So how does one go from being a lawyer from Camilla, Georgia and the chief of staff of Newt Gingrich’s campaign in GA during the 2012 election season to a Hollywood player? It started out with a letter Millsaps wrote to ‘Clueless’ actress Stacey Dash:
Dash, a rare conservative in liberal Hollywood, publicly endorsed Mitt Romney for president in the 2012 general election. Dash was bashed by Democrats and fellow African-Americans and promptly ignored by Romney’s team.
Millsaps watched it happen.
“I realized that it was a very bold thing for her to do,” Millsaps said. “And I was looking for the (Romney) campaign to pick up on her. Here you have this beautiful actress who’s come out of nowhere in support of your candidate.”
Instead, other than a photo with vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, “nobody did anything with her,” Millsaps said.
After the election and Romney’s loss, Millsaps wrote Dash a letter. He found her agent’s name online and put pen to paper, explaining that he’d had a unique experience as Gingrich’s chief of staff and said if she ever wanted to get more involved in politics to let him know.
He never expected a response. But Dash emailed Millsaps and said thanks. Not long after, Millsaps was headed to Los Angeles for a Republican National Committee meeting, emailed Dash and asked to go to lunch and offered to take her to the RNC meeting.
At lunch, not at the Chateau or the Ivy or some other famous celebrity spot, the two met at a nondescript Italian restaurant and talked for hours.
They kept in touch. Finally, Dash wanted to fire her agent but didn’t want to do it herself. She asked Millsaps to do it. In L.A. for business, he agreed.
Soon, he was helping Dash meet other conservative actors, such as Jon Voight, Gary Sinise and Nick Searcy. Dash, meanwhile, introduced Millsaps and his wife, Elizabeth, to other celebrities, such as hip-hop magnate Russell Simmons.
Millsaps then had his most surreal Hollywood moment: He and his wife with Dash at Simmons’ birthday party, in his home, where the original iconic Obama “Hope” campaign poster hangs.
“I’m sitting there going, ‘I’m not in Camilla anymore,’ ” Millsaps said.
Dash shortly thereafter called Millsaps and informed him he was now her manager.
Pretty surreal isn’t it? Well, the cool story continues:
After engineering a Fox News contributor deal for actress Stacey Dash, Georgia-based attorney Patrick Millsaps is launching full-fledged talent management company HBS Management with offices in Century City, Atlanta, and Nashville.
Millsaps spent 2012 as Chief of Staff on Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign before helping Clueless actress Dash parlay her politically charged social media presence into a Fox News contract in May. He’s joining forces with California-based Adam Trahan and Karl Braun to launch HBS, with Trahan anchoring the Century City outpost and Braun heading music clients out of Nashville.
“Our goal is to build an individual brand for each one of our clients that is valuable to them across media platforms – not only film and television,” said Millsaps. HBS is also planting firmly in the Southeast region where Millsaps helped bring Georgia’s first tax incentive law to former Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue.
“Patrick Millsaps understood early the benefits for Georgia aggressively pursuing the entertainment industry as an economic development project,” said Perdue in a statement. “The combination of his business, political and legal skills were helpful in making tax credits a reality in Georgia.”
This is great news for a number of reasons. First, Hollywood conservatives (and they do exist) now have somebody who, unlike those who concoct the worst stereotypes about conservatives, can reach out to for help. New actors and actresses on the scene will have somebody who won’t dismiss their talent out of hand because of their political views.
Secondly, it’s good for my adopted home state of Georgia. The state has been a recent go to place for several Hollywood productions and not only does the AMC series ‘The Walking Dead’ take place in Georgia, it is filmed here in it’s entirety.
I’ve spoken with Patrick before and we had him on the podcast as well. He’s a solid guy and Stacey made a wise choice in making him her manager.
Maybe the people at HBO can bring him in to fix the impending disaster that is going to be the second season of ‘True Detective.’