The group honored as the Advance Professionals wrote the book on live event promotion and management. Since the early days of P.T. Barnum it has been the work of those who executed the tour planning, marketing, advertising , sponsorship and public relations that made the circus a financial success. The circus is equal parts art and commerce. Nothing happens unless a ticket is sold. In the world of show business, without business there is no show.
Many alumni of this group have gone on to become successful entrepreneurs, agents, show producers, marketing and pr agency owners, sports and entertainment executives and venue managers. You will find them in leadership roles of media companies, major league sports (NHL, NBA, MLB, MLS), ticketing companies, concert and talent management, theme parks, fairs and expositions, cultural arts and non profit philanthropic organizations. The universal ties that bind the group is the collective shared learning experiences gained while working for the circus.
This is the biography of Lee Solters, a member of the Advance Professionals.
Lee Solters: The Publicist Who Made the Greatest Show on Earth—and Hollywood—Roar
Few publicists could match the flair, wit, and sheer audacity of Lee Solters, the raspy-voiced, flamboyant master of hype who made headlines as much as he generated them. Over a career spanning more than five decades, Solters orchestrated publicity campaigns for some of the world’s biggest stars—from Frank Sinatra to Barbra Streisand, The Beatles to Michael Jackson—but it was under the bright lights of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus that his genius for spectacle and storytelling truly thrived.
Solters’s long-running partnership with show business titan Irvin Feld, the man who transformed Ringling Bros. into a global entertainment brand, was rooted in trust, loyalty, and, as Solters loved to joke, the ability to “yell at each other and stay employed.” The two first joined forces in the late 1950s, when Feld was managing a teenage Paul Anka, and Solters served as Anka’s press agent, operating his fan club and spinning promotional gold for the young crooner.
When Feld acquired Ringling Bros. in 1967, he turned to Solters once again to help reimagine the circus for a modern audience. With his signature flair for outrageous stunts and celebrity connections, Solters ensured the Greatest Show on Earth never left the headlines. His office, renowned for its relentless energy, secured countless celebrity endorsements and executed unforgettable publicity moments—from elephants marching across the Brooklyn Bridge to a tiger posing at the Roman Colosseum.
Among Solters’s proudest achievements was introducing Gunther Gebel-Williams, the charismatic German animal trainer, to the American public. Though Gebel-Williams spoke little English at the time, Solters’s team landed him a coveted appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Gebel-Williams’s dashing looks, undeniable charm, and Solters’s media savvy propelled him to international fame, cementing him as the modern face of Ringling Bros.
But behind every Solters success story stood a dedicated team of protégés he mentored and shaped into industry leaders in their own right. Joan Tramantano, Jack Ryan, Nini Finkelstein, and Jerry Digney were not merely employees—they were, in many ways, extensions of Solters’s own outsized vision.
Of these, Jerry Digney would go on to become Solters’s most trusted collaborator and eventually his business partner. Digney, now one of Hollywood’s premier publicists in his own right, credits his formative years under Solters’s guidance for shaping his career. The two worked side by side for years, Digney absorbing Solters’s strategic brilliance, fearless approach to media, and legendary ability to turn even the smallest story into front-page news. Their professional bond was a testament to Solters’s greatest legacy—not just creating headlines, but building a new generation of publicity experts who carried his methods into the 21st century.
Solters’s influence, however, extended far beyond the circus. His star-studded client list included Carol Channing, Yul Brynner, Cary Grant, Mae West, and Dolly Parton, whom he famously claimed to have known “since she was flat-chested.” He masterminded campaigns for The Beatles during their historic 1964 American tour, and handled music legends like The Eagles and Led Zeppelin. His promotional fingerprints were on films like The Graduate, TV hits like Dallas, and even on the Muppets—where he famously, though unsuccessfully, lobbied for Miss Piggy to receive an Oscar nomination.
Solters’s headline-grabbing stunts extended to world leaders, most memorably orchestrating the presentation of honorary Harlem Globetrotters membership to Pope John Paul II in front of 50,000 people in St. Peter’s Square.
Known among jaded reporters for “giving good quote,” Solters never missed a chance to spin a story. When tabloids offered him $20,000 to reveal Michael Jackson’s whereabouts in 1993, Solters quipped he’d pay them $30,000 for the same information. And when rumors swirled that Jackson’s chimpanzee Bubbles had died, Solters replied, “When Bubbles heard about his demise, he went bananas.”
Through the noise, spectacle, and circus fanfare, Lee Solters remained a master strategist, building not just stars, but a new generation of publicists. His mentorship of industry figures like Jerry Digney ensured that his larger-than-life style—and his understanding that good publicity was half art, half brass—would echo through Hollywood and beyond long after the spotlight dimmed.
For Irvin Feld, for Ringling Bros., and for the countless icons who trusted him, Lee Solters wasn’t just a publicist—he was the Greatest Showman behind the Greatest Show on Earth.