{{Short description|English author and journalist (1941–2024)}} {{distinguish|Chris Hutchings}} {{Use British English|date=June 2019}} {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2024}} {{Infobox person | name = Chris Hutchins | image = | caption = | birth_name = Christopher Neville Hutchins | birth_date = {{Birth date|1941|06|23|df=y}} | death_date = {{Death date and age|2024|06|27|1941|06|23|df=y}} | occupation = {{flatlist| * Author * journalist * public relations practitioner }} | relatives = | credits = ''Sunday Mirror'', ''Daily Express'', ''Today'', ''Punch'' | website = {{URL|http://www.chrishutchins.info/}} }}
'''Christopher Neville Hutchins''' (23 June 1941 – 27 June 2024) was an English author, journalist and public relations practitioner.
==Early life== Hutchins was the younger of two sons and one daughter of Edward Victor Hutchins (d. 1944) and Kathleen Violet Ness (d 1995).<ref name="Hutchins">''Mr Confidential'' – Chris Hutchins (Blake, 2005)</ref> He was educated at Torquay Boys' Grammar School. In 1956, he began a fan club for ventriloquist Terry Hall and Lenny the Lion. Hutchins lost interest when he discovered Elvis Presley and girls.<ref name="Hutchins"/> Hutchins then landed a job as a journalist on the ''Mid Devon Times'' on a salary of £2-a-week.<ref name="Hutchins"/>
In 1961, Hutchins joined the ''NME'' (''New Musical Express'') but left the paper the following year to travel to Hamburg with Little Richard whose autobiography he was ghosting. In the German city, he met and befriended The Beatles – who called him "Crispy Hutch" – and when he rejoined the ''NME'' in 1962 he was assigned to travel with them on all their tours. Having befriended Elvis Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker, and then Presley himself, it was Hutchins who set up a party in Presley's Los Angeles home for the Beatles to meet Presley on Friday 27 August 1965.<ref name="Hutchins"/><ref>''Elvis: His Life From A-Z'' – Fred L. Worth & Steve D. Tamerius (Contemporary Books, 1988)</ref>
==Public relations== In 1966, Hutchins left the ''NME'' where he was news editor to form his own PR company. His first client (on 26 December 1966 for the sum of £25-a-week)<ref name="Ellis">''Tom Jones Close Up'' – Lucy Ellis and Bryony Sutherland (Omnibus, 2000)</ref> was Tom Jones<ref name="Hildred">''Tom Jones: A Biography'' – Stafford Hildred and David Gritten (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1990)</ref> who he represented for the next ten years. It was Hutchins who persuaded Jones's manager Gordon Mills to change the singer's image. Under Hutchins's tutelage, Jones's marriage was played down, his sexuality played up and his availability to the press limited.<ref name="Hutchins"/><ref name="Eggar">''Tom Jones: The Biography'' – Robin Eggar (Headline, 2000)</ref> Since Mills also managed Engelbert Humperdinck and Gilbert O'Sullivan, Hutchins became their PR as well.<ref name="Hildred"/> Other clients included the Bee Gees,<ref name="Ellis"/> Status Quo, the Moody Blues, Procol Harum<ref name="Ellis"/> and Eric Clapton.<ref name="Ellis"/> For a while he also worked for Harold Wilson who became his friend.<ref name="Hutchins"/> Indeed, it was Hutchins's friendship with the prime minister that saved a difficult situation. In April 1974, Tom Jones was kept a virtual prisoner in his suite at the Caracas Hilton in Venezuela during an ill-judged tour and a cable from Hutchins to Wilson helped to ease the wheels of the party's freedom plus a bribe of $12,000.<ref name="Eggar"/>
==Journalism== In 1976, after ten years with Management Agency & Music (MAM) or The Family as Mills's stable of artists was known, Hutchins closed his PR company to return to journalism. On 16 April 1977,<ref>The Family ''Daily Mirror'', 16.4.77</ref> the first of a series of ten articles about The Family was published in the ''Daily Mirror''.<ref name="Hildred"/> On 19 April, Gordon Mills's lawyer, Michael Balin, tried to take out an injunction to prevent the stories but the ''Mirror'' took the case to the High Court where three judges, including Master of the Rolls Lord Denning, found in the newspaper's favour. Gordon Mills flew into Heathrow from Los Angeles threatening to punch Hutchins.<ref name="Hildred"/> The series added 180,000 to the ''Mirror'' circulation.
In May 1981, Hutchins began the gossip column, ''Chris Hutchins Confidential'' in the ''Sunday Mirror''. The column subsequently moved to the ''Daily Express'' in 1986 and the following year to ''Today'' when Rupert Murdoch bought the newspaper. In 1997, ''Confidential'' returned to the ''Sunday Mirror'' after then editor Bridget Rowe saw Hutchins pontificating on a subject on Sky News. The column was lastly revived in Punch, under the editorship of James Steen – who had been one of Hutchins's foot soldiers on ''Today'' – after Garth Gibbs, the former gossip columnist for the ''Daily Mirror'' left the magazine.
==Biographies== After breaking the story of the Duchess of York's affair with the Texan oil billionaire Oscar Wyatt's son Steve,<ref>{{cite news|url=http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/05/29/people.royals.3/ |title=CNN.com – Royals, Part 3: Troubled Times – 3 June 2002 |publisher=CNN |date=3 June 2002 |accessdate=4 May 2010}}</ref> Hutchins wrote his first book ''Fergie Confidential''. That was followed by ''Diana on the Edge'', ''Elvis Meets the Beatles'', ''Athina the Last Onassis'', ''Goldsmith: Money, Women & Power'' and his autobiography ''Mr Confidential''. Mark Bolland, the former deputy private secretary to The Prince of Wales, reviewed the book for ''British Journalism Review'' and wrote:<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bjr.org.uk/data/2005/no4_whittle |title=Journalists as citizens, Stephen Whittle - British Journalism Review Vol. 16, No. 4, 2005 |website=www.bjr.org.uk |access-date=6 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110525142747/http://www.bjr.org.uk/data/2005/no4_whittle |archive-date=25 May 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>
<blockquote> "Chris Hutchins seems to have seen and done it all. As a young reporter he was censured by the NUJ for failing to be deferential enough to Prince Philip. He was there when Elvis met the Beatles. He helped turn Tom Jones into a superstar. He got drunk with Harold Wilson. And he helped Richard Branson take on British Airways."<ref>''Branson'' – Tom Bower (4th Estate, 2000)</ref></blockquote>
Hutchins was criticised by many in showbusiness for breaking confidences. Frank Sinatra was once quoted as saying, "Your secrets are safe with this guy Hutchins, it's the people he tells who are indiscreet."<ref name="Hutchins"/>
Later he turned his attention to Russians Roman Abramovich and Vladimir Putin producing ''Abramovich: The Billionaire from Nowhere'' (with Dominic Midgley) and ''Putin A Biography''. He returned to the British royal family in 2013 with ''Harry The People’s Prince''. As a publisher, Hutchins was responsible for ''The Who Before The Who'', the memoirs of the group’s original drummer, Doug Sandom.
Hutchins died on 27 June 2024, aged 83.<ref>{{Cite web |title=HUTCHINS The Telegraph Announcements |url=https://announcements.telegraph.co.uk/marketplace/advert/hutchins-notices_57930 |access-date=8 July 2024 |website=announcements.telegraph.co.uk}}</ref>
==Published works== *{{cite book |title=Sarah's Story (with Peter Thompson) |publisher=SmithGryphon |location=London |year=1992 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/sarahsstoryduche00hutc/page/272 272] |isbn=1-85685-0-293 |oclc= |doi= |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/sarahsstoryduche00hutc/page/272 }} *{{cite book |title=Diana's Nightmare: The Family (with Peter Thompson) |publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=London |year=1993 |pages=364 |isbn=0-671-71341-8 |oclc= |doi= }} *{{cite book |title=Elvis Meets The Beatles (with Peter Thompson) |publisher=SmithGryphon |location=London |year=1994 |pages=248 |isbn=1-85685-083-8 |oclc= |doi= }} *{{cite book |title=Diana on the Edge: Inside The Mind of the Princess of Wales (with Dominic Midgley) |publisher=SmithGryphon |location=London |year=1996 |pages=216 |isbn=1-85685-122-2 |oclc= |doi= }} *{{cite book |title=Athina: The Last Onassis |publisher=SmithGryphon |location=London |year=1996 |pages=272 |isbn=978-1-856851084 |oclc= |doi= }} *{{cite book |title=Goldsmith: Money, Women and Power (with Dominic Midgley) |publisher=Mainstream |location=Edinburgh |year=1998 |pages=224 |isbn=1-84018-093-5 |oclc= |doi= }} *{{cite book |title=Abramovich: The Billionaire from Nowhere (with Dominic Midgley) |publisher=HarperCollins |location=London |year=2004 |pages=337 |isbn= |oclc= |doi= }} *{{cite book |title=Mr Confidential |publisher=John Blake |location=London |year=2005 |pages=288 |isbn=978-1844541461 |oclc= |doi= }} *{{cite book |title=Putin: A Biography |publisher=Matador |location=London |year=2012 |pages=312 |isbn=978-1780881140 |oclc= |doi= }} *{{cite book |title=Harry: The People's Prince |publisher=The Robson Press |location=London |year=2013 |pages=288 |isbn=978-1849545471 |oclc= |doi= }}
==References== {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hutchins, Chris}} Category:1941 births Category:2024 deaths Category:English male journalists Category:Gossip columnists Category:English public relations people Category:People educated at Torquay Boys' Grammar School Category:Celebrity biographers Category:20th-century English writers Category:21st-century English writers Category:20th-century English biographers Category:21st-century English biographers Category:English male biographers