To be seen in public or not to be seen

Back in Hollywood's "golden years" of the 1940s and '50s, a film star might get "caught" by news photographers on a date with a co-star. A marriage might end, a romance begin, and box-office receipts would go up. As they used to say, "No publicity is bad publicity."

Those incidents were often staged by studio bosses and did little harm in the make-believe Hollywood world.

But is the real world different? Is there any truth to the saying, "No publicity is bad publicity"?