Leaving school at 15 with no qualifications, and after being sacked in four months from his first job at Ely's department store in Wimbledon, his brother Bernard used his print union connections to gain Clifford a job as editorial assistant on the Eagle comic. When the comic moved premises, Clifford took redundancy and bought his first house, and gained work with the South London Press company to train as a journalist

After working in newspapers for a few years, writing an occasional record/music column and running a disco, Clifford replied to an advertisement and joined as the second member of the EMI press office, under Chief Press Officer Syd Gillingham. As the youngest and only trained journalist in a team of four, Clifford was given the job of promoting an unknown and unwanted group called The Beatles early in their career, including their first tour of the United States.
After Gillingham left EMI, he asked Clifford to join him at Chris Hutchins PR agency. Among the artists they represented were Paul and Barry Ryan, who introduced Clifford to their step-father, impressario Harold Davidson who handled the UK affairs of Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland.
In 1970 aged 27 after Syd Gillingham retired, Clifford left Chris Hutchins and started his own agency Max Clifford Associates. Based in the offices of Joe Cocker's manager, he started by representing Sinatra, Cocker, Paul and Barry Ryan, Don Partridge and Marvin Gaye. He later also represented Muhammad Ali and Marlon Brando.

On 13 March 1986 The Sun carried as its main headline: FREDDIE STARR ATE MY HAMSTER - one of the most famous British tabloid newspaper headlines of all time. According to the story created by Clifford, Starr had been staying at the home of Vince McCaffrey (who was co-writing Starr's biography at the time), and his 23-year old girlfriend Lea La Salle in Birchwood, near Warrington, Cheshire when the incident took place. Starr was alleged to have returned home from a performance at a Manchester nightclub in the small hours of the morning and demanded that La Salle make him a sandwich. When she refused, he went into the kitchen and put her pet hamster, Supersonic, between two slices of bread and proceeded to eat it.

Clifford counter spun the story the next day, when he flew with a journalist from The Sun newspaper to Starr's home in Waltham St Lawrence, Berkshire with another Hamster the newspaper had called Sandwich, which was photographed with claimed vegetarian Starr. Starr now admits in interviews that this story was untrue, but brought him much-needed publicity for his forthcoming tour.

The story was one of the first examples where rather than PR agents managing what went into the media or confirming a journalist's storyline, Clifford created a fast selling story which he sold to the media, and its counter line follow-up - it resultantly brought Clifford to the British public's attention. Clifford and Starr parted shortly afterwards, and Clifford later used background material to fuel the media storylines around Starr's later revelations during his divorce of wife battering, alcoholism and drug taking.

The Starr story brought Clifford to the public's attention, but the Pamella Bordes storyline bought him money. Clifford was approached by a friendly madam of a brothel who had provided Clifford's client with various services, worried about publicity from an investigative reporter from the News of the World. Clifford asked the madam to talk him through her girls and clients, and found Pamella Bordes was then dating at the same time: Andrew Neil (then editor of The Sunday Times); Donald Trelford (then editor of the Observer); Conservative minister for sport Colin Moynihan; and billionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. Clifford rang News of the World editor Patsy Chapman and drip-fed her the story of Bordes through the investigative reporter she was using on the madam. The story under the head line CALL GIRL WORKS IN COMMONS in March 1989 created a near Christine Keeler like image for Bordes when it went to press, when it was then discovered she had a House of Commons security pass arranged by MPs David Shaw and Henry Bellingham. Clifford claims Bordes was never his client, and that he earnt his fee for "writing" the story; but ultimately served the purpose of avoiding the madam any adverse publicity or court case

Clifford has since represented various clients, including: David Copperfield; Mohamed Al-Fayed; brain-damaged boxer Michael Watson; Liverpool left-wing politician Derek Hatton for whom Clifford created an affair in order to change his image; former MI6 officer Richard Tomlinson; Norfolk farmer Tony Martin who was imprisoned for fatally shooting a burglar; Rebecca Loos when she negotiated with the press about her alleged affair with England soccer captain David Beckham; and Celebrity Big Brother 2007 winner Shilpa Shetty. Ironically a few years ago Clifford also represented Shilpa's fellow Celebrity Big Brother contestant Jade Goody who sparked controversy after it was claimed she was racially bullying the Bollywood star.

Clifford also represents Gillian McKeith saying of faux-doctorate: "personally, I wish it had never been mentioned. She never needed it, and it's done nothing but cause her embarrassment."

Reporter Louis Theroux (pictured) followed Clifford in the BBC Two 2002 programme When Louis Met... Max Clifford. During filming Max, it appeared that Max was trying to set up Louis and Max was recorded lying. Clifford is regarded as being one of the shrewdest practitioners of his trade, and in July 2005 he told reporters that he would not represent Michael Jackson after he was found innocent of child abuse charges, saying: It would be the hardest job in PR after representing Saddam Hussein.

Clifford has been reported to give assistance to those who wish to or have to hide their sexuality from the public. In the past, Clifford has been approached by two FA Premier League clubs to "manage" the media sexuality of some of their players. Clifford comments on this unusual achievement:

"So far, none of my clients has been outed - but it's been a 40-year battle, and in the past ten years, as the media have become more intrusive, it's become much harder work. But that's part of the fascination."

Clifford married Liz Porter at St Barnabas Church in Southfields, London on 3 June 1967. Their only child, a daughter Louise (born 1 June 1971), has suffered from rheumatoid arthritis since childhood, and has been a motivation for Clifford.

In the late 1970's and early 1980's, Clifford ran and took part in discreet weekly adult sex parties for his friends and clients in South London. This brought him into contact with various madams and prostitutes, a connection which still in his business today serves him well to satisfy the often bizarre needs of his clients, as well as an early warning system of interesting behaviour of various persons.

A life long fan of Jaguar cars, since the death of his wife from cancer in 2003, he now drives a Bentley Arnage

In a show for Fame TV in December 2006, Clifford gave his tips on gaining fame in the world today as:

Appear on a reality series
Enter a talent contest
Be abysmal on a talent show
Gain fame by association
Date a celebrity
Flaunt your body
Date a Royal Family member
Make a home sex video
Be a success on MySpace
Be in the right place at the right time