launch of Confessions of a Not So Secret Agent was, in some ways, as surreal as Miller's own success story: there were two former prison inmates (Lindy Chamberlain and Miller himself). There were two of Miller's three exes (Deborah Hutton and Wendy LaPointe) and his current girlfriend (Simmone Logue); two sets of people who have had the same job: Peter Meakin and David Leckie (the former and current heads of the Nine Network) and Deborah Thomas and Ita Buttrose (ex-editors of Women's Weekly); and Thredbo survivor Stuart Diver, one of four people Miller has represented after they made a miraculous escape from a disaster.

In his book, Miller tells anybody with a story, no matter how grisly, to get an agent, otherwise the press will eat them alive. Besides, he can get them more money. He tells of one woman, whose children were killed in a violent murder-suicide by her ex-husband, who told her story without getting Miller to broker the deal. "Had we represented this woman, our commission would have been at least four times the amount they paid her in full," he writes.

One of his first big clients was Lindy Chamberlain. He cut the deal with Lindy's then husband, Michael, but, he says, " I didn't like Michael a great deal. I mean, I appreciated that he had been through the emotional and legal wringer but in that very first meeting, he tried to beat down my commission." His next big story was the Ice Man. Shortly after James Scott was found after 43 days in the Himalayas, Miller got a call from the makers of Mars, offering half a million dollars if Scott would say Mars kept him alive. One problem: the chocolate was Cadbury. Miller decided to see whether he could get Cadbury to stump up half a million. Meanwhile, the Nine Network had the first interview with Scott and wanted to get it to air.

Reporter Richard Carleton asked about the chocolate bar, and Scott wouldn't answer because Miller was still trying to nail a deal down.

It made for ugly TV, and Harry still hasn't forgiven Carleton, saying: "That was completely out of line."