Who

One of the most powerful celebrity publicists, Sunshine is the chief of the PR agency that bears his name.

Backstory

Sunshine was communications director for the performing rights organization ASCAP when he was recruited by then-Deputy Mayor Bill Lynch to join the Dinkins administration as chief of staff in 1989. He didn't last very long: Following a series of public embarrassments, Dinkins publicly demoted him in 1990; a year later, he was out of City Hall completely and consulting on the Democratic National Convention. In 1994 he founded his own PR firm, Sunshine Associates, and began to shift his focus from politics to entertainment. Today he represents a slew of A-list celebs, a number of local political groups (1199 SEIU chief Dennis Rivera, the Transport Workers Union Local 100) and a number of business leaders (Woody Johnson hired him to do lobbying work for the Jets). In May 2007, the firm was renamed Sunshine, Sachs & Associates to reflect the promotion of longtime lieutenant Shawn Sachs to partner.

Of note

Over the past decade, Sunshine has represented the likes of Barbra Streisand, Justin Timberlake, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jon Bon Jovi, Tyler Perry, John Mayer, Jimmy Fallon, and Ben Affleck. Nick Lachey retained Sunshine to handle the fallout from his divorce from Jessica Simpson (Cindi Berger repped Simpson), and Sunshine quelled the media storm that erupted after Lance Bass came out of the closet. But he has a rather conflicted attitude when it comes to the hand that feeds him. He's said that way too much attention is paid to celebrities—not that he minds the attention when it's positive, of course. And he's been very vocal when it comes to celeb privacy, decrying the paparazzi as "stalkerazzi," even though it's the celebrity industrial complex that keeps the phones ringing at his Fifth Avenue offices. As for his colleagues in the business, well, let's just say he's no big fan of his peers. He's described his fellow celebrity publicists as a "fucking joke."

Campaign trail

Although he doesn't work in politics any longer, Sunshine still has ties to the Democratic party. In addition to repping a handful of Democratic groups, he served as an advisor to Mark Green during his failed bid for mayor in 2001.

Personal

Sunshine and his wife, Nancy L. Hollander, have a daughter named Jessica Hollander-Sunshine. They live at 505 East 79th Street.

True story

When Sunshine worked for Dinkins, he landed in hot water after the city's Department of Investigation determined Sunshine had exerted "tremendous pressure" to force Health Department officials to reopen the Ginger Man, one of Dinkins' favorite restaurants (and owned by one of his top campaign contributors), which had been shuttered for health code violations.