Polaris PR CEO Staci Wolfe Retires; Alana Kass Takes Over Client List That Includes Steve Buscemi, Tim Roth, Allen & Albert Hughes, Gordon Ramsay, David Copperfield, Gary Sinise & More
01.11.2023 - 16:12
/ deadline.com
Staci Wolfe is retiring. She’s the founder/CEO of Polaris PR, the agency that reps such talent as Steve Buscemi, Tim Roth, filmmakers Allen & Albert Hughes, Gary Sinise, David Copperfield, Matt Dillon, Eric Bana, Aaron Eckhart, Donal Logue, and Gordon Ramsay. Her longtime associate Alana Kass will take the helm of the agency.
Kass joined Polaris in 2011 after working for several years with the late awards consultant Ronni Chasen, and she has been instrumental in the campaigns of all of the company’s clients as well as her own roster including Jonathan Van Ness.
While the twin strikes, social media toxicity and polarized world probably has plenty of Hollywood vets counting the days until that gold watch, Wolfe’s story is different. She’s only 56, and has long been a preeminent publicist. But she has been at it for 34 years and hung on to a vow she made to herself, to leave while still young enough to enjoy retirement. Her mother’s death forged that urgency.
Wolfe started career in 1989 as an intern at Levine/Schneider while at USC and caught on there as a junior publicist and created a “Breakout Division” at the company, traveling from festival to festival during her vacation time to sign emerging talent including Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, The Hughes Bros, Edward Furlong, and Sandra Bullock. She teamed with one of my all-time favorite publicists, the late Eddie Michaels, and Karynne Tencer, and then peeled off to form Polaris and rep a small group of clients that included Kevin Spacey, whom she repped by 22 years.
Why leave? Turns out it has been on her mind since those early days.
“When I turned 16 years old, my mother told me to walk down Ventura Blvd, and not come home until I had a job,” she said. “So that’s