‘COCOON’ PUBLICITY: TRYING TO REVERSE THE AGING PROCESS

At the recent Production East conference seminar in New York City, Kathie Berlin, president of New York office of the Rogers & Cowan PR firm, offered insight on hustling “Cocoon”: “We are told constantly that the movie-going audience is aged 11 to 16 or 17. . . . On ‘Cocoon,’ we were scared to death because our stars were over 70, and so we never let them show up on anything without one of the younger stars.”

They teamed Don Ameche with Tyrone Power Jr.: “He says one word in the movie (but) he’s in 15 television interviews. He said more in television interviews than in the movie. . . .”

(Something must have worked: The film has grossed $52.4 million at the box office through Monday, said distributor 20th Century Fox.)

Fox chose to “pass” on making any formal comment on the above comment.

But at one point another Fox rep was trying to tabulate interviews with the youngs and the olds. She quipped, “Do Lili and Dick count as one of each?”

The reference was to producers Lili Fini Zanuck, 31, and husband Richard, 50.