{"id":566843,"date":"2026-07-30T12:30:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T12:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/566843\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T12:30:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T12:30:21","slug":"neil-reading-dead-john-cleese-lenny-henry-pr-was-56","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/566843\/","title":{"rendered":"Neil Reading Dead: John Cleese &#038; Lenny Henry PR Was 56"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/neil-reading\/\" id=\"auto-tag_neil-reading\" data-tag=\"neil-reading\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Neil Reading<\/a>, UK publicist to the likes of John Cleese and Dawn French, has died aged 56.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tAccording to The Sun, which carried a number of tributes, the PR guru died following a short illness. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tReading ran a PR firm, Neil Reading PR, and was an extremely well-known publicist in the UK entertainment world. He launched his agency in 1992 and specialized in entertainment along with lifestyle PR.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tReading\u2019s clients included Monty Python co-creator Cleese, Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power star Lenny Henry, British comic French, comedian Jason Manford and another beloved comic, the late Victoria Wood.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tFrench told The Sun: \u201cNeil Reading was a one-off, such a kind, decent, intelligent man, a proper gentleman in the old-fashioned way, quietly magnificent. Our work relationship became a very real and trusting friendship. He has been my ally and fierce protector through so much and for so long. I don\u2019t quite know how I\u2019ll manage without him.\u00a0Sleep\u00a0tight darlin\u2019 heart.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tManford added: \u201cDescribing Neil as my PR manager does not come close to describing what he meant to me. He was a trusted friend of almost 20 years, a confidant and one of the most loyal, noble and brilliant men I have ever known.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tReading is survived by his wife Claire and daughter Rosa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Neil Reading, UK publicist to the likes of John Cleese and Dawn French, has died aged 56. According&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,146,85,46,256520,5033],"class_list":["post-566843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-neil-reading","tag-obituaries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}