THE FAME FORMULA - WHAT MAKES PEOPLE FAMOUS..

THE FAME FORMULA - WHAT MAKES PEOPLE FAMOUS..: "What makes people famous? And once they make it, how do they stay in the public eye? Top PR agent Mark Borkowski has studied the celebrities, crunched the numbers, and come up with a formula

The decline in a star's fame follows a certain trend, and fame can be continued ad infinitum in the hands of a careful, clever 'flack' or publicity agent. I spent a year poring over cuttings, pondering this notion as I studied the various methods and madnesses of the publicist. I started to wonder if Andy Warhol - an artist by calling but a master of the stunt and the sound bite - was right; does everyone get 15 minutes of fame? It occurred to me that it should be possible to look at fame statistically, to analyse the evidence we have all witnessed in the media, to see if fame's decline can be quantified. The answer, I discovered, is that it can be, and that Warhol was partially right - but the first spike of fame will last 15 months, not 15 minutes."