“The biggest thing that changed the trajectory of my life was I got a job at Candlelight Dinner Playhouse when I was 14 years old. I lied about my age and said I was 16 and I got a job as an usher. I remember the very first night I was at the theatre, and I thought I was in heaven. I absolutely loved it. The show was GYPSY, and I used to go home after these shows, my little sister Meg still talks about it, and I would put on the record of the musical score and I would do the whole show for her.”
That’s my friend Noreen Heron talking about “the roar of the greasepaint” getting into her DNA.
Daniel and Bridget O’Connor, maternal grandparents of Noreen. Dan was President of the Cork Mens’ Association of Chicago and threw many fundraisers and events. I was 2 here.
She worked at The Candlelight for the next 16 years, eventually as public relations director during the day and house manager at night and consistently on the hustle. It was in her blood. “My dad was from Dublin; my mother’s parents were from Cork and Kerry. My grandfather was President of the Chicago Cork Man’s Society, his name was Daniel O’Connor and he would throw all the parties. He was always organizing things and so I was always organizing benefits”
Noreen & staff at her office
It was about this time that Noreen was recruited by Hyatt Hotel chain and the next thing you know she’s putting together New Year’s Eve parties for ten thousand people.
”Yeah, isn’t that crazy?”
She sure networked like crazy, meeting everybody coming through the Hyatt properties, movie stars, politicians, hot shots, big shots, and plenty of …well Noreen won’t tell tales out of school, but says, “the bad stories are the ones you remember."
But she won’t dish, which is exactly what you want in your PR gal.
Noreen represented Tony Award winning actor Len Cariou’s one man show (Cariou is one of the stars of Blue Bloods with Tom Selleck). Pictured here with Sylvia Perez of Fox TV. 
She did five years with Hyatt and met just about everybody who was anybody. She opened her own shop 25 years ago, Heron Agency and has been the go-to rep for live theatre, hotels, and restaurants, and festivals, and what else you got? She’s Chicago Show Biz personified.
She introduced me to the one and only Sammy Cahn, Frank Sinatra’s favorite lyricist, when Sammy had his show "Words And Music" playing Chicago. Sammy wrote hundreds of tunes and Broadway shows but for this gig he was most importantly the guy who wrote, "My Kind Of Town Chicago Is," which became our city’s theme song and one of Sinatra’s biggest hits.
So Noreen took Sammy all over town to many of the places featured in the song, including The Pump Room at the Ambassador East.
“He was fabulous and sharp as a tack, and he just wanted to tell his story. We had him on WGN-TV and he started singing ‘My kind of station, WGN is!’ He was very amusing. I remember being mortified as a young publicist when one college newspaper writer was a no-show and Sammy consoled me and he could not have been kinder about it and I always think that the A-List actors are always the most secure and the kindest, you know, they’re always so lovely.”
Noreen with actor Dale Benson, a regular at Candlelight
Repping Dan Aykroyd.
Lovely? Well that’s Noreen herself. Her cousin Ann McGann tells me, “Despite Noreen’s self-made success, her loyalty to friends and family is unfailing. Our mothers were sisters and she continues to inspire us all, not just through her career but through airtight values and impeccable integrity. Our family is very proud of Noreen.” Repping the UFC, with Irish Boxer Billy Joe Saunders 
And what is Noreen most proud of? Her son Conor’s best friend from St. Ignatius HS, Miguel Cisneros, drowned off the beach in Lake Michigan at age 19, got caught in a rip tide and his tragic death gutted Noreen and her entire family. Just by chance an investigative reporter for ABC-TV calls Noreen and tells her “I have been covering people drowning at that spot for twelve years, if there were water safety equipment or lifesavers, probably a thousand people could have been saved."
Noreen thought, “I’m gonna put on my publicist cap here and I’m going to do something about it.”
That she did, big time, with a series of PR hits, editorials, candlelight vigils, and magic. She got Miguel’s mother Maria to call out Mayor Lori Lightfoot on the front page of the Tribune - why no life preservers? She caught Park District crews painting “No Swimming” on the dock at 3 a.m. to cover their rear ends and the photos ran in all the papers and on the TV news. She shamed the city into saving lives!
Noreen says: “It’s literally my proudest moment, my biggest PR success!”
You go girl!
With Ava and Connor at my office. Behind us is a graffiti mural of my daughter.
