A few replies to requests for the year-end wrap (see below) were received after deadline. Among them were those from Arlene Rosenstein, Samantha Stenzel, Doug Galloway and Mel Tobias. The photo that Doug sent us of his wife and himself at the Musso & Frank restaurant in L.A. is posted below.
Here are the blurbs received from Sam and Mel:
SAMANTHA STENZEL(Chicago)
Happy New Year,
So sorry I missed seeing this until now. I will look at the website soon. I have not been doing tours recently (editing and writing) but am putting together a tour for Cuba in March. I am not online very often since I moved to another apartment in my house. I will be soon.
Lots of cheer, health and happiness in 2012!
MEL TOBIAS(Vancouver)
Still happily recovering from a fabulous New York trip. Saw 7 shows in 8 days plus culinary delights and shopping for books at the Strand. I am not much into computer and e-mail.
At the moment I am editor of a lifestyle magazine and columnist to a Manila newspaper and own a collectible store (store is for baby boomers with money and lots of memories). In other words, I am selling nostalgia and enjoying real interaction, not the Facebook variety.
I have fond memories of you (Peter) and of Gene Moskowitz, who "discovered" me in Hong Kong.
end
DOUG GALLOWAY CELEBRATES
Doug Galloway just sent us this recent photo of him celebrating his wife's birthday at the Musso & Frank restaurant
in Hollywood. Doug has changed his e-mail address, which is why we couldn't include him in the year-end roundup.
CHRISTMAS SOUNDTRACK
Madrid, December 22, 2011
Heading into the Yuletide season, we figured it would be nice to touch base with the muggs all over the world. A good many have responded (some only after a bit of nudging) and we here post their replies, in the order that they were received.
We wish one and all Happy Holidays and especially good health in the coming year.
Ian Watkins & Peter Besas
So here are the replies received from:
Bob Hawkins
Lee Simkins
Jay Blickstein
Mark Thomas
Morrie Gelman
Ted Clark
Steve Knoll
Mort Bryer
Ralph Tyler
Marie Silverman & Bob Marich
David Stratton
Don Groves
Hy Hollinger
Paul Harris
Marge Prezioso
Mike Silverman
Frank Segers
Ron Wise
Mike Malak
Nick Shteinfas
Larry Michie
Gerry Putzer
Richard Gold
Nelson Hoineff
Elizabeth Guider
Peter Besas
Miscellaneous Scuttlebutt
BOB HAWKINS(Rome, Italy)
Couch Potato is about my speed. Anyhow, health not bad considering, but walks only occasional, tho including occasional visits to the Tiepolo Tavern across the street (known to many muggs over the years and still as feisty as ever in its mix of food fare) Much TV and DVDs, sporadic attempts to revive my career blog slowed down by waning typing energy and intermittent eye fatigue. Blessed by growing family: two boys for Frederick and Manuela (current New Yorkers) and one boy and two girls for Carolyn and Freek (current Viennese). Reading is first of all The New Yorker (no not digital, I wait for the feel of the pages), plus Italian and English fiction . My brave, talented first-born Christine lives and works here in Rome, and I see her when her busy work sked permits.That's about it from the Hawk.
LEE SIMKINS(London)
I wish I could say that I've retired and living a life of luxury in sunnier climes but I'm still in England and working very hard for a local construction company. We close down for the Christmas period and I have 12 days off - it's been a busy year and I can't wait! I look after our labour force of around 500 subbies, try to find them building sites to work on (we are on 100 sites over the South East of England), as well as looking after our fleet of 75 company vehicles. I also put together a monthly in-house publication that Ian Watkins lays-out and publishes for us through Asterisk. Ian also runs our website.
Christmas will be spent with my family but I hope to get a round of golf in at some stage as well as a couple of trips to the races.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.
JAY BLICKSTEIN(New York)
Jay Blickstein is currently a Managing Editor at Thomas Publishing Company LLC in New York, toiling in the vineyards of manufacturing and technology publications in print, Web and digital formats. He and the BW, Shelley (as Earl Wilson used to put it) visited Barcelona in September, and ate tapas till it was coming out of their ears. They also visited various Gaudí edifices, and spent a day lounging on the beach at Sitges.
MARK THOMAS(Bangkok)
Biggest thing in our lives this past year was the record flooding in Thailand. Although we managed to stay dry, the floodwaters got to within a couple kilometres of our neighborhood in Bangkok before starting to recede. During the year, about 30 per cent of Thailand's land mass was hit by floods, affecting between 25-30 million people. Given that I work for UNICEF, I am still very busy responding to the needs of the many families who lost everything in the floods and who will need sustained support to rebuild their lives.
This past summer, we spent a fun month in the US visiting family in Colorado and Chicago, and also a week in San Francisco, a city I hope to spend a lot more time in some day. In February, I went to Athens for a week for a meeting, and although the Greek economy was on the verge of collapsing I can report that the Acropolis was still standing and that the Greeks were as warm and friendly as they were when I first visited Athens some 30 years ago.
That is about it for my 2011 highlights. I hope that all is well with you and the rest of the Muggs, and that you have a great holiday.
MORRIE GELMAN(Los Angeles)
Living in semi retirement in the desert for the last five years. I serve as chauffeur and companion to my wife of 56 years as she continues to work for the Riverside County library system. I also work on two books, "The Short Of It," the challenge of being less than average height, and "Last Horizon," a collection of short stories. Researching and writing has resulted in many thousands of words. To say "enough" will leave me with little to do. I will leave it to my survivors to figure out what to do with my never-ending manuscripts.
TED CLARK(Valbonne, France)
Old (85 next stop) Ted Clark is still living in his village, a half-hour bus ride inland from Cannes. I take the bus from time to time for shopping in the winter. When the warm weather comes around April I drive down to a discrete beach, not on the Croisette, for a morning salt-water swim. It seems to do me good - I haven't any health problems.
I keep away from the film festival, Mip-tv etc. My wife, Gillian, died in January this year. I have my three children, and six grandchildren, living on the coast. They keep in touch and come to see me from time to time. I'll be eating Christmas dinner with my son in Cannes.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours, Don Pedro, and to all your Simesite readers. Ted.
STEVE KNOLL(New York)
I'm not doing anything nearly as exciting as those fictitious examples. I am an adjunct instructor with the Department of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University.
MORTON BRYER(Norwalk, CT)
Mort Bryer, former ad mugg at Variety's towering five floor edifice on posh West 46th St., Manhattan, continues to pursue his favorite hobby which consists of doing nothing.
Well, he does like to read, peruse his four boobtubes (this allows him to move as little as possible), and, of course, remain in the prone position.
Mort is a news freak and even catches Polish news, though he wishes the Poles would wise up and use English lingo titles, since he can't speak Polish.
Greetings to his few friends and many enemies. Oh to hoisting a drink again, with some of the old gang, at Lindy's bar, where we had the bartender properly bribed!
RALPH TYLER(New York)
Should I mention the doctor from Afghanistan who lived in the same building as I did when I worked in London for the Encyclopedia Britannica in the early 1970s? He told me the old people amused him in his British hospital that clung to life past their usefulness. "In my country," he said, "old people like that are sent up into the mountains to die of exposure."
Death by exposure is one of the least painful ways of checking out, I've heard, but I'll have none of it. I like my life in Hell's Kitchen, with occasional trips to France with my wife of how many years? (We married in 1956 and it just keeps getting better), with a bar full of amiable personalities down the road for the pre-dinner glass of wine I allow myself, and my pre-breakfast session every morning, even Sundays, attempting to write a good short story.
I've managed to have about a dozen published over the years in college literary reviews (not The New Yorker). I'd like to make a book of them. Does anyone know an agent who might be interested? Yes, I'm working the room.
I don't want to make my life sound too utopian. A lot of my time is spent in doctors' waiting rooms or under the surgeon's knife hoping to keep body and soul together. Only the body gets worked on, a man of the Enlightenment, I let my soul take care of itself.
MARIE SILVERMAN & BOB MARICH(White Plains, NY)
Marie Silverman Marich and Robert Marich spent another fulfilling year in the Silverman ancestral homeland (aka White Plains NY) and both are active in publishing. As a fundraiser and community volunteer, Marie assembles and edits souvenir journals for charity events that are big moneymakers for the charity. The same local printer gets the contract to produce the booklets, and Marie finds the place like the production department at the old Variety with looming deadlines and wise-cracking employees. Bob—who stays away from the printer because he's heard the stories---is free-lance writing, including articles for Variety, and some business analysis writing. The third edition of his book "Marketing to Moviegoers" will be published next year by SIU Press, and producing it ruined his summer!
DAVID STRATTON(Sydney)
Margaret Pomeranz, my co-star, and I celebrated the 25th on-air year of our programme "At The Movies" on October 26, with a special programme, recorded before a live audience, hosted by Cate Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush (who did reasonably impressions of us). It rated hugely! We were also awarded the accolade of Living Legends (!) at the annual IF (Independent Film) Awards in Sydney late last month, the award presented by Stephan Elliott (director of THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA and EASY VIRUE).
Against my better judgment, we've signed up for another year (i.e. 45 more half hour film review programmes) for 2012. So that I won't be too bored before we start up again in February, I'm hosting a 'film festival' on a cruise ship for 14 days (Sydney-main New Zealand ports – Sydney); a double-bill every afternoon. Should be fun – maybe.
Hope all's well with you – pass on my warmest best wishes to all the Muggs.
Warmly, Strat
DON GROVES(Sydney)
Since leaving Variety in 2005 when the Sydney bureau was closed after 30 years, I have worked for Southern Star in corporate affairs, written a movie blog for Greater Union, co-authored a book marking GU's centenary, and served as the Editor, then as contributing editor, of the Singapore-based Television Asia Plus magazine.
This year I've been busy reviewing movies as the Foxtel pay-TV platform's online movie critic; reviewing films and writing a weekly blog and occasional features for SBS Films; and writing reviews and opinion pieces as the Showtime movie channels' online film writer.
I see Strat occasionally at previews, premieres and socially, and am in regular contact with Peter Cowie.
All the best to you and fellow muggs
Dogo
HY HOLLINGER(Los Angeles)
What most people forget about retirement is that it's also an ageing process. A late friend of mine, a Hollywood and Broadway director, put it succinctly: "The last act sucks." Another late mate, a comedy writer (and a battery mate when we could pitch and catch), adhered to Andy Rooney's theory: "writers never retire." Here are a few lines from an e-mail he sent me before he passed away: " It's the computer Super-Bowl here, me against my left hand, which refuses to remember the keyboard, and keeps messing up and sabotaging everything my right faithfully enters. (I've had to correct every word so far, but that's all part of the rehab process after a stroke.) When I first discovered that I had trouble moving my lips, I gave serious thought to becoming a ventriloquist, but I couldn't find a talking dummy (except on Fox). All these damn medications make me feel lousy. And most frustrating of all, it's affected my vision and I can no longer rely on my reading to keep me sane . So I have to depend on Palin and Bachman to keep me informed. They explain current events like Abbot & Costello explain baseball."
Back to me. I miss the hubbub of a daily newsroom, the visits to Cannes and other fests and markets, and the comradery of colleagues. But, as they say, life goes on. My daily routine (except for doctor visits) consists of reading, the computer, television, shopping for food, and helping with meals. Recent reading includes "The Shrink and the Gumshoe: Nixon, Kennedy and the Secret History of the 1960 Election" by Dave Robb, former investigative reporter at Variety and The Hollywood Reporter; "The Secret History of Balls: The Stories Behind the Things We Love to Catch, Throw, Bounce, Whack, Kick and Bat" by Josh Chetwynd, a former THR reporter, and "Of Kings and Queens and Movie Stars: True Revelations of a Hollywood Publicist," by Leonard Murpurgo, a publicist friend. Outside of industry-connected stuff, I just finished a 10-year-old classic "Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution," a fascinating epic history by Simon Schama. Have about a half dozen books waiting in the wings. Wonder if I'll ever get around to them.
This year Gina and I have been seeing a lot of award-contender movies. Gina is a member of the SAG nominating committee and has been receiving a batch of screeners. Among my favorites so far have been Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris," "The Descendants" with George Clooney, Ewan McGregor and Christopher Plummer in "Beginners," "Moneyball" with Brad Pitt, "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" with Gary Oldman, "The Artist" with a great ensemble cast, Clint Eastwood's "J. Edgar" with Leonard DiCaprio, and Terrance Malick's "The Tree of Life."
Not doing much writing. I contribute occasionally to Joe Morella and Frank Segers classic movie blog which Simesite ought to check out for a fun tour of old Hollywood. E-mail and Facebook takes up some casual writing time.
PAUL HARRIS(Washington, D.C.)
Still keeping busy as a Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer, including legit stories/reviews for Variety and occasional coverage for other sections. Karen and I did a two-week tour of Alaska in June, the experience of a lifetime. I highly recommend it. Looking forward to teeing it up someday soon with the Silverman twins. It's been too long.
MARGIE PREZIOSO(Sayville, NY)
I still enjoy checking in on Simesite from time to time. At this time I am still working as a teacher aide at Boces (tech high school) in NY where I am still able to use my layout and pasteup skills workng on flyers, journals etc. but with an extra added bonus, working with kids. I am now a grandmother. My daughter has three children 4, 2 and & newborn, My son has a daughter eiighteen monts old. My son is a music teacher and my daughter teaches 3rd grade. This leaves our family with the summer off so we get lots of time to spend together. I am planning on retiring next June (2013) I will be 66 then, I can't belive it! Balan ladies still get together for dinner. Love to all. Happy Holidays and thanks for being part of my life, I will never forget you.
MIKE SILVERMAN(Scottsdale, AZ)
Mike Silverman (– Mich. to muggs) in August 2012 bought out Syd Silverman's controlling interest in Vintage Motorsport magazine, the bimonthly "Journal of Motor Racing History." Unlike many other print titles, VM is surviving the downturn quite nicely, with ad pages and total folio up over previous years.
Mike is still dabbling in editorial, writing news items and other analysis for the weekly VM electronic newsletter, website and news columns. With Syd having retired from his primary hobby of vintage racing, all the old race cars have been sold off. However, Mike enjoyed racing his pal's 1954 Jaguar XK120 at the Monterey Motorsports Reunion at Laguna Seca Raceway last August, where he finished 5th out of 35 historic race cars in the 5B run group. In his limited spare time, Mike still enjoys golf on Saturdays, playing to a middling 14 handicap. Mike is also active in organizing the annual "Wheels of Wellness" vintage race car showcase for charity, which last year raised more
than $60,000 for Phoenix charities. Mike's wife of 29 years, Adrienne, has been busy with her business partner developing the Psychic Library website (www.psychiclibrary.com) which is now up and running on the web. Son Bryan is based in Dallas, where he starts a new job Jan. 1 with a health publishing company. Puppy Bailey (mini dachsund) runs the household in Scottsdale, AZ where she claims all food below knee level and keeps a sharp eye out for UPS deliverymen.
FRANK SEGERS(Tucson, AZ)
2011 was a very active year for me. I received a Nobel Prize for literature, and now spend most of the time on lecture tours. The money is rolling in like never before......
No, not really. But I certainly can't complain.
Am semi-retired these days, still slogging away a couple of days a week contributing a weekly international gross column for The Hollywood Reporter, which lists me among several "contributing editors."
Oh, my!
Barbara and I live in the arts capital of the world, Tucson, Arizona. (Hey, the climate in winter is great.) Our son Matt and daughter-in-law, Erin, live in McLean, Virginia, right near (pardon the expression) Washington, D.C. Our hope is that they will some day depart that den of iniquity and move West.
The joy of our lives is granddaughter Eleanor, who will be two years old in July 2012. She is visiting our home for the first time this Christmas, so much merriment -- and mayhem -- is in store.
A special treat in 2011 was partnering with Joe Morella -- who also lives in Tucson and is a former Variety mugg -- in the formation of our classic movie website, WWW.CLASSICMOVIECHAT.COM
We started in April, and now are drawing about 150 readers daily five days a week. The site keeps us both very busy.
Joe and I are avid classic movie fans, and have access to his great photo collection compiled through the years, augmented by a special bequest from the late Donald Gordon (who was at one time the late John Madden's New York landlord).
Donald worked at Columbia Pictures as a stand-in/actor in the early Forties, and took some great informal shots of a range of Hollywood personalities of the period. Great stuff.
So, when you have a second or two, pls click on WWW.CLASSICMOVIECHAT.COM, and enjoy.
Seasonal greetings to you all.
RON WISE(Chicago)
Being retired is doing the things you want to do, not the things you have to do. I cashed in all my chips last year and my wife and I moved from Los Angeles back to the Chicago area, once again getting close to family and old friends. On my first visit to downtown, I walked past the Wrigley Building and with a certain amount of nostalgia looked up at the window that was in the days of yore the Variety office in Chicago. Les Brown, Morry Roth, Vita Licata - greatl people and wonderful memories. However, the city no longer holds the same fascination as it did when I was young, so upon my return last year I purchased a house in a far northern suburb. A very peaceful setting called Hawthorn Woods where all the houses sit on one acre of land without fences. It's sort of like living in a large park. The freedom of retirement has enabled me to pursue in a serious way some longtime interests - 3D (stereo) photography and astronomy in particular. All in all, life is pleasant and at last stress free.
"Ron"
Variety Chicago Bureau
1965-1974
MIKE MALAK(Los Angeles)
Last year helped retain the jobs of ninety-one Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) librarians who were fired, no doubt, to improve District scores on standardized tests. Would like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, to win Best Picture and Saoirse Ronan to win Best Actress for Hanna. Have fond memories of 100th Anni Party at Sardi's. Thanks, again, Syd. May all DAVARIANS and World Staffers have an interesting and prosperous New Year.
NICK SHTEINFAS(New York)
Hope all's well with you et al.
I am in New York, working on Wall street helping 1 percenters to count their money.
Went places a bit - The Old Russky land was gloomy, Finland was sleepy, Ecuador was just great.
LARRY MICHIE(Hadley, MA)
Virginia and I are happily ensconsed in our abode in Hadley, Mass., a stone's throw from UMass and Amherst. We plod along having a good time. I play golf (badly) in warm weather and force myself to take long walks when it's cold (it's only a little above zero at the moment). I've been helping out with Frank Segers at www.classicmoviechat.com, contributing a blog of sorts called books2movies, comparing original books with their film counterparts. It can be a tricky business, but a lot of fun.
In recent winters I have entertained myself with reading projects. Last winter I read all the Civil War books written by Shelby Foote. I actually learned quite a bit, which was a little embarrassing, as presumably all Yanks ought to be knowledgeable about such things. This winter my project is to read all of the Palliser novels of Anthony Trollope. Great fun, although the British absorption with social rank and wealth can get a bit tiresome. We Yanks are only somewhat obsessed with rank, but we sure would like some more money.
Cheers to Simesite and to all the merry band.
GERRY PUTZER(New York)
Not much to report except that I still have a paying job in journalism. Actually, I have about four jobs at the Daily News for the (diminishing) price of one, since we're now a "platform agnostic" 24-hour news operation that "happens to put out a print newspaper at the end of the day."
I've been at the News for 18 years now, which is twice as long as my time at Variety. I'm an editor in the entertainment/lifestyle/gossip department, so I'm actually not so far removed from the old days on 46th St. and 32nd St.
My oldest child, Adam, is in a three-piece rock band in Buffalo -- the Tins -- and they're finishing up their first album. My youngest, Amanda, is about to graduate with a teaching degree but is considering nursing school since America no longer needs teachers -- and she's getting married next September. My middle child, Jon, is working as a surveyor, and my wife Ilona is still managing a women's clothing store.
Where I used to see 200-300 movies a year, now it's down to about 3. Go books!
RICHARD GOLD(New York)
I'm an Adjunct Professor of English at Pace University in Manhattan, teaching writing through film studies. Also teach writing, media studies and art history at the University of Phoenix in Jersey City, and TV news magazine producing at New York Film Academy; also working on my second novel, loosely based on my experiences as a national TV news magazine producer.
Here's hoping all is well with you. Thanks for your interest.
All best and feliz Navidad!
NELSON HOINEFF(Rio de Janeiro)
Over the last year, I have done a couple of things; I produced a series for Canal Brasil called "Boca do Lixo", on the traditional neighborhood in São Paulo where the Brazilian production of pornochanchadas (softcore porno films),(but also serious pics like the ones by Khoury or Reichenbach) was very active in the 70s and 80s. Also for Canal Brasil, I produced a 26 min. documentary on Antonio Meliande, himself a very popular filmmaker at Boca do Lixo. I also produced two series for TruTV: "Marcados Para Morrer" (Marked to Die) and "Teoria da Conspiração" (Conspiracy Theory). Both are still in production, due for release in April 2012. I finished a full length documentary on singer Cauby Peixoto, called "Cauby – começaria tudo outra vez". (Cauby, I'd Start It All Over Again). I was very active at the IETV (Instituto de Estudos de Televisão). Our events last year included the Festival Internacional de Televisão 2011, which is quite big now, in its 8th edition (see it at www.ietv.org.br). I am also teaching a lot, and became coordinator of Audiovisual at Facha (a university in Rio). I have been writing on films for www.críticos.com.br, and on media for www.observatoriodaimprensa.org.br.
Maybe a did a couple of other things, which now escape my memory.
ELIZABETH GUIDER(Los Angeles)
After leaving The Hollywood Reporter a year or so ago, Elizabeth has been freelancing, mostly for World Screen News, and writing her first novel. It's a love story set mostly in Italy in the late 70's, against the backdrop of extraordinary political ferment. Now for the hard part, she says: getting it published!
FRED LOMBARDI(New Jersey)
After close to eight years of work, I have just finished my book on film pioneer and director Allan Dwan. Dwan's enormously proflic career took place during the first half-century of the film industry and his life offers a personal story of how that industry began, flourished and then changed. The book is titled ALLAN DWAN AND THE RISE AND DECLINE OF THE HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS and will be published by McFarland & Co. Inc. Publishers in the spring or summer of 2012.
Finishing the book was made much more difficult by the fact that my father became terribly ill in late 2010 and was hospitalized for most of the time until his death in April 2011.
So I'm hoping that 2012 will be much kinder to all of us.
PETER BESAS(Madrid)
Aside from the minimal effort of occasionally overseeing Simesite, this Hispanicized mugg has spent most of the year writing, reading and doing some travelling. I'm currently finishing a book on antiquarian book dealers in Madrid, being myself a collector of old travel books on Spain, which will be published here in Madrid early next year. Meanwhile sales of some of my previous books, especially "Hidden Madrid", a sort of offbeat, anecdotal guide to the Spanish capital is still selling briskly four years after its initial publication. (It was co-written with my son, Mark, and was followed up by a "Hidden Madrid 2", both in English and Spanish versions).
As for travel, this year's jaunts included a pleasant trip to Paris to rendezvous with some CCNY college friends who live in Europe, a recent trip to London, where I touched base with Zoe Hoenig, John Willis and the Graffiti lads, and a springtime trip to Barcelona and the Catalan countryside, and another in the fall to Jerez de la Frontera and Gibraltar.
In Madrid I spend a great deal of time with my son, daughter-in-law and five year old grandchild, take daily "constitutionals" in the local park and liberally partake of the pleasures of the table, rising late and never hitting the sack before about 1 a.m.
MISCELLANEOUS SCUTTLEBUTT
Though a good many muggs have failed to reply, we have cobbled together the following tidbits. Deborah Young is chief foreign film reviewer for The Hollywood Reporter and is also the head of a well-known Italian film festival. (Taormina)... Amy Dawes is freelancing in L.A. and appears frequently in the L.A. Times... John Willis is living the life of a country squire with his wife Lynne on his property outside London. He's in good shape, plans to do some Christmas carolling in his neck of the woods on the Eve of Christmas and will occasionaly fly to his apartment in the Canary Islands next year... Jack Kindred, following a knee operation in Munich, is now in a retirement home in Germany... Syd Silverman and wife Joan are still spending their winters in their home in Boca Raton, FL and their summers in White Plains, NY... Harlan Jacobson continues to run his Talk Cinema operation which programs film buff screenings in different theatres around the country... Les Brown still living up in Larchmont, NY and doing OK... Pat Watkins continues to live in comfortable retirement in Birchington, England, with frequent visits to her sons Andrew and Ian and her grandchildren. Ian runs a design business in Covent Garden, in the tourist heart of London, a short walk from Soho and theatreland... From all the others we get only Silence.
THE MISSING
December 16, 2011
Should anyone know the whereabouts or have contacts for any of the following, please let me know since I get my e-mails to all of them bounced.
BROWN, Les
BUTLER, Bob
COHN, Larry
DAWES, Amy
DESIMIO, John
GALLOWAY, Doug
JENSEN, Elizabeth
KING, Bob
LIEB, Rebecca
PEARCE, Jacqueline
POLLACK, Dale
ROSOVSKY, Paul
SEMINARA, Vito
YERKOVICH, Sasha
YOUNG, Deborah
NOTE: On December 22, 2011 we'll be posting a year's end survey of all the muggs we've been able to contact and that have replied to our query in which each gives a short run-down of his or her current activities, albeit geriatric ones.
GERALD PRATLEY, LONGTIME CANADIAN STRINGER, DIES IN ONTARIO
March 17, 2010
Simesite has learned from the son-in-law of longtime Canadian stringer for Variety in Canada of the death of Gerald Pratley, who passed away in a hospital in Belleville, Ontario, on March 14 at age 87.
The last time most of us saw Pratley was at the party thrown in Sardi's restaurant in New York in 2005 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of Variety by Sime Silverman, an event hosted by Sime's grandson Syd Silverman, his wife and children. Pratley was one of those contributed news stories in Canada back in the 1970s and filed copy under the aegis of Toronto bureau chief, the late Sid Adilman. He was a regular at many of the yearly Variety receptions thrown by Syd during the
Cannes Film Festival.
Pratley's death has been well covered by the Canadian news media. We here quote the story posted on the Web by Northernstars.ca, the Canadian Movie Database. The photo is courtesy of former Variety stringer Antonia Zerbisias.
------
There was a time when it seemed you could not talk about Canadian film without the mention of Gerald Pratley. Born in England in 1923, Pratley moved to Canada in 1946 and began working for CBC radio in Toronto first as a scriptwriter and then, in 1948, he became the network's first film reviewer. The timing of what would turn out to be a lifelong career devoted to Canadian film was perfect. His assignment as a film reviewer came just as Canada's film industry was beginning to find its own legs and Pratley's perch at the national broadcaster allowed him to spread the word from coast to coast.
Largely because of that accident of timing, and his ardent fervor for excellence, he became involved in a number of groups and associations far beyond the realms of a simple reviewer. He was active with the Toronto Film Society and the Toronto and District Film Council. He 1967 he started the Ontario Film Theatre Program (OFT) at the old Radio City Cinema. This evolved into the Ontario Film Institute based in a purpose built facility at the Ontario Science Centre where Pratley served as founder and director and was responsible for cataloguing and exhibiting world cinema. Over a period of twenty years, from 1969 to 1989, the OFT ran the most ambitious and most complete film screenings in the province. During those years, 47 countries (from Algeria to Yugoslavia) and over 1400 directors were represented by 322 separate programs, not including innovative children's programming and programs for senior citizens.
Provincial cutbacks during the recession of 1982-83 severely restricted the operating budget of the OFT. Staff was reduced and the traditional five showings a week dropped to two or three, and in some months to no film nights at all. It was only Pratley's stubborn resolve that kept the Film Theatre operating at all during these dark years. It was only later in the '80s that the financial situation got marginally better. After many studies and suggestions, the Film Theatre and Institute were absorbed by the Toronto Festival of Festivals to become the Festival/Cinematheque, thus preserving Pratley's 20 years of service to the Ontario film community and giving the Festival a year-round presence. It was this role, in bringing international films to Toronto that was probably his greatest achievement, but his impact on Canadian filmmakers was just as important.
Pratley wrote various books, among them: Torn Sprockets: The Uncertain Projection of the Canadian Film, A Century of Canadian Cinema: Gerald Pratley's Feature Film Guide, which charted productions dating back to the silent film era; The Films of Frankenheimer: Forty Years in Film; The Cinema of John Frankenheimer; The Cinema of Otto Preminger; The Cinema of David Lean and The Cinema of John Huston.
As a film historian, Pratley spent time on the advisory boards for the film departments at both Ryerson University and Humber College. The Gerald Pratley Award was established in 1991 by the Film Studies Association of Canada in tribute to Pratley's contribution to the advancement of Canadian film studies. He was given honorary degrees from Toronto's York University, the University of Waterloo and Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He was a director of the Stratford International Film Festival from 1970 to 1975 and in 1984, he was named a member of the Order of Canada and was invested at the officer level in 2003. He also received a special prize at the 2002 Genie Awards, when organizers presented him with a special trophy recognizing his lifelong dedication to the promotion of Canadian cinema.
Gerald is survived by his wife Margaret, and daughters Orize, Denise and Jocelyn.
end
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011
December 31, 2010
It's now been nearly eight years since Roger Watkins, Peter Besas and Jack Kindred huddled in a London restaurant and decided to start up this website, which has kept many of the ex muggs in touch, and where we have posted a wide variety of notices, articles, comments, tributes and, alas, obituaries. Even if a few
months should elapse without any new postings, remember we are still alive and kicking and open to all submissions which can be sent to: pbesas@hotmail.com.
As the years speed by, fewer and fewer of the old staff remain above ground, but those of us who have survived promise to continue posting this Site as an homage to those who have "gone West" (as the old World War I expression used to be) and as a platform for any of the old crowd that wants to post news or get in touch with those who used to work for the sheet that Sime Silverman founded in 1905 and whose
curmudgeonly spirit we try to keep alive.
The Besas and Watkins families that run this Site wish all you ex Variety muggs all over the world a happy and especially a healthy New Year.
- 30 –
MISSING MUGGS
September 7, 2010
A few months ago we sent out "feelers" to ex-muggs to see if we had their correct e-mail addresses on file here.
Most that were contacted replied that they were well and that their e-mail addresses were correct.
However, for the 10 listed below we got a "reject" from the server. Should anyone out there have the current
e-mail contact for any of them, please let me know, at pbesas@hotmail.com.
Les Brown
Bob Butler
Amy Dawes
Geri Fabrikant
Jacqueline Pearce
Elizabeth Jensen
Vito Seminara
Sasha Yerkovich
Jack Zink.
Thankee.
VINTAGE SEQUENCE OF THE OLD OFFICE AND ABEL
September 7, 2010
Thanks to Mort Bryer, we are able to offer you all this charming bit of Memorabilia which he caught on his TV set in Connecticut, and which his son, Peter, was able to transmit to us. In it all the ex-muggs can catch a heretofore unknown (to us, at least) glimpse of what the old office on 46th Street looked like back in 1943.
The clip was aired on the Turner Classic Movies channel in the States two days ago in a program dedicated to the newsreels "March of Time", which was started by Henry Luce, owner of Time Magazine, in 1937 and was a standard weekly feature in movie houses of the time, usually shown along with a double feature, a cartoon, and sometimes even a serial.
The clip here offered was released on May 21, 1943. Some of the curiosities included in it are the narrator referring to Sime Silverman as "the osteopath of the English language", the reference of "an inconspicuous building on Broadway" as the headquarters of Variety, and the background music of "Broadway Melody" accompanying the sequence. The clip also includes a sequence showing Times Square, with "The Human Comedy" on the marquee of a theatre (a patriotic film about life in a small time during the war, with Mickey Rooney, Donna
Reed and Van Johnson) and another showing copies of Variety coming off the presses.
Perhaps the most curious part is a sequence with Abel Green and a group of other men around him in a room
of the building. Mort thinks one of those could be Sid Silverman (Syd's father). If anyone out there recognizes any of the men, please let Peter know.
SOUNDTRACK
July 19, 2010
Following are some of the tidbits we have culled from various muggs over the past few days:
Mark Adams now writing for Screen International in London... Deborah Young just finished her fourth stint as director of the Taormina Film Festival in southern Italy. She's also still writing reviews for The Hollywood Reporter...Sandy Campomanes has shifted to a job with a new mag, Interior Design...John Dempsey ankled Variety about two years ago after umpteen years on the sheet, but we have no info where to locate him now... Todd McCarthy is now writing for the Indie Wire website, a film industry and filmmaker resource for independent and documentary film news, film festivals and awards. He's no longer connected to Variety...David Stratton was recently a member of the Grand Jury at the Karlovy Vary film festival. "It was good to relax with an undemanding program in summer weather plus lots of delicious Czech food," he writes us. David may be coming through Madrid at the end of August.
Ted Clark still living in his idyllic village on the French Riviera. He writes us that his only activity, other than keeping the village bistros in profit, is on the committee of an association that a few years back established a medicalised bi-lingual retirement home for the numerous foreigners who live in the south of France and for local French oldies who fancy an international atmosphere... Jim Robbins checked in and said he's no longer with "Fed", whatever company that was... Liz Guider has been editor of The Hollywood Reporter for three years, and sez it's been "interesting, fun, challenging, exhausting, and humbling". She attended Cannes last May, and caught glimpses of some of the former muggs... Liz writes that Jack Loftus retired from Nielsen about three years ago, but no one seems to know his present whereabouts... Jay Blickstein touched base with us; he is now managing editor of Broadcasting & Cable...Pat Watkins is moving house next month, but plans to remain in Birchington, the charming English seaside village where she lived so many years with Roger.
ALIVE AND KICKING
JULY 17, 2010
It's now been about four months since we posted our last item (on Mark Thomas) on the Simesite. High time that we showed some sign of life. Now that we're in the summertime, and "livin' is easy", and since we have some time on our hands on a lazy Saturday afternoon in Madrid, we felt it would be a good idea to touch base with one and all and at least try to update our list of e-mail contacts for all ex muggs. This is a chore Norma used to handle in the old days, but which it falls upon the shoulders of Simesite to now do.
Hence, everyone should shortly be getting an e-mail asking you to update or confirm your e-mail addresses by replying to Peter in Madrid. (pbesas@hotmail.com)
After our mailing, we received a number of "rejects" from our server. Hence, should anyone know the correct e-mail contacts for any of the following, please let us know what they are:
Brown, Les - tvmaven@ix.netcom.com
Butler, Bob - b.butler@reedbusiness.com
Dawes, Amy - dawesa@reedbusiness.com
Dempsey, John - jdempsey@reedbusiness.com
DeSimio, John - ahkman@earthlink.net
Fabrikant, Geri - gefabr@nytimes.com
Gold, Richard - richgold99@aol.com
King, Bob - rking0654@aol.com
Loftus, Jack - No contact on file.
McCarthy, Todd - tmccarthy@reedbusiness.com
Pearce, Jacqueline - j.pearce@adelphia.net
Jensen, Elizabeth - midwestgirl@attglobal.net
Robbins, Jim - j.a.robbins@att.net
Seminara, Vito - malice3S@aol.com
Yerkovich, Sasha - yerko@adelphia.net
Zink, Jack - sunstage@aol.com
Meanwhile, we wish everyone a good summer, and urge them to show signs of life. If you want to throw in a tidbit about your own activities since we last heard from you, please include it in your reply.
FORMER ROME BUREAU MUGG, MARK THOMAS, RESURFACES ,
We were pleased to received an e-mail from former Rome office scribe, Mark Thomas, who filed from 1987 through June 1990, when he left Variety to join UNICEF in Ethiopia.
He writes:
I want to congratulate you and all the other contributors to Simesite, which I think is a remarkable and loving testament to the great institution that Variety at least used to be. My relatively brief stint with Variety coincided with many changes in the publication and its operations during those years, but in any case I remember those days fondly, especially all the fun (and work!) with the Variety folks from around the world when we gathered for the Mifed and Mip markets and the Cannes festival.
As you can see I am still with UNICEF, and I have worked with the
organization in Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Albania, Pakistan, Timor Leste, Cambodia and Macedonia, as well as several other developing countries. I have been based in Bangkok for the past four years, and hopefully will be here for at least another year or two before UNICEF sends me elsewhere. My first wife, Jennifer, and I divorced in 1996, and 11 years ago I married a Thai woman who was also working with UNICEF. We have two boys, and we plan on settling down in Thailand after I reach retirement age.
I am sorry I have not kept in touch with you and others from Variety, but I promise to be a good correspondent and to reply to any ex-Muggs who want to drop me a line.
Longtime Variety Berlin stringer Ron Holloway passed away in a Berlin hospital on Dec. 16 after a seven-year bout with cancer. His wife, actress Dorothea Moritz, was by his side to the end. He was 76.
Born in Peoria, Illinois in 1933, Holloway took orders as a Catholic priest in Chicago, but later gave up his religious calling and moved first to Paris and then to Hamburg with a two-year grant to obtain his PhD, with particular reference to the films of Carl Theodor Dreyer, Ingmar Bergman and Robert Bresson. He and his wife, Dorothea, moved to Berlin in 1976 when the then director of the Berlin Film Festival, Wolf Donner, invited him to become a member of the selection committee, especially for East European cinema. It was also at that time that Holloway became Variety's stringer in Berlin and in 1979 started up his own film magazine, Kino, which recently celebrated its 30th year of publication. It was due to a conflict of interest between Kino and his work for Variety that he left the sheet, though he continued on good terms with its staff and management and contributed items both to the Simesite and to the Souvenir Album which was published for the 100 Anniversary of Variety in 2005. (See, e.g. his reminiscences of the old Hotel Suisse in Cannes).
Ron also filed for the Hollywood Reporter and Moving Pictures, as well as occasionally contributing articles to the Financial Times and the International Herald Tribune.
Among books written by him are "Z for Zagreb" (1972), "Beyond the Image. Approaches to the Religious Dimension in the Cinema" (1977), "O is for Oberhausen" (1979) and "The Bulgarian Cinema" (1985). He directed two documentaries, "Made In Germany" and "Sundance" which were aired on the German pubcaster ZDF.
Holloway was the co-founder of the Chicago Center for Film Study and the Cleveland Cinematheque.
Funeral arrangements are to be announced next Monday (Dec. 21).
REMEMBERING RON
by Jack Kindred
Early in 1970, I received the go-ahead from Variety's editor, Abel Green, to become the paper's stringer in Hamburg. During one of my trips to Paris to check out the turf scene at the local racetrack, I decided to look up Gene Moskowitz, the Variety correspodent in Paris. Hearing that I was living in Hamburg, he suggested I look up Ronald Holloway, a fellow film buff whom he had met at the Cannes festival. I did, and that was the beginning of a friendship that lasted for 39 years and eventually changed my life.
At the time, Ron was working on has PhD thesis -- religion in film -- at the University of Hamburg. One of the first things we did together was to spend a Chrismas Eve in the Sankt Pauli district of Hamburg, whose main drag, the Reeperbahn, was known at the "Mile of Sin," since Ron, a former Catholic priest, wanted to check out the atmosphere at churches in the area and visit a charitable organization for the homeless.
After obtaining his degree, he and his actress wife, Dorothea Moritz, moved to Berlin where he eventually became a Variety stringer after freelancing writing artcles for various publications, including the Financial Times. My main job in Hamburg was as an editor at the German Press Agency (DPA). Knowing that I received six or seven weeks vacation yearly, Ron suggested that I take some of it to attend the Berlinale film festival, where I could really got to know the film world. I accepted, and in consequence made many new friends and contacts which changed my life.
In the early years of our friendship Ron was struggling financially, since freelancing paid little. I had done a stint at the Volkswagen company in the press and advertising translation department. The company had a policy of giving rebates to journalists, and I put Ron in touch with a friend of mine there. Asked what newspaper he worked for, the canny Ron said the Financial Times, which resulted in his getting a discount when buying a car there. Later, my friend asked me what Ron did at the FT, and he gave me a funny look when I told him that Ron was the paper's theatre critic. Ron drove that VW Beetle that he obtained thanks to the connection for many years.
Ron's stint as stringer for Variety ended after a dispute with a German television network over the credits of a film that Ron's wife Dorothea had made. Ron made the mistake of sending a protest to the head of the network on stationery with a Variety letterhead, not realizing that this was a journalistic taboo. As a result, Ron had to leave the paper, but was almost immediately scooped up by the Hollywood Reporter with which he remained correspondent for many years. Later Ron often said that joining the Reporter had, to his surprise, been a good thing, since it forced him to acquire computer skills.
As his reputation as a film critic grew, Ron received invitations from many festivals throughout the world. After receiving an invitation from the Tokyo festival, he asked whether he could take Dorothea along as well. His reputation was such that the festival sent him two round-trip, first class tickets.
Ron and Dorothea recently celebrated the 30-year anniversity of their monthly magazine, Kino - German Film & International Reports when Ron was already very ill. The special issue was put to bed with the help of Screen International Berlin-based reporter Martin Blaney, just in time for Ron to be able read the issue shortly before his death on December 16. Ron once told me he had started the magazine to give "Dorothea something to do," but actually the idea of publishing a magazine in English about German cinema was totally his. It enabled him to eventually to receive a special award from the German government. Also, while still in the hospital, he was given the Association of German Film Critics award, which Dorothea accepted for him.
Over the years, I often met with Ron at the Berlinale, where we tradtionally had lunch together with others, such as Variety correspondent Deborah Young and Ron's friend from San Francisco, the well-to do film buff, George Gund. When in Berlin during the film festival, it was hard making any headway along the streets when walking in Ron's company, for he had so many friends and acquaintences we'd have to stop every few steps.
In the interim, I had become senior editor at the news agency in Hamburg. About 1985, however, Ron suggested that I offer my services to Variety's European manager Roger Watkins to open a German Variety bureau in Munich. Roger said that Syd's face "lit up" when he mentional the proposal, which resulted in my becoming the Variety bureau chief in Germany.
And that was the second of the suggestions from Ron that changed my life.
end
REMEMBERING DAILY VARIETY'S WILL TUSHER
by MIKE MALAK
WILL TUSHER'S sig was tush a nom de plume that no doubt tickled Will, a veteran of the Hollywood Reporter where sigs were unknown. Tusher had a ribald sense of humor so the double entendre, clearly, was not lost on him.
Tusher, also, liked to get into the faces of people he was putting on with outrageous banter. If, and it was usually just a matter of time, the colleague of the moment decided that he, or she, had stomached just enough of Will he would break out a huge smile. With all the warmth he could muster, Tusher would assure his companion that he was "just kidding."
I had nothing to do with the hiring of staffers, except for advertising personnel. Nonetheless, I could sense competitive threats and would suggest to Tom Pryor, the editor, from time to time, as politely as possible, that the Daily might benefit form certain periodic acquisitions from the red paper. Tusher was one of those suggestions that paid off handsomely. He had been at the Reporter for what seemed like a decade or more and was as much a fixture there as Tichi Wilkerson Miles, later Kassel (the owner) herself. I was in her office once when I delivered some ad copy and on the pretext of looking for the Coke machine looked around in her sanctum. It was full of personality compared to the Spartan Daily and she was nonplused by my curiosity, smiling even as I beat a hasty retreat.
Tusher worked a mixed beat with TV and film in his bag of tricks. His writing was clear, to the point, and you knew where you stood with him from the inception since he, like many staffers, tolerated no folderol. On the other hand, he knew, after many years at it, how the town worked. Entertainment in Hollywood was really about favors and nothing bought more favors than information; Tusher was a gossip at heart no matter how hard his news. Sometimes Pryor's pen flew over his pages, at which Tusher would grimace and start a one-on-one negotiation, usually to no avail. However, he took it all with good graces.
The studios liked to think that each of them was a Fort Knox guarding trade secrets, the same way the government guards its gold ingots, and felt it was practically a Sherman Anti Trust Act violation for the Ad_Pub toppers, an informal collection of studio exex, to meet once a month with Tom Pryor to share tidbits of information. Tusher thrived in such an environment. He loved secrets and knew how to turn them into editorial copy with a flip of the receiver. A number of staffers coveted his Rolodex card file, akin to Army Archerd's, and were amazed at the depth of "Tusher the Gusher"s contacts, many still inherited from his days on the Reporter. It took more than a year or two for the Reporter to make up for Will's loss after he ankled that sheet, much to the delight of the Daily's advertising staff, who regularly mined Tusher's published stories for leads to lucre.
Tusher, despite his occasional gruffness and habit of pedaling his portly upper body through the newsroom, especially in a tux at award show time, had a soft spot for the ladies. He was married five times, each of them to a beautiful woman, or so the legend goes. The one I met was a knockout.
Will was generous to those he felt deserved a helping hand or a push in the right direction. Perhaps influenced from his years at the Reporter where advertising and editorial knew no separation, he'd occasionally ask why I hadn't called so and so. I am most grateful to Will for the tickets he gave my wife and me to the 50th Anniversary Oscar show at which we were the only two people in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to give Vanessa Redgrave, that year's Best Supporting Actress for Fox's Julia, a hand; literally, the only ones. Outside the pavilion, protesters excoriated her as "Vanessa the Red"!
Tusher deserves a hand, too, for a curmudgeonly gentleness beneath the hard boilerplate veneer he acquired working for two trades papers, and for a host of beauties whom, it is said, he treated like royalty.
end
Army Archerd at the 50th Anniversary celebration of Daily Variety in 1983
REMEMBERING ARMY
By MIKE MALAK
Army is that he was one of the meekest, quietest staffers at the Daily. When he would take his copy into Tom, something he did personally unlike most other writers he would stand still, never sitting, while Tom read and edited his copy though the edits were more in the nature of paragraphing and transpositions. I never saw Tom get out a heavy pencil when he read Army's work. Tom would nod to him and Army would take the copy back to deliver it to the City Desk which would send it for typesetting, in the latter days at the in-house Photographics Unit headed by Steve Smith formerly of California Offset Printing.
The one thing that Army never did was waste time. He was above the floating menagerie and rarely took his ear away from the phone, which eventually was replaced by a headset. In the old Hollywood Offices at 6400 Sunset, which we leased from our General Counsel Martin Gang, Army's desk was crammed in, near the front though, along with everyone else's. I recall the first time I saw the desk. It was amazingly cluttered, something that changed with time and, perhaps, the more spacious gigs at Cahuenga Blvd. Though he probably got more releases than anyone else, except for the desk which the networks bombarded every day with this and that non-news, he managed at the Cahuenga Office to keep order. He was generous with his Rolidex and when I was lost for a contact he was my go-to of last resort. He was succinct and to the point with just about everyone due but unfailingly polite.
Bill Feeder the Exec. V.P. at Rogers and Cowan P.R., like most praisery toppers considered the "liner notes" Army wrote about the business to be more important, it seemed, that a front page story. I was at my friend Candy Clark's house in Hollywood one day when Feeder called her and gave a briefing on how she should talk to Army, fairly ridiculous since he was one of the easiest men to talk to due to his lack of ego. She called Army and, as expected, the call went well and an item ran regarding her then picture "The Man Who Fell to Earth," I believe. Feeder called minutes after she hung up and I happened to answer the phone. When he inquired about how the call went I tried to reassure him that Army took all call seriously, even if he truncated them from time to time. Army and I had a chuckle over Feeder's nervousness which was utterly unwarranted since Clark was a charmer in her own right and seldom failed to impress with her homespun personality.
Army was an anti-smoking activist long before that was cool. The Daily was a den of smoke until the L.A. City Council passed an ordinance outlawing smoking in places of commerce. Prior to that time, due to his allergy to smoke, Pryor made a concession to Army and constructed a closed office in the City Room for him, something no one else ever had before or since. The fact that it was small didn't phase Army at all and he continued doing what he did every day and night for his entire career at the Daily, documenting the mores and occasionally morals of the town. He was uniquely qualified to do so because he always took the higher ground and no matter how much Holiday tribute flowed to him over the years he treated the ingenues as respectfully as the moguls. To him a sincere hello was as valuable as the lavish largess of those thinking he needed to be schmoozed not realizing that he was often embarrassed by displays that could separate him from his peers. He was the real thing and I miss my friend Army who was never more than a call away even if we rarely spoke as the years went by. It was, still, a comfort knowing that he was as close as my receiver.
REMEMBERING ARMY
By FRANK SEGERS and HY HOLLINGER
Army Archerd, that assiduously private, gentle-natured Hollywood columnist, was at his death the most publicly-known Variety/Daily Variety figure since Abel Green, the Weekly's legendarily gregarious former editor who commanded the show biz universe for decades from his front-window perch on West 46th Street.
Army was by far the best day-in-and-day-out chronicler of things Hollywood in American journalism. Some dismissed his work as too soft to be of interest to anyone not a Hollywood flack. Those that read him faithfully knew otherwise.
Show biz columnists across the country liberally borrowed – ie., shamefacedly stole – from his column. He was that good: utterly reliable, with access to and trusted by legions of Hollywood personalities from all ranks in the business.
Yet within the "old" Variety/Daily Variety, prior to the publications' sale in 1988, Army was considered an odd journalistic species of the West Coast.
He was little known by the Weekly's hard-charging foreign crew, and there wasn't anyone remotely filling his function at the Weekly's 46th St. headquarters (except perhaps for the two year stint begun in 1967 by an end-of-career Walter Winchell, who contributed a "Man About Town" column for the Weekly).
Army reversed the personnel order of interest of the traditional "old" Variety trade reporter: studio or network heads of first importance, followed by key production chiefs and programmers, distribution bosses and syndication gurus, ratings statisticians, producers. Far down the list were directors and before-the-camera personalities. "We don't bother with stars," Hy once told me (Frank) after I breathlessly informed him that I had just shared a sandwich with Sigourney Weaver in the Paris airport.
Army reversed that order of trade interest with such integrity that his work all but screamed – "look, this is important." He was an anomaly in an era of scoop-obsessed, feuding and vindictive gossip columnists. He was a mensch, equally considerate of celebrities, colleagues and even rivals.
Shortly after Army took over the Daily Variety columnist job from Sheila Graham, I (Hy) came to Hollywood from New York to work on the Daily for about a week. More than anyone, Army steered me around Tinseltown, helping me set up interviews and giving me the lowdown on the people I would be seeing. He invited my wife and me to an informal soiree at his home, at which one of the guests, to my surprise, was Louella Parsons, the powerful Hearst Hollywood columnist.
Army was not gossip columnist. He was a chronicler of the Hollywood scene, from casting to weddings, bar mitzvahs, funerals and social and charity activities. No rumors. Just the facts.
Veteran publicist Murray Weissman recalls that when he would call in news for Army's column, Army would ask, "Who's your client?" as a way of making sure that he included the client's name.
One of our favorite Army stories is attributed to the late Lee Solters, according to Weissman: "Pop the champagne, you made the lead in Army's column," Solters would tell a client.
If an item broke at the end of Army's column, his good-news call said: "Congrats, you made the tag of Army's column."
And if an item got buried in the middle of the column, Solters was as gung-ho as ever: "Hurray, you made the spine of Army's column today."
Despite his own celebrity status, Army never forgot his roots. He frequently attended gatherings of Southern California alumni of Townsend Harris, the prep school of City College of New York, then known as the poor man's Harvard. Coincidentally, the late famed publicist Warren Cowan (Rogers & Cowan) was a classmate of Army's at Townsend Harris.
In 2005, his hometown, The Bronx, N.Y., installed him in the Bronx Hall of Fame, a walk along the Grand Concourse that consists of a series of "street signs" named after famed Bronx natives, with Army's sign joining those of Stanley Kubrick, Regis Philbin, Colin Powell, and others.
The installation was preceded by the Bronx Day Parade, a march down the Grand Concourse to the Courthouse near Yankee Stadium. The tribute added to numerous Army honors, including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which he received in 1984.
Strangely, the many accolades did not make Army feel secure about his job. When Syd published a story about my (Hy’s) coming to Hollywood in 1980 as the associate editor of Weekly Variety, he mentioned that part of my duties would be a Hollywood Soundtrack column.
Army, I heard, erroneously thought that I might be taking over his column. Boy, was he wrong. Matter of fact, I lifted a lot of stuff from him for my weekly mishmash.
When Cahners bought out the Silvermans in 1988, Army is said to have feared that a new editor might not require his services. But the Cahners brass thought otherwise, hailing Army as the kingpin of Daily Variety as they learned that the first thing most people read was Army's column.
As our colleague Morrie Gelman astutely observes in his Simesite rememberance of Army, writing a daily column accurately covering the opaque mores of Hollywood may sound easy but isn't. Army worked tirelessly at what he did but – the sign of the ultimate professional -- he made it look easy.
Our condolences to Selma and the Archerd family.
REMEMBERING ARMY ARCHERD
by MORRIE GELMAN
Along with Marie Silverman, I sat opposite Army Archerd in an out-of-the-way office space in the L.A. office of Variety for several years in the late 1980s. I watched him at work every day. Given a sort of Rorschach test seeking a word association with Army, I'd immediately say, "Reporter!" The exclamation point really should be an extraordinary point. From 10 to 6 most weekdays I watched Army report ceaselessly, indefatigably.
He was on the phone reporting, checking, and rechecking. In the rare times away from the phone, Army would go back to pounding out his daily column.
To describe Army as hard-working is as inadequate as calling a beaver busy. When the roach coach sounded its horn at midday, Army actually looked annoyed. He'd have to leave his desk and phone to grab a hurried lunch that he'd eat while juggling back and forth from phone to keyboard.
Concerned about unanswered calls he'd ask me to cover for him while away from his desk. Often his phone rang with the frequency of church bells on a Sunday morning.
Army was a private person. There wasn't a great deal of small talk between us. He never spoke about his personal life although he'd ask about my family. When my wife was in the hospital after surgery he sent flowers.
My observation of Army was special. I was in the unique position of beginning and ending my career in close proximity to unexpectedly terrific reporters. As an editorial fledgling in the early 1950s I worked as an assistant to Earl Wilson at the New York Post. Earl did for the New York jet set and nightclub crowd what Army did for Hollywood. To call them gossip columnists was hardly given them their due. Both reported and wrote without malice. I didn't see a journalistic ax among their tools. Earl's biggest scoop was being the first to report Ingrid Bergman becoming pregnant by Roberto Rosellini. Army made headlines by reporting Rock Hudson having AIDS.
You don't usually think of such stories being the work of hard-nosed professional reporters. Believe it. Such reporting takes hard work. It's not done casually. It takes a pro to do it accurately. To my observation, Army knew his assigned task in professional life was being a reporter and he performed always to the best of his abilities, which were special.
JUST FOR ARMY ARCHERD Excerpts from the Variety reporters' hit columns
by ARMY ARCHERD
Jan. 9, 1959 | View PDF GOOD MORNING: Liz Taylor and Eddie Fisher were very much in L.A. last night, champagne-toasting each other at Chasen's, when the Mirror-News headlined she was a patient at Menninger's clinic in Topeka. Miss T's comment on the false yarn: "THIS I'm not going to take sitting down. Watch out!"
Jan. 18, 1960 | View PDF
The "mystery malady" which laid low Marilyn Monroe is an allergy to medication, she says. "At one time I was out cold," she admits. "Now, the only thing I'll take is an aspirin." MM mystified guests at her cocktail party launching "Let's Make Love," Friday, by showing up on time -- George Cukor picked her up.
Feb. 4, 1966 | View PDF GOOD MORNING: Alfred Hitchcock has few tears for filmmakers complaining about treatment given their chef d'oeuvres by that crassly commercial medium -- television. Who should know better than Hitch, who has played both sides of the film fence? "It's simply a case of knowing what deal you make," he pleasantly pontificated. "Make your deal first -- then, complain -- if you can."
April 23, 1968 | View PDF GOOD MORNING: from a runway in the middle of the San Francisco airport -- where Steve McQueen threw himself under a Pan-Am 707 in takeoff ... It was about 3:30 ayem; the thermometer chattered 34 degrees, the wind, 25 knots, and about 100-knotted stomachs in the crew responded to the scene just filmed for "Bullitt" ... McQueen with his usually-flat hair standing straight, ran directly toward the camera so the audience would know -- in no uncertain terms -- it was he they saw under the plane. "Boy, I love this business," he grinned ...
Sept. 29, 1975 | View PDF
Cary Grant has his attorneys investigating suits vs. People mag and the Associated Press, the former for printing he has false teeth. "I have to get into court and open my mouth," said Grant. And the AP suit involves their quotes from a Red Book yarn (which Grant claims doesn't exist), saying he never loved any of his wives.
Feb. 6, 1981 | View PDF
Maybe an answer to some of the ill$ of the film biz could be found in Irving Lazar's talk to the L.A. Bar Association about pix, and the agents' role. "In the old days," he said, "you'd talk to men like Louis B. Mayer who once told me, 'You're not leaving this room until we make a deal.' Or you talked to Zanuck, Cohn, Warner, or Goldwyn. Now you're dealing with computers. The last thing they worry about is -- the story."
July 23, 1985 | View PDF GOOD MORNING: The whispering campaign on Rock Hudson can -- and should stop. He has flown to Paris for further help. The Institute Pasteur has been very active in research on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Hudson's dramatic weight loss was made evident to the national news last week when he winged to Carmel to help longtime friend Doris Day launch her new pet series. His illness was no secret to close Hollywood friends, but its true nature was divulged to very, very few. He left for France and possible aid from scientists there over the weekend. Doctors warn that the dread disease (AIDS) is going to reach catastrophic proportions in all communities if a cure is not soon found ...
Aug. 12, 1985 | View PDF GOOD MORNING: Paul Newman has not forsaken the sound stage for the racetracks -- he is committed to working with Martin Scorsese on developing "The Color of Money," to start, it's hoped, before year's end.
July 10, 1990 | View PDF GOOD MORNING: Indeed, for Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is celebrating "Total Recall's" hitting the $100 million b.o. mark last night. "It's the first Summer picture to do it," the happy Arnold said on the set of his current film, "Kindergarten Cop." "And no matter what anyone says," reminded the actor, "it's a competition. Out here, everyone unleashes its big talents for the Summer. Like Disney unleashed Warrant Beatty; Fox, Bruce Willis; WB, Steven Spielberg ("Gremlins"); Paramount, Tom Cruise and Eddie Murphy." Schwarzenegger is also happy because he has a piece of the gross -- "from the first dollar," he smiled.
June 22, 1995 | View PDF
(Michael) Jackson again insisted his purpose was indeed to preach tolerance; again, he said, "From the bottom of my heart, I am not a racist." And once again, he enumerated for me all his friends and neighbors (by name) who are Jewish -- as well as his advisers. So I asked him, "Didn't any of them hear you record those lyrics -- or read them before you recorded them? Didn't they tell you how counter-tolerance they are? And what damage they would do when they'd become part of the vocabulary of young children who never heard them before? ... And what about the promo ad so reminiscent of Nazi storm troopers?" He again said how much he loves and is loved by his Jewish friends and how some, whose names he would not give me, "heard it (the lyrics) over and over. One made me play it over and over again for him." When I gave Michael my opinion of how wrong they were, he responded with, "I didn't realize what I was doing."
Sept. 12, 2001 | View PDF
It's not a good morning -- and it will not be for a long time to come. "The threat level will be around for a long time," the FBI tells me. ... It's not surprising that the biz is putting the bizness of award shows on hold. "This is a national crisis and no time to be handing out awards or to comment on what people are wearing," Emmy producer Don Mischer told me Tuesday morning about the cancellation of Sunday's Emmy Awards. "They will occur some time in the future, we don't know when. We don't even know how many participants will want to fly again soon. We're in a period of national mourning."
Sept. 1, 2005 | View PDF GOOD MORNING: Like the song says -- I'm still here. And I'm still looking for news, just as I have for 52 years. I'll be manning the phones as usual at my Variety office, and I'll continue to dig out news wherever it may be lurking, in crowded industry events or at intimate, so-called private, invitation-only settings. I'll check the darkened booths at Dan Tana's, the patio at Spago, the agent-packed Grill, even siphon leads out of the noise at the Palm. And in N.Y., at Elaine's, the new Le Cirque, Michael's and Joe Allen's after theater. My greatest joy will always be getting a "scoop." The byline will be the same, but it will be atop an occasional story and not atop the column.
ARMY ARCHERD DIES AT 87 Variety columnist was with publication for 52 years
by TIMOTHY M. GRAY
Army Archerd, whose 52-year run as a Daily Variety columnist made him unique among showbiz reporters, died Tuesday in Los Angeles of a rare form of mesothelioma cancer, thought to be the result of his exposure to asbestos in the Navy during WWII. He was 87.
Archerd was one of the first writers to link AIDS to a celebrity when he he printed that Rock Hudson, despite denials from the actor's publicists and managers, was undergoing treatment for AIDS. For many years, he emceed the Academy Awards on the red carpet.
He began covering entertainment on Oct. 18, 1945, and started the "Just for Variety" column in 1953. His last column ran on Sept. 1, 2005, and he continued contributing to the paper and writing a blog for Variety.com until July 27.
His 900-word column ran on page 2 of Daily Variety five days a week until the 1990s, when it was reduced to four-a-week.
Mixing one-sentence items with lengthier pieces, Archerd insisted on exclusives and provided a community bulletin board, giving details of new deals, reporting from film sets and awards shows, as well as chronicling the births, deaths and hospitalizations of showbiz denizens. He was known for being fair, quoting people accurately and being generally upbeat -- which, in the latter part of the 20th century, became increasingly rare for an entertainment reporter.
Seldom was heard a discouraging word -- that is, unless there was something going on in Hollywood that bothered him. When Elia Kazan was to be given a special Oscar for the 1998 ceremonies, Archerd criticized the move in many columns, and he often wrote negatively about the NRA and Charlton Heston.
He also was a strong proponent of Jewish causes. When Michael Jackson's "HIStory" album was released in 1995, Archerd chastised Jackson for a song in which he used the words "Jew me/Sue me" and "Kike me." A few days later, Jackson called the columnist to reveal that he would re-record the song.
But Archerd mixed this social awareness with much lighter reports. In 2001, he told Talk magazine that he never regretted printing an item, and would not state on the record which story he was proudest of ("It would be very egotistical for me to say that"). However, in private he boasted about the July 23, 1985, Rock Hudson column, when Archerd foretold, "Doctors warn that the dread disease AIDS is going to reach catastrophic proportions in all communities if a cure is not soon found." Global media picked up on the story; though the disease was not new, this was the first time anyone linked the disease to such a well-known celebrity.
Some media pundits speculated that, had the actor's death been attributed to other maladies, the scope of AIDS would not have been publicized and realized until Magic Johnson revealed his condition in 1992.
Armand Archerd was born in the Bronx on Jan. 13, 1922. After high school, he attended CCNY for two years. When his family moved to Los Angeles, Archerd transferred to UCLA and, after graduation in 1941, began work in the mail room at Paramount.
When WWII was declared, he enlisted in the Navy. He was commissioned an ensign and shipped out to the Pacific as a deck officer on a destroyer. Archerd was in the same Navy squadron with Herman Wouk and suspects some of his foul-ups were the inspiration of a chapter in the writer's "The Caine Mutiny."
On his return from the service, Archerd joined a group of veterans who were making speeches about tolerance to civic groups.
Archerd met Associated Press reporter Bob Thomas, who introduced him to AP's L.A. bureau chief Hubbard Keavy. Thomas and Archerd opened the AP bureau in the Hollywood Citizen News on Wilcox Avenue in 1945. In 1947, Archerd was hired by the Herald-Express as assistant (i.e., "leg man") to drama-movie editor-columnist Harrison Carroll.
In addition to covering the studios, Archerd began reporting on the local nightclub scene, which included Sunset Strip sites like the Mocambo and Ciro's and music boites down La Cienega, La Brea and Ventura Blvd.
In 1953, Daily Variety editor Joe Schoenfeld hired Archerd to replace columnist Sheilah Graham.
Even after five decades on the job, he was a bulldog about the business, phoning the office from his cell phone to report a tip and to ensure Daily Variety would get the scoop. After 50 years, he still got angry when other columnists lifted his items without attribution. After nearly 40 years of working with a manual typewriter, he had to switch to computers. While some other Daily Variety veterans balked at the switch, he worked hard to master the new system. (However, he was regularly flummoxed by frozen computers and despaired when his work was lost).
Archerd was proud of the fact that he never used "leg men," writing the column himself from his small office at Variety, using four phone lines.
Even normally press-shy celebs like Marlon Brando spoke with him. In April 2002, to commemorate the start of his 50th year at the paper, Daily Variety printed a special salute to him. In a flood of photos, Archerd seemed like the fictional "Zelig," appearing in shots with a who's who of Hollywood, from Judy Garland and William Holden to Taylor & Burton, to Tom & Nicole. He was one of the last writers to use the three-dot school of journalism. One publicist summed up the attitude of many PR people in town when he said one line in Army was worth a longer story elsewhere.
Writer J.F. Lawton ("Pretty Woman") told Talk magazine in 2001, "There will always be three iconic moments in the Hollywood life. Seeing your name for the first time on a movie poster, seeing it on a billboard, and when you see it for the first time in Army Archerd's column."
Though he hated the term "gossip columnist" and bristled whenever anyone referred to him as one, he appeared as a regular contributor to E!'s "The Gossip Show" in the 1990s.
In addition, he was the co-host and co-producer of the "People's Choice Awards" on CBS since their start in 1974.
He was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences in 1978. And in 1984, he was given a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, in front of Mann's Chinese Theater, where he has emceed dozens of movie premieres.
As an emcee, he has introduced arriving celebs to the crowds at numerous film premieres, the Emmys for the last eight years. But he is best known in that capacity as emcee for the Academy Awards, serving that duty since 1958.
Even after decades on the job, he still got nervous before his Oscar gigs, working hard to immediately associate names and faces and to know about their most current projects. And, the year Marlee Matlin was a nominee, he practiced sign language to make her feel comfortable.
Aside from his writing for Daily Variety, Archerd wrote regular columns for the King Features Syndicate, countless magazine articles including regular features for the then-popular fan magazines such as Photoplay, writing as many as four monthly fanzine columns.
He was president and founder of the Hollywood Press Club and received honors from them as well as from the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., "Newsman of the Year" from the Publicists Assn., "Man of the Year" from the Hollywood Women's Press Club., the L.A. Press Club's Eight Ball Foundation and Masquers Man of the Year. He was the first regular TV showbiz reporter, appearing nightly on KNXT (later KCBS) with Hollywood news.
When "Entertainment Tonight" launched, he was its first on-the-scene reporter. He also co-hosted the syndicated "Movie Game," co-hosted and co-produced "The Celebrity Daredevils" and "Wildest West Show of the Stars" on CBS. He has had his own radio and TV shows on KNX, KABC, KDAY and KNX-TV. Archerd was the first journalist ever to be honored with a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Archerd appeared as himself in over 100 movies and TV shows. He has also hosted and emceed commercial events. And in the New Year's Day Rose Parade on Jan. 1, 1993, he appeared, appropriately, on the "Awards Night" float in Pasadena.
Archerd is survived by his wife, actress Selma Archerd, a son, Evan, two stepsons Richard Rosenblum and James Rosenblum and five grandchildren. A daughter, Amanda, died in 2008.
HARLAN JACOBSON LANDS JOB AS PHILLY FILMFEST SUPREMO
by FRANK SEGERS
"Old Variety" mugs, those who worked for Variety/Daily Variety prior to the 1988 sale and to whom this website is dedicated, usually don't turn up as film festival heads.
The latest exception to the rule is Harlan Jacobson, who was named Artistic Director of the Philadelphia Film Festival in mid-July 2009.
Harlan's roots are in the American Midwest (although he attended college in Philly). His first exposure to Variety began in November 1973 at the publication's long shuttered Chicago office then in the Wrigley Building, hard by the Chicago River. After the 46th Street office summoned him eastward, Jacobson shifted from the Windy City to Gotham, joining the Variety film department in February 1975.
During his five-and-a-half-year New York tenure, Harlan carved out a specialty in theatrical exhibition, among other areas. He was mentored during this period by the late Bob Landry, managing editor of the Weekly and a graduate of the Chicago office himself.
The news release announcing his new Festival appointment refers to Harlan's 30-year coverage of the film industry. That's incorrect, it's more like 36 years.
For seven years beginning in 1982, Harlan was editor of Film Comment, the bi-monthly magazine published by New York's Film Society of Lincoln Center.
Following that, he and his wife Susan took the bold, entrepreneurial step of establishing in 1992 a nation-wide network of film screenings/seminars under the rubric of "Talk Cinema." The basic idea was simple: screening films sight unseen before subscription audiences, and then providing guest speakers to dissect them.
Audiences loved the concept, and Talk Cinema venues sprung up literally across the U.S., from Berkley (California) to Dallas, Scottsdale (Arizona) and New York's Lincoln Center. Chicago and Philadelphia were among the first Talk Cinema beachheads, and remain among the strongest to this day. To secure films for these venues, Harlan has traveled extensively and is a fixture at Cannes, Sundance, Toronto and other key events.
More recently, Harlan and Susan, also under the Talk Cinema imprimatur, have undertaken guided tours to film festivals worldwide. The 2009 itinerary includes festivals in Montreal, Locarno (Switzerland), Toronto, Amsterdam, Havana, Palm Springs (California) and Reykjavik, Iceland. For further information about screenings and festival tours, click on www.talkcinema.com.
As artistic director of the Philly fest, Jacobson begins immediately to winnow selections for what is described as the Festival's "18th-1/2" edition, running from Oct. 15-18 at several theatres around Philadelphia. For more information, click on info@filmadelphia.org.
To my knowledge, the only other ex-Variety mugg to have taken the reins as film festival director is Deborah Young, longtime staffer in the Weekly's former Rome office, who currently runs the Taormina (Sicily) fest. Steve Klain, a former 46th St. film staffer (and friend of Jacobson's), who until 2001 was an international marketing executive at the pre-Disney Miramax Films, also worked for a time as Taormina's deputy director.
END
FORMER DAILY VARIETY CRITIC TONY SCOTT DIES IN L.A.
Longtime TV critic for Daily Variety,Tony Scott, died Tuesday (July 7) in Los Angeles after several years of declining health. He had suffered a fall in June, striking his head. He was 85.
Scott, sig was Tone, worked at Daily Variety for 30 years. He was filing for a local community paper in 1967 when he got a call from Daily Variety editor Tom Pryor, who'd seen his reviews. Scott remained the trade paper's senior TV reviewer until his retirement in 1997.
Scott often put in hours of research before reviewing shows, especially those based on historical events or true stories. One of the reviews of which he was most proud was of Steven Spielberg's first TV movie, "Duel," which starred Dennis Weaver in a suspense tale of man vs. truck.
"Film buffs rightfully will be studying and referring to 'Duel' for some time," he wrote in his 1971 review. "Finest so far of the ABC Movies of the Weekend, the film belongs on the classic shelf for top suspensers. Director Steven Spielberg builds step by logical step toward the exquisitely controlled climax and symbolic conclusion of Richard Matheson's teleplay. Anyone switching channels after the first five-minute hooker is in need of whole blood."
In 1969, the California Assembly commended Scott for "his many contributions to his profession and his community," citing his work in "the fight for civil rights" and his many philanthropic endeavors, including his volunteer work for the L.A. County Heart Assn. and the Wilshire Center Chamber of Commerce.
Scott served in WWII, seeing combat in France and Germany. He was part of the reconnaissance squad that discovered the Ohrdruf concentration camp, the first such Nazi camp liberated by American forces.
Assigned to the U.S. embassy in Paris immediately after the war, he befriended expatriates Thornton Wilder, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas and kept up a lively correspondence with each of them until their deaths. Returning from the war, he graduated from Pomona College and began his career as a writer -- writing plays and novels before settling into journalism.
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FRANK BEERMANN
Frank Beermann, former sports and television columnist for Variety, died May 21 in New York. He was 85.
At weekly Variety in New York, he was one of the first trade writers to cover the fledgling cable industry and covered the Moscow and Sarajevo Olympics for his Sports Channels column. He wrote for the trade newspaper Film-TV Daily in the 1960s and for Variety from 1971 to 1989.
Born in Brooklyn, Beerman lived most of his life in a walk-up in Greenwich Village.
He is survived by a daughter, Jane Stephens and a son, Luke, an exec at Dubai's Rotana Television.
JENNIFER PENDLETON
by MORRIE GELMAN
May 11, 2009
This is a remembrance I didn't anticipate. I hate to write it. Other memorial essays I've contributed to this space were of contemporaries, people retired, gone after a lifetime of achievements. Jennifer Pendleton, who died Jan. 26 of cancer, was only 56.
I knew her since she was a young woman of slim figure, dark hair and eyes and striking looks. We competed against one another, before working together at Advertising Age and Daily Variety.
When I left Ad Age as West Coast Bureau Chief, I recommended Jennifer as my successor. I hesitate to say it because of sounding self-important but Jennifer was my protégé. In my mind she was my discovery, sitting near me at a new conference. She was a young reporter for Ad Age and I, nearly 25 years older, was the seasoned Broadcast Advertising beat guy from Broadcasting Magazine. I thought his is a keeper.
When I was recruited by Crain Communications for the Bureau Chief job at both Ad Age and a start-up called Electronic Media, Jennifer was going to be one of the six people working under me.
She called before I arrived on the job. "Can we have lunch?" she asked. "Why?" I questioned. "We really don't know each other."
Her answer told me how bright and bold she was. "If I'm going to be working for you I want to know what sort of boss you're going to be."
After I switched back to the Variety organization (I originally was with Daily and came back after Crain for Weekly), Peter Pryor came to me. He said a Jennifer Pendleton had used me as a reference applying for a reporter's job with Daily. "What can you tell me about her?" Peter asked.
I told him Jennifer was like the girl in school who got straight "A" s She never was late or absent, had a hair out of place, dressed sensibly, spoke correctly, conducted herself always as a well-brought-up lady. I didn’t know whether that was high praise or the kiss of death.
I once complained to an editor about a competing reporter who never kept a pledge, lied, cheated, was ruthless.
"Sounds like a great find," the editor responded. "Let's hire him."
Jennifer, of course, did none of those things. I think she was a great find. I'm deeply sorry we lost her. I was correct from the start. She was a keeper, at least in my mind and memory she is.
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BESA CRANKS OUT ANOTHER TOME
After many years of research, Peter has finally managed to get out his new book about Madrid's oldtime inns. The new tome is monickered "A History and Anecdotes of the Inns of Old Madrid", and is now on sale in major outsets in Spain, including major bookshops and department stores.
The paperback runs over 400 pages, with over 60 illustrations, some of them taken by Peter's son, Mark, and includes a long bibliiography, a specially-tailored currency conversation table from the 19th century, a glossary, two appendices, extensive notes, sources and an Index. The book traces the history of Madrid inns from the late 18th century up to the First World War, with most of the descriptions coming from contemporary travellers of the time. The historical background is peppered with anecdotes on the inns and descriptions of restaurants and cafe life of that period.
Since the main sales point of the book is sure to be in Spain, the Madrid publisher, Ediciones La Libreria, simulataneously brought out an edition in Spanish as well, called "Historia y Anecdotas de las Fondas Madrilenas".
In order to celebrate the occasion (since publishers are loath to pick up the tab for such "extras"), Peter himself hosted a launch cocktail at a local tavern the evening of March 26, inviting friends and acquaintances from various walks of life, ranging from book collectors, to journalists and poker pals. Some of them can be seen in the picture.
Though the book is not on sale outside Spain for the time being, it can be ordered directly from the publisher, whose website is: www.edicioneslalibreria.com.
end
MENTOR, MENSCH AND SCRIBE Veteran Mugg Retires After 36 Years at Show Biz Trades
by FRANK SEGERS
On December 31, Hy Hollinger ended a 36-year trade journalism career, perhaps the longest and most influential in modern-day show biz.
Hy's first newspaper job was at The New York Times, working on Saturdays during high school as a copy boy and messenger in the classified ad department. (That's when he got his Social Security card.) While attending Columbia's Journalism School, Hy landed a job as a CBS intern working the 1940 Republican convention in Philadelphia that nominated Wendell Willkie as a dark horse candidate to oppose Roosevelt. Conventions were strictly radio affairs back then, and Hy found himself rubbing elbows with such CBS stars of the time as Robert Trout, John Charles Daly and political analyst Elmer Davis.
Hy spent a total of 20 years at Variety/Daily Variety in two stints, first from 1953 to 1960, and then from 1979 to 1992. His career with The Hollywood Reporter began promptly in 1992, and finished last year.
It almost goes without saying that a career of similar duration is simply not possible today given the revolving-door staffing styles currently prevailing at V/DV and at The Hollywood Reporter. (At The Reporter alone, Hy outlasted five editors.)
Other Variety staffers had longer tenure - Bob Hawkins, 55 years; the late John Madden, 38 years; and Morton Bryer, 37 years, for example - but only Hy's spanned both the Hollywood trade publications, and was so intently focused on covering the mix of international film and Hollywood -- particularly the business of selling independent, non-major-studio productions directly to film distributors located in markets all over the world.
What may not be not widely appreciated is how influential Hy was. During his Variety years, he did pioneering work with Don Groves, then working in London, to develop what was a virtual boilerplate for reporting international box office grosses.
The intricate methodology of foreign gross reporting was refined over years, especially during Hy's years at The Reporter. As a foreign box office analyst, he was without peer. No one did it better.
But Hy's most extraordinary achievement could be encapsulated in three words - American Film Market. Rarely in Hollywood trade journalism does what a reporter writes about leave a lasting institutional mark. Hy's work did exactly that.
In the late 1970's and early 1980's, Hollywood-based international film sellers flocked to two dominant overseas markets to sell their wares: the commercial sidebar attached to the Cannes International Film Festival and to MIFED, a fall bazaar held annually in Milan, Italy. There was nothing comparable to these key events in the United States.
At Cannes one year - when the weather along the Cote d'Azur was rainy, the lodging and food prices steep, the French particularly rude and the level of discontent high - Hy reported in Variety how grim was the mood among American film sellers. His articles did not go unnoticed.
The superb contributions to this Simesite article include two, from Robert Meyers and Michael Goldman, which pointedly recall the eventual result of Hy's accurate and descriptive reporting coming out of that wet Cannes market. The seed was planted and the American Film Market was conceptualized.
Hy's trade journalism career was enriched by his two stints with major Hollywood studios. As a result, he was one of the few trade journalists to know first hand how studios actually worked rather than how they presented themselves to outsiders.
Born - he won't say when - in the Bronx, Hy attended Townsend Harris High School, the City College of New York and the Columbia School of Journalism. After serving from 1942 to 1945 mostly overseas as a sergeant in Armed Forces Radio, he worked for a suburban Philadelphia weekly, then covered sports for the now-defunct New York Morning Telegraph before joining Warner Bros. as a publicist.
After his first Variety stint, Hy joined Paramount Pictures but this time as an executive. First he was publicity director of International Telemeter Co., an experimental pay tv operation. He later became European Production Publicity Director based in London, then ad-pub v.p. It was a heady time for Hy.
He recalls working in London in the "swinging Sixties," and visiting locations in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden Israel, Lebanon, Russia, (the then) Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Hy also recalls with some amusement that Robert Rehme, the veteran film company exec (Avco Embassy, New World, Universal) and producer (Neufeld/Rehme Productions) once told him that he (Hy) was Rehme's boss.
Also during his Paramount period, Hy found himself described in a book by writer-director Nicholas Meyer ("Star Trek," "The Seven Percent Solution"). Hy had assigned Meyer as the unit publicist for the 1969 production of the three-hanky weeper, "Love Story," with Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw. Meyer turned his experience into "The Love Story Story," published in 1971, in which a very Hy-like character is warmly praised as being "avuncular." (Hy says he recalls Meyer as a "young publicity writer who cornered visiting producers to show them his scripts.")
In a regime change at the studio, Hy left Paramount and worked for a time beginning in 1972 in corporate public relations, handling a broad range of accounts from the National Basketball Players Assn. to Sagittarius Productions, owned by Seagram chief Edgar Bronfman, responsible for producer David Puttnam's first film, "Bugsy Malone" (1976).
As Hy remember it, he was walking down a street in mid-town Manhattan one day when he had a chance encounter with his former Variety boss Syd Silverman and Variety exec Robert Hawkins. The ensuing conversation among the three culminated not long after in a headline above an article in the Sept. 5, 1979 edition of the Weekly - "Hy Hollinger Rejoins Variety As Assoc. Ed. Basing in Hollywood." His brief: "All aspects of show business with special emphasis on the international scene."
The assignment was not taken lightly by management at a time when the weekly Variety in New York and the Daily Variety in Holywood, although under the same ownership umbrella, operated pretty much as separate entities. The 1979 article notes that Hy's new assignment "marks the first time in many years that weekly Variety will have its own editorial presence in the film capital." In any case, Hy spent the rest of his career in Hollywood.
In introducing this article, I've tried to keep to "just the facts, ma'am" in order to stay out of the way and not detract from the extraordinary contributions that follow from a selection of those who worked with Hy over many years.
The contributions shed light on various aspects of Hy's career. What strikes me is how unexpectedly emotional they are.
As one who has worked under Hy's close tutelage covering international film grosses for The Hollywood Reporter, I welcome the emotion. Hy patiently shared with me - as he did with many others throughout his career -- his considerable trade smarts, his intelligence, wisdom and philosophical outlook ("Evil triumphs, but never conquers"). And, most especially, his understated wit.
Hy exited trade journalism in typical Hollinger style - quietly, gracefully and with a minimum of fanfare. There was a small post-departure luncheon party of THR staffers, an event Hy thoroughly enjoyed. Many consider Hy a cherished friend. Count me in!
Please enjoy the following contributions. My special thanks to each author.
GULLIBLE'S TRAVELS, OR HYHO, HYHO, IT'S OFF TO CANNES WE GO
By MICHAEL SILVERMAN
(Great Grandson of Variety founder Sime Silverman, Michael Silverman is the former publisher of Daily Variety.)
Hy Hollinger has to be just about the most durable, productive and respected entertainment trade reporter of the past two centuries (he's spanned both). My best information is that he toiled at Variety from the mid-'50s into the '60s as a 20-something scribe, and then was recruited into the Hollywood studio publicity machine for the better part of two decades.
I'm not sure why Hy ended up back at Daily Variety in the late 70's, but I assumed it was due to another typical studio regime change: new guy in, he chops everybody who knows anything and brings in his own sycophants, rear-kissers and other loyalists whom he (or she) can control with a mere glance. Sound familiar? See "Variety: under Peter Bart." The fact that Hy lasted that long in the studio system is a tribute to his fortitude and skills.
I first met Hy in the early '80s, when in 1982, Adrienne and I were just married and shipped to Los Angeles and Daily Variety from New York. I'm sure Hy was "asked" by Daily editor Tom Pryor to show the new Silverman cub reporter the ropes, which he did to the hilt. It was learning trade journalism by osmosis, from one of the masters. It was also appropriate that Hy had one of the best of the traditional four-letter review signatures Hyho. If you were covering a market with Hy, it truly was "Hyho, Hyho, it's off to work we go...."
This was right at the time that both Variety's were enjoying explosive growth, along with the independent film business, the Primetime Access rule and TV syndication, cable and pay-cable expansion, and the growth of homevideo. The weekly was producing 500-page issues for Cannes, NATPE, MIP-TV, and the new American Film Market in L.A., and of course all those ads had to be broken up with reams of useful, or at least informative, editorial copy.
Hy was incredibly patient, and a good teacher. He would guide me through the preparatory work of interviewing dozens of independent film producers, some who were talented filmmakers, while others were just extraordinary blowhards. In both cases, Hy showed me that you made sure you tracked the projects and pointed out when fantasy became reality, and when fantasy remained nothing but smoke. Remember, the papers were filled with ads for pictures that never got made, but all these companies were pursuing bank advances ("so nice to see you again, Frans") and foreign pre-sales based on a piece of art, a B-grade star and a script treatment, if you were lucky. And we were supposed to be "the Bible of showbiz." I got religion quickly, and Hy was the bishop of box office. Of course, Tom Pryor was The Pope.
Iron Man, Mentor
I spent countless Cannes fests and American Film Markets working alongside Hy, and to this day am still in awe of his endurance and productivity. Typically he'd be at an 8 a.m. press breakfast, work the market hallways all day and at 4-6 p.m. he'd be in the Variety AFM suite banging out his 4th or 5th story of the day to make the Daily deadline, or if it was Tuesday, writing his magnum opus- analysis piece for the Weekly. Meanwhile, I'd be next to him, feeling like a poor relation working on my 2nd feature of the day and trying to get a quote from PSO's Mark Damon (harder than it sounds, as this was long before cell phones) before final Daily close.
"But wait, there's more!" And then I'd tag along as Hy headed downstairs after sending in his last story, to the two or four soirees scheduled for that evening. Not only was he a great reporter, he never stopped. He and legendary ad salesman Hal Scott could work a room like nobody's business, with a drink in hand and a notebook in his pocket. Now schmoozing was a skill-set that most muggs had, but Hy was one of those Variety staffers, like Hal Scott, Roger Watkins, Seger-san, Mike Harris, Tom Girard, Jack Loftus, Joe Cohen, Claudia Eller, Hank Werba and some others who could take it to another level. In Hy's case, he was scouring the marketplace after-hours for leads on his stories for the next day. Tagging along was a tutorial in how to schmooze the news out of people who didn't want to give it to you -- unless it was something bad about their competitors.
Hy was selfless and gracious about showing me (and my evil twin Mark) the reportorial ropes, and all over the globe. From Milan to Manila, from Cannes to Culver City, I learned how to get information out of people, where the best restaurants were (not at all the most expensive), and to understand people's motives: this latter was a priceless skill set in Hollywood and later, in the Cahners/Reed corporate world.
Thriller In Manila
Probably our greatest adventure was a weeklong (or more) stint covering the nascent Manila International Film Festival for the papers. This was around 1985, I think (memory fades), and the Ferdinand Marcos regime had decided an international film fest was just the ticket to take Filipinos' (and the world's) minds off his failing dictatorship and growing (Islamic?) rebel insurgency.
The junket included a coach-class flight on Philippine Airlines from L.A. to Manila. I'm pretty sure 1st class was filled with the celebs invited to the festival, including actors George Hamilton ("I'll get a real tan!") and Anne Archer (a nice-looking, and nice, lady), plus 20th-Fox production chief Sherry Lansing and PSO's Mark Damon (both former thesps), along with MPAA chieftain Jack Valenti.
Hy and I were stuck in steerage for the never-ending 17-hour flight. Even with a layover in Hawaii, the 2nd leg was like 10 hours in the air, and made even more interminable by the fact they ran out of vodka. Come to think of it, they ran out of everything - food, water, and most importantly, booze. This was one of the few times I ever saw Hy irritable.
The festival itself was a meagre attempt at distracting the world from Marcos' imminent departure as dictator, and it was a unique experience, much like being Mel Gibson -- I wish! -- in (the 1983 film) "The Year of Living Dangerously": foreign correspondent, "guest" of southeast Asian dictatorship, under constant scrutiny and surveillance by despot's goons; oh, right.... no Sigourney Weaver as a love interest. Well, at least I had Hy Hollinger in case of emergency.
All the Americans were closely watched. I checked into my room at the hotel and found hanging in the closet a custom-made linen/lace native shirt known as a Barong, which fit me perfectly. This creeped me out, and I wondered how they knew my size. Lucky guess? I wondered if it was bugged. During the entire festival, it seemed there was always a swarthy guy in sunglasses and bulges under his suit hovering in the vicinity, whether it was while we were eating lunch, or taking a Jeepny ride in Manila's manic taxis. And our schedule was predetermined for us, for the most part. Valenti, the consummate politician, was oh-so-smooth with Madame (Imelda) Marcos, she of the thousand shoes. I think his real goal for the trip was to make some inroads fighting the rampant film piracy in the territory.
Ship Of Fools?
Most memorable was the day we were kidnapped by Madame Marcos on the presidential yacht, a converted WWII minesweeper. Virtually all the American guests were hustled in the morning to the harbor for what was supposed to be a short cruise to the WWII memorial at Corregidor and lunch. Along with us was Variety's Peter Besas and his lovely late wife Lucy, a sharp lady.
Well, this turned into an all-day/most of the night affair, highlighted by a luncheon performance on the basketball court-sized dance floor by Imelda Marcos of the standard lounge ballad, "Feelings." As she belted out "Peelings.....nutting more dan peelings," I decided I should take notes for a New Act Review for the weekly. As I announced this, I think Hy choked on his lunch with a huge guffaw. He smartly advised that I might want to wait to file the review until we were safely out of the country. He wasn't kidding.
Well, day turned to night, as Mrs. Marcos then decided we would all get a tour of the presidential Summer palace, which was God-knows-where on yet another island. Hours later, in the dark, we were loaded onto a bus with M-16-armed Filipino soldiers as guards, supposedly to protect us. As we were told as the bus headed back to Manila, we were about to head through rebel-controlled territory.
Everybody was more p.o.'d than scared, Hy especially, because we'd now wasted an entire day touring the Philippines with Imelda. We were tired, and hungry, and now way behind schedule, with no real festival news to speak of. I never did find out why we didn't take the ship back to Manila.
This was back in the days when a fax machine was a huge competitive advantage. Unfortunately, the press room at the fest was not up to current snuff, and I remember Hy and I typing out stories in the press room and then having to hand them to Filipino spies (I mean, Telex operators) who would then re-punch our stories and dial up the LA or NY office. Hy, always being a rather practical sort, reminded me not to write any overtly critical dispatches, and certainly not the review of the 1st Lady;we could always write them from the safety of our desks at the Daily.
Capo di Tutti Capo du Cap
Hy was one of my great mentors at Daily Variety, and he was a terrific guide to the nuances of the indie and international film business, as well as a handy fellow when on foreign assignments, especially Cannes. He introduced me to the scene at the swank Hotel du Cap, where lunch was stupidly expensive and cash only, of course. He and Hal Scott and the legendary Bob Hawkins even knew which hotel staffer to grease (and how much) to get copies of the paper (and the monstrous Cannes Daily) to all the guest rooms. They were like the Three Musketeers to me. Throw in Roger Watkins as D'Artagnan, and you couldn't go wrong with that bunch.
Hy continued his ace reporting and analysis throughout my years at the Daily, right up towhen I headed out the door in December, 1992 after my contract with Cahners/Reed was up.
By this time, of course, Peter Bart had been given control of the Daily's editorial department by the corporate suits, against both my advice and protests. It was clear from the start that Bart wanted Hy and other senior staffers out, but Hy especially; I assumed it was because he knew (literally) where the bodies were buried from Hy's days at Paramount (all apologies to Dave Robb and his pursuit of the Roy Rudin murder case to which Bart's Paramount mentor Robert Evans was believed to be linked but never prosecuted).
Bart tried more than once on my watch as Publisher of the Daily to get rid of Hy, but of course he had to be careful, what with age discrimination laws and other realities of the human resources function. I always managed to make the point with the few suits who would listen that a guy like Hy was a walking Rolodex, and had a massive b.s. detector built in, and was incredibly productive, to boot. In other words, he was indispensable. It also got a big laugh (and made a point) with the suits when Bart would squirm, "but he's too old, and the new Hollywood doesn't relate to (Hy)" and I'd retort, "but Peter, he's just about your age...60, right?"
Happily, Hy found a new home at the Hollywood Reporter as International Editor, for the next 16 years. They were lucky to have him that long. Variety was even luckier to have him longer, and twice!
HY'S INSTRUMENTAL ARTICLE
By ROBERT MEYERS
(A founding member and first chairman of the American Film Market, Bobby Meyers is a veteran of Village Roadshow Pictures, Orion Pictures Int'l. and Odyssey Entertainment. At the time described below, he was president of foreign sales for Lorimar Pictures International. He is currently a consultant to film buyers in Australia, Greece, Singapore, Turkey and Japan and a board member of the International Film & Television Alliance, the AFM's parent organization.)
I am happy that (Simesite) is doing this article on Hy. He was perhaps the greatest supporter of the independent companies for many years. He certainly gave important coverage to all of my activities at Lorimar and our events at the company's La Costa facility (located in Southern California), whichin fact lead to the creation of the AFM.
But his writing was even more directly related to the initial thought leading up to the AFM.
Itmust have been just after the Cannes festival of 1980, when Hy wrote an article in Variety emphasizing that the American sellers were unhappy with Cannes, because of the higher prices imposed and the bribes required at that time, and I don't remember what else. (However, Cannes was then, and still is a great market.)
But the way it happened, is that after I read that article about how unhappy we were supposed to be -- and believing that in fact, we were not all that unhappy -- I called a couple of my colleagues, and asked them the question... "Are you unhappy with Cannes?" Nobody had more than the usual gripes, but when speaking to others, I raised the question, "Well, why are we all going to Cannes just to sell the American independent film, and why not right here in the U.S.?"
Please realize, that we had had three very successful events at La Costa, followed by many buyers and sellers gathering in Los Angeles immediately after, so, we then organized a luncheon with about eight sellers. (There is some debate as to who was actually in attendance.)
I led the discussion, and had with us a gentleman named Buddy Goldberg who had organized all of our parties and the events at La Costa. This small group decided to explore having a market in Los Angeles, instead of the market in Cannes.
There is much more I can say about the further development of the early AFM. But as this regards Hy, I can only repeat that his article was instrumental,and both before, and especially after, he was the most supportive writer in the industry covering our plans and the first AFM, as well
The independent international world owes Hy a great deal of thanks for all of his coverage and support!
HY'S ARTICLE REDUX
By MICHAEL GOLDMAN
(One of the foreign sellers who attended that seminal La Costa meeting, Michael Goldman became the American Film Market's first V.P. of Finance and eventually its president and chairman. He remains active in the organization on its Finance and Market Advisory Committee.)
Hy Hollinger certainly has been involved with and interested in the Hollywood-based International film sellers going back to the origins of our American Film Market and its Umbrella Organization the American Film Marketing Association now renamed IFTA, the Independent Film and Television Alliance
The circumstances leading up to the creation of the AFM were as follows: Lorimar foreign sales head Bobby Meyers was inviting key buyers from around the world to a private sales convention at La Costa in San Diego County.
This went on for a few years in the mid to late '70's. At that time Hy wrote an article concerning the high cost and difficulty of doing business in Cannes. This led to a few sales companies reflecting on this issue and questioning why we should spend the money going to Cannes when in fact the key films doing business were the American films.
Bobby got in touch with some of the key sellers and held a lunch to discuss holding a market (in Los Angeles) patterned after the La Costa event. Hy's article was the trigger that led to the first and subsequent meetings creating the Organization.
One thing we have emphasized over the years is that we had no interest in replacing Cannes as a film market. We were unhappy that prices were rocketing out of control and if we could do our business in L.A. some of us would not need to spend the money in Cannes, but going to Cannes would be a necessity for many of us in addition to the AFM.
As far as I am concerned, Hy was the reporter most interested in and most helpful to the Independents and most especially to the Association and its Market. He kept on top of and reported the many changes in the organizations' evolution and his reporting helped maintain an interest inits progress, workings, and politics.
HY AT THE REPORTER
By ROBERT MARICH
(Robert Marich lives in the NYC suburbs with wife and Variety ex-alumnus Marie Silverman Marich. He is author of "Marketing to Moviegoers: A Handbook" in its second edition with SIU Press. From 1989 to 1997, he worked in various editorial capacities at the Hollywood Reporter, including business editor and international editor.)
When Hy Hollinger joined The Hollywood Reporter in 1992, I was international editor and remember his arrival well.
THR's international section relied on young (and thus low wage) workers so Hy's experience stood out. He also had a kind of deliberate style where he'd carefully and systematically line up work, and then presto it was done! This was in contrast to the younger workers who were almost absent-minded working - perhaps munching on some food as they pecked on a keyboard or read a paper document - and also were less prolific.
Finally, Hy was particularly adept at getting major studio box office figures - both foreign and domestic. His contacts on international box office were great and a source of mystery. This data used to only land on the pages of Variety but when Hy joined then THR got some scoops.
I was always impressed with the confidential major studio box office figures that Hy unearthed and the big bosses like them too.
However, the 1990s was a sort of transition period when high value information shifted. It was becoming the age of reporting the green light project. The trades were fixated on being first to report film projects the moment they became firm "gos". That information seemed to surpass fundamental financial data as Big News.
To me, Hy Hollinger personified Variety, and the best of trade reporters at the time. He was approachable and personable, but not a patsy. He could not be bought. He'd seen it all and was unflappable.
Thoughts on Hyho
By DON GROVES
(Former bureau chief of Variety's Sydney office, Don Groves spent several years in the publication's London office covering the international film business. He resides in Sydney.)
I met Hyho soon after I joined Variety in 1981, succeeding the esteemed Miha(Mike Harris) as Sydney bureau chief, and quickly came to regard him as a friend, valued colleague and mentor.
I knew little about Hollywood and the international film business: by contrast, Hy seemed to know everything and everybody of consequence! For a new kid on the block, Hy was incredibly generous in sharing his industry contacts, his vast knowledge and a fund of stories going back to his years with Paramount in the 1960s.
Strolling the halls of the American Film Market with Hy was like walking down the Croisette in Cannes with Roger Watkins: everyone knew and liked him, wanted to chat, impart or share information.
When I was asked to write a weekly report on the international box office for the weekly, in 1988 as I recall, when I was based in London, Hy was among the first people I contacted. He knew all the relevant people at the foreign divisions of the majors and at the indie sales companies and distributors.
My foreign box office duties soon expanded to include weekend reports for Tuesday's Daily, followed by weekend estimates for Monday's Daily. Hy was on tap any time I needed a contact or assistance in launching those new columns. Of all the guys I had the pleasure of working with at Variety, none was more respected, appreciated and admired than Hy.
There were plenty of temperamental types among the muggs, but I don't ever recall Hy getting mad or even exasperated with his colleagues - maybe the odd uncooperative or over-pushy publicist pissed him off, but that was an occupational hazard for all of us.
Hy: I wish you the very best in your retirement after such a long and distinguished career. You taught me heaps; I owe you a lot.
HyHo
By ROBERT HAWKINS
(A veteran of 55 years with Variety, Bob Hawkins has served in various executive capacities in Rome, London and New York. His period photographic recollections of the Cannes Film Festival can be viewed elsewhere on Simesite. Bob resides in Rome.)
HyHo was probably my favorite Variety mugg, and so I welcome him into the longrunner's club. Hy, hello.
Over the years, all over the world, Hy and I used to meet to witness and document important or frivolous film events for the "Bible". He always wore well his role of gentleman and scholar, of friend at court, and it was for this -- and for so many other positive reasons that in my years since I became less active -- I missed running into him from time to time, an oasis in the sometimes turbulent world of showbiz.
Frank Segers mentions a walk Syd and I took with Hy in NY to get him to return to Variety. My rusty memory doesn't click on that but I know for sure that - whatever - that was Syd's and my intention. For Hy was, is, a treasure both on the personal side and as a sage member of our family of muggs.
Oh, how I miss it, and HIM!
Hawk.
-30-
THIS JUST IN - PAUL HARRIS' ACCEPTANCE SPEECH!
Feb. 24, 2009
Good evening everybody.
Mike, Paul, what the heck?
Thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen, for that warm accolade. But please hold your applause, I’ve only got a minute here before the orchestra cranks up.
It is again my distinct pleasure to stand before you holding this lovely statuette. Wow, two years in a row. How is it possible, you ask, that I continue to display such a profound and uncanny perspective of the film world? Could it be my deep roots in the entertainment industry as Variety’s D.C. mugg, a position I continue to hold after 30-plus years as a freelancer? Or the direct pipeline to Hollywood from the annual recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors who are constantly badgering me to have lunch?
Oh gosh, I have so many people to thank. I just scribbled down some names on a roll of toilet paper in the men’s room back stage – oh, here it is.
But first, I just have to say this. Oh Jennifer, you continue to be a class act. Why, just look at you sitting there right behind Brad and Angelina as if absolutely nothing were amiss. Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is acting. There needs to be a special award here tonight to honor her – but I digress.
First, I want to thank my parents, without whom this evening would not be possible. And of course my agent, Virginia Michie, who has stuck with me throughout the highs and lows of my long, long, long, long career.
And I guess I should say a few kind words about my wife, Karen, who is my spiritual advisor in all things Hollywood and ever-so-slightly more than just a bit player in this tawdry act.
Oh, and yes, please hold onto that winner’s check, as you did last year without any prompting. The honor of addressing this august gathering is its own reward.
SIMESITE OSCAR WINNERS
Feb. 23, 2009
And the winner of the Simesite sweepstakes this year is... Paul Harris, who guessed 10 of the 12 categories correctly! How Paul manages to pull off this soothsaying each year is a deeply guarded secret. If his is not a gift from the gods, we’d love to know how much time he spent researching the list of nominees.
Anyway, a big Contratulations to Paul, who will be receiving a check in the mail for $1,000. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it is made out on an account in the Stanford bank in Antigua.
The one category that no one guessed correctly was the best foreign lingo film, which went to the Japanese "Departures".
Runners up to Mike were Fred Lombardi and Frank Segers with nine correct guesses each. We shall draw a veil of silence over the remainder of us who limped along well outside the glorious limelight.
SIMESITE'S BIG OSCAR SWEEPSTAKE
Feb. 9, 2009
Well, kids, another Oscar season has rolled around again. Though we know that many of you don't go out to the full-screen cinema much anymore, we hope you are still interested enough in our old stamping grounds and in the Simesite to cast your vote for this year's Oscars.
The excuse of "I haven’t seen any of these films" is not valid, since few of us have seen any of them, and even if we had it wouldn't necessary follow that it would help us in picking the winners. Nor, perhaps, do some of us even want to see them.
So please have a look at the list below, check out the films, if you like, on the Academy Award site (via Google) where you can see clips and other info on each of the films, and send us your TWELVE big picks sometime before Oscar night, which is February 22 (known in days of yore to us old-timers as Washington's Birthday, when there used to be off from school)
Following are the nominations for the 2009 Academy Awards. Ceremony to be held on February 22. Pick one film from each of the TWELVE categories listed below.
Following are your choices:
BEST FILM
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk Hollinger
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire Segers, Kindred, Galloway, Bryer, Besas, Watkins, Marich, Harris, Rosenstein, Silverman(Mike), Lombardi, Stenzel
BEST LEADING ACTOR
Richard Jenkins in "The Visitor"
Frank Langella in "Frost/Nixon" Galloway, Besas, Watkins
Sean Penn in "Milk" Hollinger, Marich, Harris, Rosenstein, Silverman(Mike), Lombardi
Brad Pitt in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Mickey Rourke in "The Wrestler" Segers, Kindred, Bryer, Stenzel
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Josh Brolin in "Milk" Kindred, Bryer
Robert Downey Jr in "Tropic Thunder"
Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Doubt" Besas, Marich
Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight" Segers, Hollinger, Galloway, Watkins, Harris, Rosenstein, Silverman(Mike), Lombardi, Stenzel
Michael Shannon in "Revolutionary Road"
BEST LEADING ACTRESS
Anne Hathaway in "Rachel Getting Married"
Angelina Jolie in "Changeling" Bryer
Melissa Leo in "Frozen River" Lombardi
Meryl Streep in "Doubt" Galloway, Marich
Kate Winslet in "The Reader" Segers, Hollinger, Kindred, Besas, Watkins, Harris, Rosenstein, Silverman(Mike), Stenzel
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams in "Doubt" Bryer
Penelope Cruz in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" Segers, Hollinger, Kindred, Galloway, Rosenstein, Lombardi
Viola Davis in "Doubt"
Taraji P Henson in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" Harris, Silverman(Mike)
Marisa Tomei in "The Wrestler" Besas, Watkins, Marich, Stenzel
ANIMATED FEATURE
Bolt Bryer
Kung Fu Panda Kindred, Galloway, Besas
Wall-E Segers, Hollinger, Watkins, Marich, Harris, Rosenstein, Silverman(Mike), Lombardi, Stenzel
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Kindred, Watkins, Silverman(Mike)
The Dark Knight Segers, Hollinger, Galloway, Besas, Marich, Rosenstein, Stenzel
The Reader Bryer
Slumdog Millionaire Harris, Lombardi
DIRECTING
David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon) Galloway, Bryer, Besas
Gus van Sant (Milk)
Stephen Daldry (The Reader)
Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) Segers, Hollinger, Kindred, Watkins, Marich, Harris, Rosenstein, Silverman(Mike), Lombardi, Stenzel
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Baader Meinhoff Complex (Germany) Bryer, Besas
The Class (France) Segers, Kindred, Marich, Harris
Departures (Japan)
Revanche (Australia)
Waltz with Bashir (Israel) Hollinger, Galloway, Watkins, Rosenstein, Silverman(Mike), Lombardi, Stenzel
VISUAL EFFECT
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Segers, Bryer, Besas, Watkins, Harris, Silverman(Mike)
The Dark Knight Hollinger, Kindred, Marich, Rosenstein, Lombardi, Stenzel
Iron Man Galloway
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Frozen River Marich
Happy-Go-Lucky Watkins
In Bruges Galloway
Milk Segers, Hollinger, Kindred, Besas, Harris, Lombardi, Stenzel
Wall-E Bryer, Rosenstein, Silverman(Mike)
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Hollinger, Galloway
Doubt
Frost/Nixon Bryer, Besas, Watkins, Marich, Silverman(Mike)
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire Segers, Kindred, Harris, Rosenstein, Lombardi, Stenzel
FORMER MUGG JIM MELANSON
Feb. 9, 2009
Former Variety staffer James Melanson passed away on February 5 at Calvary Hospital in Brooklyn, following a four-year bout with brain cancer. He was 62.
After his stint at Variety Jim hitched up with the the Daily News in 1990 where he worked as associate editor, deputy features editor and copy editor before retiring last October.
A native of Queens, Melanson served in the Army in Vietnam.
His career in journalism included stints as a reporter at Billboard and as TV editor at the the New York Post.
The Brooklyn resident was an avid traveler and photographer, interests he often put to use in stories written for The News. He also chronicled his brave three-year battle with brain cancer last June, when Senator Edward Kennedy was similarly afflicted.
He is survived by his wife, Maureen McFadden.
Viewing is Tuesday (Feb. 10), 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., and Wednesday, 9:30 a.m. to 11a.m., at Horne Dannecker O’Connor Funeral Home, 445 W. 43rd St., Manhattan. Cremation will follow at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.
Donations in Melanson's name may be made to Doctors Without Borders.
JOE X. PRICE
by DOUG GALLOWAY
Los Angeles. Jan. 4, 2009
Joe X. Price, a longtime entertainment industry writer who served as a music reporter for Daily Variety back in the 1960s, died December 30 at his home in Woodland Hills (Los Angeles) of complications due to lung cancer. He was 81.
A native of Chicago, Price returned there after serving in the U.S. Navy toward the end of World War II. He attended and graduated from Roosevelt U and dedicated his life to writing.
Around 1960 he wrote and sold his first book, a tongue-in-cheek study of the American disc jockey called The Blabbermouths (Citadel Press, N.Y., 1960), which was co-written by Dan Sorkin.
The following year, 1961, Tom Pryor, editor of Daily Variety, hired Price to work in its Hollywood office as music editor. Price packed up his wife and two children and re-located to Sherman Oaks. For the better part of the decade Price covered clubs and wrote concert reviews all over Southern California. It was during this time that Price became friendly with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. The friendship with Sinatra ended over a less than enthusiastic review of a Sinatra album but Price's friendship with Dean Martin lasted until the singer's death on Christmas day, 1995.
In 1968, Price shifted to the production end of the music business when he accepted the post of national director of public relations for Capitol Records. He went on to work as personal publicist for Capitol artist Stan Kenton.
In 1973, he became editor-publisher of his own music business trade magazine, the A&R Report, which worked to pair composers with recording artists. Later in the 1970s, while writing a weekly music column for the Los Angeles Times' Home magazine, Price also served as a contributing editor for Billboard.
Subsequently, Price sold his second book, the only authorized biography of the late comedian Redd Foxx, titled Redd Foxx, B.S. (Before Sanford), published by Contemporary Books (Chicago).
From the late 1970s onward, Price worked to support his writing habit and for the rest of his life remained the image of the passionate, hungry, struggling writer. His last work, For God's Sake, was never published, although he was on the phone with literary agents right up to the end of his life.
Price is survived by a daughter, Julie, a son, Rocky, a brother, Alan and three grandchildren.
Family requests that donations in Price's name be made to a charity of the donor's choice.
REMEMBERING BOB CHANDLER
by MORRIE GELMAN
Los Angeles, Dec, 26 2008
What comes to mind first when remembering Bob Chandler is his covering stories without taking notes. But what I remember best is something he said to me during a long car trip back from Bucks County, Pa.
Bob was at Variety. I was competing against him at Broadcasting Advertising Magazine in New York. Sometimes our paths crossed. We covered the same event. I took notes assiduously. Bob listened intently. He took no notes.
His stories were just as accurate as mine. Many times they were more savvy. I respected his reporting. When MGM hired him as TV publicity director, I was appalled.
Soon after this transition, Bob called me. He knew Broadcast Advertising was one of my beats. He wanted me to interview George Gould of NTA Telestudios. NTA was funded by and became part of MGM. Gould ran the company and also founded another called Teletronics. Bob wanted me talk to Gould about the new use of videotape as a commercial production tool.
We had to go to Bucks County for the interview. That's where Gould was doing a commercial shoot. Bob drove. I gave him a hard time all the way. "How could you, a terrific reporter, become a flack?" I chided him. Bob took it in stride.
"Wait until you meet Gould and see his operation," was his response to my challenge. "I think you'll be impressed."
Gould told me the use of videotape had doubled over the previous year. He assured me it was the wave of the future.
A mansion had been rented for the shoot. There were lots of in-front and behind-the-camera people there. Some were in bathing suits jumping in and out of an impressive pool. It was a scene to corrupt even a virtuous reporter. I didn't need any corrupting. It was a solid story. Videotape for use in commercial production obviously was a solid new way to go. Gould was a valid pioneer in its use.
On the way home, Bob told me about another one of his publicity projects. "We're doing a TV version of 'Dr. Kildare'", he told me. "Who's playing Kildare?" I wanted to know.
Bob, usually someone who I would describe as phlegmatic, became excited. "We have a sensational young actor named Richard Chamberlain," he said. "You never heard of him. He's done a couple of guest shots. You're going to hear a lot about him in the future."
So it was. Richard Chamberlain became an overnight star, a TV hearttrob. Chandler cited Chamberlain and Gould. "See," he said, "I don't try to sell things if I don't believe in them." He made clear to me it was how he could reconcile a reporter switching to publicity. His parting words to me were: "Only sell what you believe in."
There's no dramatic punch line. Bob joined CBS News. I moved to the West Coast. CBS News was never part of any of my beats. That was New York territory.
I only saw Bob at conventions or affiliate meetings. We nodded to each other. We never even had another conversation.
But I remember Bob and our Buck County drive. I've told my two sons and my grandson what Bob told me: "Only go after the things you really believe in. Don't sell unless you believe. Don't sell yourself if you don't believe in yourself."
Thanks for the pragmatism and memory, Bob.
ROBERT CHANDLER
Dec, 15 2008
Robert ( Bob ) Chandler, former Variety radio and tv reporter and one of the creator's of "60 Minutes", the CBS "newsmagazine", died on Thursday (Dec. 11), at his home, in Pittsfield, Mass. He was 80 years old and died of heart failure, according to his son, Doug.
Chandler worked for Variety in the late 50's, early 60's and was hired by MGM, as a p.r. director, for its tv division. In 1963, he joined CBS and helped create "60 Minutes", which is still on the air, after more then 40 years.
Chandler was born in Brooklyn, served in the U.S.Army and is survived by his wife and two sons.
TIN PAN ALLEY IN DANGER
by PETER BESAS
Nov, 11 2008
Some of the ex-muggs and their pals who occasionally glance at this webpage may still have a soft spot for the old Tin Pan Alley music of the turn of the 20th century, an era which was even before my time, though very much that of Abel Green's.
Though I've long since moved away from Manhattan (far further than 45 minutes from Broadway!), I still have a soft spot for the old tunes ranging from the Gay Nineties to the Roaring Twenties. And when in New York I sometimes still take friends and out-of-towns on a stroll down that one block on 28th Street and show them the plaque on the floor and tell them all about "Tin Pan Alley" and how it got its name. I even confess to still o-o'ing that old 1940 film with Alice Fay, Betty Grable, Jack Oakie and John Payne called Tin Pan Alley which I have on tape and which I feel captures that era so well, the era when Sime Silverman started Variety back in 1905.
Anyway, rather than shedding a tear for Auld Lang Syne, I have broken by usual cynical vow of never signing anything and have affixed my John Hancock to a petition which is being promoted by Richard Halpern, whom I have never met, and which was forwarded to me by Doug Galloway in Los Angeles.
Following is the text of what he sent me:
Buildings in the historic district in New York City known as "Tin Pan Alley", the birthplace of many of the greatest songs in American popular music, are now in danger of being demolished in favor of condos, and other "progressive" buildings in the city. We cannot let this happen, and my brother has suggested I headline a benefit back there in order to raise public awareness and to possibly raise some money in order to save the district from total destruction. I am trying to organize that now, and will keep you all posted of the progress. MEANWHILE, please read the article below, and what YOU can do to help, is to SIGN THE PETITION ON THE WEBSITE OF THE HISTORIC DISTRICTS COUNCIL:
Please FORWARD this e-mail to anyone and everyone, and feel free to post links and information on Facebook, MySpace, etc. We CAN make a difference and save Tin Pan Alley!
By Verena Dobnik, The Associated Press,
Article Last Updated: 11/08/2008 08:58:06 PM PST
NEW YORK - A group of New Yorkers is fighting to save Tin Pan Alley, the half-dozen row houses where iconic American songs were born.
The four-story, 19th-century buildings on Manhattan's West 28th Street were home to publishers of some of the catchiest American tunes and lyrics - from "God Bless America" and "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" to "Give My Regards to Broadway.
The music of Irving Berlin, Scott Joplin, Fats Waller, George M. Cohan and other greats was born on Tin Pan Alley.
The buildings were put up for sale earlier this fall for $44 million, with plans to replace them with a high-rise. The construction plan fell through amid the turmoil in the economy, but the possibility of losing the historic block hastened efforts to push for landmark status for Tin Pan Alley.
"The fear of these buildings being sold for development crystallized their importance, and the need to preserve them," said Simeon Bankoff, executive director of the Historic Districts Council, a nonprofit preservation organization aiming to secure city landmark status for the buildings, which would protect them from being destroyed.
The Landmarks Commission is "researching the history of the buildings and reviewing whether they'd be eligible for landmark designation," said Lisi de Bourbon, a spokeswoman for New York's Landmarks Preservation Commission.
No date has been set for a decision, which she said depends on "a combination of historical, cultural and architectural significance."
The block is sacred to Tim Schreier, a great-great-grandson of Jerome H. Remick, whose music publishing company occupied one of the houses and employed a young sheet music peddler named George Gershwin.
"I'm not opposed to development in New York, but we have to balance development with history - and this is definitely American cultural history," said Schreier.
From the late 1880s to the mid-1950s, the careers of songwriters who are still popular today were launched from the buildings at 45, 47, 49, 51, 53 and 55 West 28th.
Nearby, high-rise condominiums have pushed out old brownstones. The four-story Tin Pan Alley buildings house street-level wholesale stores selling clothing, jewelry and fabrics; eight apartment units fill the upper floors.
A century ago, the windows of music companies broadcast a cacophony of competing piano sounds that earned the area the nickname Tin Pan Alley, to describe what one journalist said sounded like pounding on tin pans.
Leland Bobbe, a 59-year-old photographer, has been renting his apartment at Remick's old building since 1975.
He says it's important to salvage the buildings in a neighborhood "that has lost its uniqueness. It's just another symbol of what New York was and what it will no longer be."
JOHN MADDEN, ABEL GREEN’S RIGHT HAND MAN, DEAD AT 76.
Sep 15, 2008
John Madden, longtime administrative assistant to legendary Variety editor-in-chief Abel Green and a legit theatre reporter for the Weekly, died Sept. 10 at Memorial Regional South Hospital in Hollywood, Florida.
His death was caused by complications of a stroke suffered Sept. 25, 2007. He was 76.
One of the longest-serving staffers at Variety’s New York headquarters, Madden joined the Weekly in 1954, and left the paper in 1992, four years following its sale by the Silverman family.
John initially made his mark as Abel Green’s indispensable assistant and right hand man. Former ad director Morton Bryer (himself a 37-year Variety veteran) recalls that by the time he joined the paper in September 1957, "John was already plugging away for Abel."
In an editorial office comprised of intelligent but sometimes dyspeptic personalities, Madden stood out. "He was always kindly, polite and willing to help a fellow mugg. I never heard a harsh word with the guy, and always liked him," Bryer recalls.
Madden sat for many years at a desk situated directly beneath the sharply elevated dais at the northernmost end of the long, rectangular editorial office. Looming above and behind him at their respective desks were Variety publisher Syd Silverman and Green - Madden's immediate boss, mentor and, as John often said, his father figure.
(Bryer recalls a bizarre incident that occurred in the 46th Street office in the mid-Eighties. An over-zealous construction crew demolishing a building next door launched a wrecking ball that mistakenly slammed into the westward wall of the Variety headquarters office. Bricks went flying, some landing dangerously near Madden's desk beneath the elevated dais. Bryer recollects that Madden simply ignored the fracas, and imperturbably continued to type a story on his trusty Royal manual.)
A solidly-built man of gentle manner, Madden was most often the first person encountered by outsiders to the 46th Street office en route to an audience with the editor-in-chief.
From the very first, Green - a keen judge of talent - appreciated Madden's lively mind, his broad knowledge of theatre, film and music as well as his general show-biz savvy and grasp of detail.
John quickly was elevated from "office boy" gofer status and given more challenging assignments. The editor-in-chief soon turned to John to (instantly) attach names to the many faces greeting Green each day (and night), often of important show business personalities not kindly disposed to having their names either mangled or mis-remembered.
It was Madden who often supplied the boss on-the-spot title identification of some obscure film, play or musical number or the name of some semi-forgotten stage personality.
In addition to his adept handling of various administrative duties, John also proved useful in smoothing relations on Green's behalf with disgruntled editors in the office or visiting national and international correspondents. A subtle diplomat with charm to spare, Madden's smile and gracious manner defused many a potentially contentious intra-office encounter involving Green.
At Green's insistence, Madden gradually branched out as a reporter covering opera, ballet, music and night club acts (Variety covered each area regularly for as long as the Silvermans owned the paper).
By the early 1970’s, he was working under the tutelage of the Weekly's longtime legit editor, Hobe Morrison, covering off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway. (Although no longer directly reporting to Green, Madden still served the editor-in-chief in various capacities until Green's death in May of 1973.)
Following Morrison’s death, Madden reported to his successor as legit editor, Richard Hummler.
A talented singer in his own right, Madden possessed a strong tenor voice of wide range. A demonstration recording still exists of Madden and several Broadway professionals performing a musical version of the Oliver Goldsmith comedy, "She Stoops To Conquer." The project, alas, never materialized onstage. Nonetheless, the recording clearly demonstrates Madden vocally holding his own against much more experienced Broadway singers.
He was an insightful reviewer of stage productions of all sorts. His enthusiastic interest led him to accept the vice presidency of The Drama Desk, a 59-year-old New York City-based organization of theatre reporters, editors and critics. In addition to sponsoring panels on various arts topics, The Drama Desk has since 1955 sponsored influential awards celebrating off-Broadway, off-off-Broadway and not-for-profit theatre.
Succeeding Alvin Klein of The New York Times, John became the 15th president of The Drama Desk in late 1982, and served in that capacity for the next three years.
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John Edward Madden was born in New York City on Oct. 14, 1931. His mother, Faye, was a Jewish émigré from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father was a hatter from Massachusetts. When Faye married her Irish Catholic husband, she agreed to rear any children as Roman Catholics.
Thus, John and his younger brother, George, were raised as Catholics. Throughout his adult life, John relished both his ethnic backgrounds despite the economic rigors of his early childhood. (One of his all-time favorite films was Elia Kazan's 1945 title, "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," about the hardships of tenement life in early 20th century.)
After graduation from high school in the Bronx, Madden began his career in show business thanks to a well-connected maternal uncle who arranged for a position in the accounting department at the New York offices of 20th Century Fox. While at Fox, Madden studied acting in his off hours at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and took voice lessons.
He soon made the acquaintance of a young Fox colleague who had been offered a position at Variety as Abel Green's office boy. For reasons long forgotten, the colleague turned down the offer. It was suggested that Madden, then in his early 20's, consider applying for the job. He did, and began working for Green soon thereafter.
Madden quickly developed a close friendship with Norma Nannini, Green's long-serving personal secretary. Through the years she remained one of his closet confidantes. During their times at Variety and after, the two communicated several times daily until her death on August 10, 2006.
After leaving Variety in 1992, Madden retired. Besides managing his business properties, Madden traveled extensively - often in the company of friend and former mugg, Joe Morella - to Mexico, North Africa and Europe, keeping up with his large circle of friends via the famous "Johnny Madden postcards." (It was not uncommon for Madden to dispatch as many as 50 postcards from whatever far-flung spot he was visiting.)
Among those who knew him well, Madden always had a well-earned reputation as a care-giver. It was John who looked after his late father for over two decades. It was John who nursed his longtime Variety associate and fellow mugg, Bob Frederick, through a fatal siege of leukemia. Madden also cared for his late landlord and friend, Donald Gordon, through a series of illnesses.
Madden moved to Miami Beach in 2000, and six years later to Hollywood, Fla. It was in the East Coast Hollywood that Madden realized his lifelong dream of owning a single family house with a white picket fence.
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Madden is survived by his longtime friends and companions, Robert and Gerry Rosa; his sister-in-law, Marilyn Madden (his younger brother pre-deceased him); and his two nieces, Karen Madden Popp and Wendy Madden Caldwell.
A memorial service will be held in New York City at an unspecified future date. Condolences, Mass cards, etc. should be sent to Mr. and Mrs. Robert Rosa, 5216 Van Buren Street, Hollywood, Florida 33021.
Joe Morella and Frank Segers
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END
JACK ZINK FAREWELL
Aug 22, 2008
We were saddened to learn that long-time Miami-based Variety stringer, Jack Zink, recently passed away. Variety ran the following obit on August 18:
Entertainment writer Jack Zink, longtime Florida correspondent for Variety and writer and editor for several Florida newspapers, died Monday of cancer in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. He was 61.
Most recently Zink was theater and classical music critic and cultural affairs writer for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He was also an editor, columnist, critic and reporter for papers including the Miami Herald, the Palm Beach Post & Evening Times and the Fort Lauderdale News.
Zink's reporting on arts issues such as the Broward Center for the Performing Arts and the Florida Entertainment Commission was integral in focusing public attention to the orgs. For Variety, he served as South Florida bureau chief from 1977 to 1995 and contributed theater reviews and news stories.
In addition to his writing career, he founded of the Carbonell Awards to honor artists in South Florida and served as president of the Foundation of American Theater Critics.
Born in Lorain, Ohio, Zink graduated Ohio State U., before leaving for Florida, where his first job was as arts editor of the Miami Herald.
He is survived by his wife Cynthia, a son, a daughter, three brothers and two sisters.
A memorial service will be held Monday, Aug. 25 at 3 p.m. at the Parker Playhouse, 707 N.E. Eighth St., Ft. Lauderdale.
Donations may be made to the Carbonell Awards at Carbonell Awards Inc., P.O. Box 14211, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33302-4211.
JACK LOFTUS, WHERE ARE YOU?
Simesite has been contacted by a lady, a former friend of Norma Nannini's, who sent us an e-mail for you. But the only e-mail contact we have for you is at Nielsen, which we know you're no longer with. So please drop Peter Besas (pbesas@hotmail.com) a line and let us know where to reach you.
ART WOODSTONE CHECKING IN TO SIMESITE
Jun 26, 2008
By PETER BESAS
We were pleased to hear from an old mugg, Art Woodstone, who worked on 46th Street as a reporter until 1963 and is now living in Huntington, Connecticut. Since 1963 was before my own stint with Variety, I never had the pleasure of meeting Art, who worked side by side in the TV section with George Rosen from 1953 to 1963. Art writes that between Bill Greeley and himself they must have cost the paper thousands of dollars in advertising revenue due to some of the hard-hitting copy they produced on their typewriters, which sometimes involved advertisers. Yes, that was how the OLD Variety worked, before the corporates made it "advertiser friendly".
Art asks about the whereabouts of Jesse Gross, Len Traube, Hy Hollinger, Fred Hift. We cued him in on that side, mentioning that Hy is still going strong at the Hollywood Reporter in LA. He asked us about "Inside Variety" and I told him where to get a copy, and I wrote him about the big 100th Anni party that Syd sponsored in 2005 at Sardi’s. Mort Bryer was kind enough to send him a copy of the Album.
Art writes:
"I've lived and traveled the last 10 years in obscurity, so I should have grown accustomed to being ignored. But, as all writers have egos, or they wouldn’t be writers, I miss seeing my name in print. Anyway, I await notes or calls from old friends, especially the old skeptics, the ones who produced some of the hottest, toughest stories printed in the first 60 years of the Weekly. Tell them that nostalgia has overtaken me and the older I get the more I seek out old, dear colleagues.
"They can reach me via the Internet at pblawie@att.net or by phone 203-402-0613. I’ll be in and out til late August.”
-30-
MORRIS ROTH
June 24, 2008
Longtime Chicago bureau chief Morry Roth passed away on June 11 in Chicago of lymphoma. He was 82. According to the Variety obit, Roth originated the term "happy talk" to describe the breezy news format made popular by Chicago's Channel 7, and was one of the first reporters to seriously cover cable TV.
Roth started at Variety in 1961, covering the nightclub and entertainment business as well as the fledgling theatre scene in Chicago. He also reported on film exhibition in the area.
Raised in South Bend, Indiana, he served in the Army during WWII and then entered the public relations business, working on behalf of bond drives for the state of Israel. His journalism career started at the former Berwyn Beacon. He also covered commodities for the Wall Street Journal in Chicago before joining Variety.
Roth is survived by his wife, Judy, a son Jason, a daughter, Kaela, and three grandchildren.
A KUDO FOR MORRY ROTH
By MORTON BRYER.
Morry Roth, an old mugg and former bureau chief of Variety's Chitown office, has gone to his reward. He ran what I considered to be one of the paper's "friendly" offices. I first eyeballed him when he came into the 46th Street headquarters to be interviewed by Abel and Syd, sometime in the 60's. I was struck by his close resemblance to the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis ( I'm an old student of that period ). Spitting image, I would say. Odd, for a man who was quite "liberal".
In my experience, there were three very "friendly" Variety bureaus, where a staffer from any of the other offices could count on a warm welcome. First and foremost, Hank Werba's Rome bureau, always a fun scene. Secondly, London, under Roger Watkins, where you could count on a barrage of smiles and, needless to say, a visit to the local pub (after work, of course). Well, also sometimes during the so-called "hours of toil". Good for the working morale, you see. You did a better job after wetting your whistle.
And I would add the Chitown office, located in the glorious old Wrigley Building in downtown Chicago, which comes in a close third. Morry would always "take care of" visitors from other offices, Chicago being a most friendly burg, in my experience.
On one occasion, during the famous 1968 NAB convention, he managed to get me an invite to Hugh Hefner's famous mansion for a "pool party", and I don't mean the billiards variety. A very difficult invite to obtain, but Morry had entree with Hefner, I quickly learned.
A most jolly party it was, with great grub, excellent libations and, of course, the pool, available for the more courageous types (alas, I usually stick to the kiddie's pool myself; any water over three feet makes me nervous). There were the famous Bunnies prancing about, showing off their well-known allures. But, typical of all of the old muggs, I was more interested in zeroing in on the bar and chow table. All in all, it was a most pleasant experience and I still thank Morry Roth for having taken me along.
Now, as for the New York office, at least concerning my ad department, well, the attitude towards visitors, I would say, could be described as "cool", even "frigid", maybe typical New York. But certainly not warm and welcoming like Rome, London and Chicago.
Simesite has learned from the son-in-law of longtime Canadian stringer for Variety in Canada of the death of Gerald Pratley, who passed away in a hospital in Belleville, Ontario, on March 14 at age 87.
Longtime Variety Berlin stringer Ron Holloway passed away in a Berlin hospital on Dec. 16 after a seven-year bout with cancer. His wife, actress Dorothea Moritz, was by his side to the end. He was 76.
"Old Variety" mugs, those who worked for Variety/Daily Variety prior to the 1988 sale and to whom this website is dedicated, usually don't turn up as film festival heads.
After many years of research, Peter has finally managed to get out his new book about Madrid's oldtime inns. The new tome is monickered "A History and Anecdotes of the Inns of Old Madrid", and is now on sale in major outsets in Spain, including major bookshops and department stores.
Since the main sales point of the book is sure to be in Spain, the Madrid publisher, Ediciones La Libreria, simulataneously brought out an edition in Spanish as well, called "Historia y Anecdotas de las Fondas Madrilenas". 
On December 31, Hy Hollinger ended a 36-year trade journalism career, perhaps the longest and most influential in modern-day show biz. 
Joe X. Price, a longtime entertainment industry writer who served as a music reporter for Daily Variety back in the 1960s, died December 30 at his home in Woodland Hills (Los Angeles) of complications due to lung cancer. He was 81.
Robert ( Bob ) Chandler, former Variety radio and tv reporter and one of the creator's of "60 Minutes", the CBS "newsmagazine", died on Thursday (Dec. 11), at his home, in Pittsfield, Mass. He was 80 years old and died of heart failure, according to his son, Doug.